Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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The Security Council

Wednesday February 12, 2003

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The Security Council of the United Nations operates under the authority of the UN Charter. Chapter 23 reads (this was a direct cut-and-paste from the UN web site):

"The Security Council shall consist of fifteen Members of the United Nations. The Republic of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America shall be permanent members of the Security Council. The General Assembly shall elect ten other Members of the United Nations to be non-permanent members of the Security Council..."

I note that "direct cut-and-paste" business because, as of this writing, there IS no country known as "The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" anymore. In another section of the UN's web site the country formerly known as the USSR is called the "Russian Federation" together with its date of admission to the UN which is given as 24 October 1945 - the date of the initial signing.

But, I admit to that being small and picky, so we move on.

Germany, having actually LOST World War II, is not a permanent member of the Security Council. France, notwithstanding the fact that for most of World War II it was a non-participant, is.

Nevertheless, due to the normal rotation of non-permanent membership, Germany currently has a seat on the Security Council.

Moreover, the presidency of the Security Council rotates each month. In February 2003, the president of the Security Council happens to be the representative from Germany. But not to worry. Starting March 1, 2003 that job passes to the representative of Guinea.

Guinea is well qualified to hold the presidency of the UN Security Council as it has been conducting democratic elections since (according to the CIA World Factbook) 1993. Nine - NINE - straight years in a row.

Speaking of voting, this is the major rule of the Security Council:

To be adopted, a matter brought before the Security Council must receive affirmative votes by nine of the 15 members.

But wait! There's more. On "substantive matters," the nine affirmative votes must include "the concurring votes of all five permanent members."

Memo to All Cable News Anchors: ONLY the US, France, Russia, China, or the UK have veto power in the UN. The other ten members do not. We don't much care how Guinea - or for that matter Germany - votes.

The UN calls this the "rule of Great Power unanimity." The rest of us call it the "veto power."

The major output of the UN Security Council are Resolutions. The first Resolution had to do with the peaceful uses of atomic power - talk about a bunch of Member States being in "material breach."

The often-cited Resolution 1441, which deals with Iraq, contains the following language (with emphasis provided by me):

"Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations under relevant resolutions"
Nevertheless, the Security Council "Decides to afford Iraq, by this resolution, a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council."
"[T]he Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations."

It should be remembered that France signed onto Resolution 1441 which was adopted last November by a 15-zip margin.

Article I Chapter 1 of the UN Charter says the purposes of the United Nations are:

To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace...

The United Nations should live up to its own words. On the Secret Decoder Ring page today, the text of UN Security Council Resolution 1441, a list of current Security Council members, and, because you may have missed it, the first chapter of the UPCOMING BOOK BY THE MULLMEISTER!

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