Should permanent membership and veto powers of the UNSC be abolished?
A commentary revisited the long-running debate on whether the UN Security Council's permanent membership and the veto power attached to it should be abolished.
It examined the post-1945 structure under which five states — the US, UK, France, Russia, and China — hold permanent seats and veto rights under the UN Charter.
It surveyed the competing reform coalitions at the UN General Assembly — the G4, the L69 group, and the Uniting for Consensus grouping — which disagree on whether any new permanent seats should carry veto power at all.
It noted that the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) process on Security Council reform has continued at the UN for over three decades without producing a consolidated negotiating text.
UN Charter Article 27(3) — The Legal Basis of the Veto
Article 27(3) of the UN Charter requires that Security Council decisions on non-procedural matters be adopted by an affirmative vote of nine of the fifteen members, "including the concurring votes of the permanent members." In practice, this has been read as giving each of the five permanent members (P5) the power to block any substantive resolution by voting against it — the veto.
Key Details
- The veto has been used more than 300 times since the UN's founding in 1945-46.
- The USSR/Russia has cast roughly 120 vetoes — the most of any P5 member, heavily used during the Cold War and, more recently, on Syria-related resolutions.
- The US has cast 82 vetoes, almost entirely since 1970, most frequently on resolutions concerning Israel.
- The UK has used the veto 29 times and France 16 times; China has used it 16 times (one cast by the Republic of China in 1955, the rest by the People's Republic of China after it took the China seat in 1971).
Any "abolition" of the veto would require either amending Article 27(3) itself or securing P5 self-restraint — both far harder than the informal debate suggests, given the numbers above show how central the veto has been to P5 conduct at the UN.
UN Charter Amendment Rules (Articles 108-109) — Why Abolition Is Structurally Near-Impossible
The UN Charter can only be amended under Article 108 (individual amendments) or Article 109 (a general review conference). Both routes require a two-thirds vote in the General Assembly and ratification by two-thirds of UN member states — but crucially, ratification must include all five permanent Security Council members.
Key Details
- This means the P5 collectively hold a veto over any Charter amendment, including one that would abolish their own veto or dilute their permanent status.
- No P5 member has agreed, in over three decades of the IGN process, to any text that would remove or dilute its own veto.
- This structural bar is distinct from, and higher than, the ordinary Article 27(3) voting threshold used for day-to-day Council decisions.
The abolition question raised is therefore as much a constitutional one as a political one — the very body whose consent is legally required to abolish the veto is the P5 bloc that benefits from it.
The Fractured Reform Coalitions — G4, L69, Uniting for Consensus
UN reform debates are organised around several competing groupings, each with a different position on new permanent seats and the veto.
Key Details
- The G4 (Brazil, Germany, India, Japan) proposes expanding the Council from 15 to around 25-26 members, with six new permanent seats (two each for Africa and Asia-Pacific, one each for Latin America/Caribbean and Western Europe); under its 2005 draft, new permanent members would not exercise the veto until a review 15 years after reform.
- The L69 Group (developing countries from Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and Latin America) wants new permanent seats distributed similarly but insists every new permanent seat carry full veto power, on equality grounds.
- The Uniting for Consensus (UfC) coalition — around a dozen states including Italy, Pakistan, Mexico, and South Korea, with wider informal support — opposes creating any new permanent seats at all, favouring instead more non-permanent or longer-term elected seats without veto rights.
The abolition debate cannot be separated from this three-way split: even states that want Council reform disagree sharply on whether to expand the veto's reach, restrict it, or eliminate it — making "abolition" one option among several competing, mutually exclusive reform tracks.
The 2022 "Veto Initiative" (UNGA Resolution 76/262) — Restraint Short of Abolition
Rather than abolishing the veto, the General Assembly has moved toward a narrower accountability mechanism: mandatory scrutiny whenever a veto is cast.
Key Details
- UNGA Resolution 76/262, adopted by consensus on 26 April 2022 (initiated by Liechtenstein and co-sponsored by roughly 83 states, including all P5 except Russia and China voting for it by consensus), created a standing mandate for the General Assembly to convene and debate any matter on which a Security Council veto was cast, within ten working days.
- The resolution does not alter Article 27(3) or the legal force of the veto itself; a vetoed draft resolution remains rejected.
- It draws its authority from the General Assembly's general powers under UN Charter Articles 10, 11, and 14, not from any Charter amendment.
Resolution 76/262 represents the practical, achievable alternative to the abolition debate — accountability and transparency around veto use, rather than its removal, given the amendment threshold in Articles 108-109 makes outright abolition unlikely for the foreseeable future.
- UNSC composition: 15 members — 5 permanent (US, UK, France, Russia, China) and 10 non-permanent, elected for two-year terms.
- Veto used 300+ times since 1946: Russia/USSR ~120, US 82, UK 29, France 16, China 16 (approximate, cumulative).
- Charter amendment (Article 108) requires a two-thirds General Assembly vote plus ratification by two-thirds of member states, including all five permanent members.
- G4 grouping: Brazil, Germany, India, Japan — proposes 6 new permanent seats without initial veto rights.
- UNGA Resolution 76/262 (26 April 2022) mandates a General Assembly debate within 10 working days of any Security Council veto.
- The Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) process on Security Council reform has run without a consolidated text since it began in 2008-09.