United Nations Security Council & its Crisis Of Credibility

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has had a laudable mission since its inception in 1945 i.e. to keep the world secure and peaceful. However, the Council’s pledges appear to be meaningless in the light of long standing issues in Palestine & Kashmir as well as most recently in Iran-Israel conflict. These mere plegdes aren’t just blunders, they indicate that the world’s most powerful diplomatic body is experiencing a crisis of legitimacy/effectiveness over its most powerful members or the P5 as they are commonly known.

According to the UN’s Charter, the UNSC has the authority to propose peaceful solutions, impose sanctions and even allow military intervention, if needed. However, fair exercise of these powers over the years is highly questionable. It has remained biased, untruthful and ridden with critique over its alignment with interests of a specific P5 member and visibly off tread from its declared mandate in any manner. Take for example the cases of both Kashmir and Palestine, where we have seen frequent denial of justice in the garb of any risk to strategic interests of the powerful P5 having veto power.

Despite numerous resolutions, debates and seminars, illegitimate invasions of Palestinian territory and Jammu & Kashmir persist. Political games of these powers has undermined the promises of human rights, international law and self-determination made by the UNSC.

Over the years, UNSC has passed over 30 resolutions on Arab-Israeli conflict like Resolution 242 (1967) which was designed to provide the framework for peace negotiations based on a “land-for-peace” formula and has become the foundation of all subsequent negotiations and peace treaties in the region called for the “withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories of recent conflict,” in fact, it ordered Israel to vacate the area it had seized during the Six Day war. Resolution 338 of 1973 called for negotiations and Resolution 2334 (2016) expressed grave concern that continuing Israeli settlement activities are dangerously imperilling the viability of the two-State solution based on the 1967 lines i.e. Israeli settlements in the West Bank violated international law. Despite these resolutions, little has changed.

Settlements in Israel have expanded, military operations in Gaza continue with ever increasing harshness and the humanitarian crisis is worsening with blatant Israeli bombings in the garb of targeting Hamas, killing thousands of innocent civilians including women and children without rapproachment. The irony is that majority of the nations including the USA are aligned with the Israeli lobby in such a way that despite their internal unwillingness to support the age-old Israeli stance of being subject to constant hate/persecution since the so-called “holocaust”.

Leading names in the field of realism i.e. John J Mearshimer and Stephen Waltz in their book titled “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (2007)” highlight that:
“The Israel lobby has a powerful influence on U.S. foreign policy, often steering it in ways that are not always aligned with broader American interests.”

Most recently, the conflict between Iran and Israel, which has only exacerbated regional tensions, marks the ineffectiveness of global bodies like UNSC & IAEA. They have failed to avoid the conflagration between Iran & Israel having far-reaching consequences for West Asia in general. While the role UN Security Council has been reduced merely to issuance of condemning statements, the larger question is still unanswered; Is UNSC doing what it was mandated to? One word: No. Only the United States has used its veto power more than 50 times to safeguard Israel from foreign pressure. On the other hand, the dubious role is brought to limelight more clearly in case of aligned Western strategic interests, when UN Security Council intervened promptly and decisively against Iraq in the 1990s and Russia over Crimea in 2014, clearly manifesting the double standards, severely undermining the Council’s legitimacy.

The UNSC’s challenges with legitimacy in South Asia began far earlier.
In 1948, Council passed Resolution 47, which said that Kashmir’s future should be decided by a fair and free vote. The vote never took place. In contrast, Kashmir has become the most militarized territories in the world followed by the DMZ. Numerous wars have been fought by both India and Pakistan which have been primarily over it while the ensuing freedom struggle by the Kashmiris, labelled as “acts of terrorism” by the Indians have taken the lives of tens of thousands of innocent people. The Indian security forces have committed the worst human rights abuses in history including pallet firing blinding many; shown to the whole world and UNSC but no action taken. In 2019, India furthered its agenda by forcibly terminating Kashmir’s autonomy through revocation of Article 370 and 35A of its constitution which was a guarantee to the people of Kashmir for self-determination, undermining the UNSC resolutions. This act is aimed to change the demography of Kashmir allowing outsiders to buy land in Jammu & Kashmir.

In 2018, the UN Human Rights Office published a report on the region’s “chronic impunity” for violence and forced disappearances, but the Council did nothing to address it. The major issue is structural. The veto system, established in 1945 to maintain global power balance, is being rendered ineffective. When major countries such as the United States, Russia, and China participate, the Council is rendered ineffective. The law is equal for all nations of the world. According to Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, a government cannot transport civilians into occupied territory. The right to self-determination is protected under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Nonetheless, Israel and India continue to breach these laws with no major consequences.

People today do not trust the UN system because it only enforces international law when it benefits its powerful western supporters. If the UN Security Council is to regain trust and usefulness, it must undertake serious adjustments.

First, permanent members should pledge not to use their veto power to prevent resolutions that would end mass atrocities. The General Assembly should also continue to seek public explanations for each veto.
Second, countries in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia that are most afflicted by conflict should be given permanent seats. The current setup is the same as it was during World War II.
Third, the UN Security Council should refer important crimes, such as illegal settlements or forced disappearances, to the International Criminal Court without discrimination (religious/political). Resolutions are only words on paper until they are enforced.

Finally, civil society groups, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the media can exert pressure on world leaders, as they did against apartheid in South Africa. Similar attempts in Kashmir and Palestine may make it more expensive for powerful governments to abandon life-saving measures. The UN Security Council’s failures in Palestine and Kashmir are not isolated incidents, they demonstrate that the system’s fundamental flaws and political interests trump justice. The United Nations will continue to lose moral authority as long as one powerful country obstructs justice in order to protect a friend or a commercial agreement. The Council must adapt (or else it will be ineffective).

Former UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld once observed that,
“UN may become an organization with a mulish reputation for sitting still when action is needed.”

We have a choice, revitalize the Council or let it fade away, allowing those who need it most to suffer in silence.