Innovating to Restrain the Use of the Veto in the United Nations Security Council

The veto power originates in article 27(3) of the United Nations Charter, which establishes that all substantive decisions of the Security Council must be made with "the concurring votes of the permanent members."2 Already controversial at the time of the 1945 San Francisco Conference,3 the veto today often negatively impacts on the work and functioning of the Security Council. The proliferation of the use of the veto in recent times has prevented the Security Council from exercising its functions with respect to some of the gravest threats to international peace and security--often in clear contravention of the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. The veto has always been a bone of contention in the UN membership--in fact a majority of Member States, in spite of having accepted the veto when joining the UN, are formally in favor of its abolition.