Reforming the United Nations by Ignoring It

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC), as the only legitimate dispenser of humanitarian intervention, is limited in its effectiveness by the veto powers afforded to the Permanent Five members (P5). Various reform agendas have been attempted over the years, and all have failed; for the most part because any such reform would limit the current level of international control that the veto affords the P5, and yet those reforms would also require P5 approval before they could be enacted.

The solution to this can be the normative rise of regional peacekeeping solutions that don’t merely seek to execute resolutions by themselves, but actually bypass United Nations (UN) approval and UN processes altogether. This would, in effect, take away the control over international actions that the P5 members currently hold with the veto power. By simply ignoring the UNSC, the UNSC will be forced to accept the complete loss of power associated with that behaviour, or conversely choose to reform themselves in order to retain a diminished share of their original power. Ignoring the United Nations Security Council might just be the only means to reforming it. JIOS_Vol1 (journal-iostudies.org)