The history of the Security Council is inseparably tied to the development of the UN as a legitimate international propagator of peace and stability. At the tail end of 1945, when the UN was being founded, one of the most important questions being asked was, “How do we prevent a second failure of the League of Nations?” After all, a similar international community had already failed once mere years ago. One commonly cited flaw of the League was that it was effectively powerless to stop the actions of expansionist leaders beyond issuing mere condemnations. The inclusion of a Security Council in the newly established UN was one of the ways this was meant to be mitigated. The UNSC, functioning as the one of six main organs of the UN, is tasked with the “ maintenance of international peace and security ”.(Center, 2023)

 

To that end, it is the only UN body which can:

1. Issue binding resolutions (more on that later),

2. Threaten with and impose collective economic sanctions,

3. Authorise the use of other enforcement measures, such as sending military observers, deploying peacekeepers, or in extreme cases, calling for collective military action;

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To counterbalance the power of what is, effectively, a worldwide policing organ, the committee also introduced veto powers. (United Nations, 2024b) These were given to the five permanent members of the council, often referred to as the P5. Currently, those 5 are France, Russia, China, the UK and the USA. The power to single-handedly block any resolution in the UNSC meant that it was nigh impossible for any resolution which opposed the interests of the P5 to ever pass.(Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019)

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Despite that, the UNSC has seen its fair share of executive powers used, with 2 notable military interventions (Korea, 1950 and Libya, 2011) as well as dozens of sanction regimes and peacekeeping operations (PKOs). (Nations, n.d.) To what extent these have been successful varies a lot by operation, even according to the UNSC itself, and some are even more divisive on the international stage, with calls for both more and less power being handed to the council growing ever louder.

 

Despite all this, the UNSC remains as one of, if not the most, vital organ the UN possesses in order to combat real-time crises of security. It is up to you to navigate its complicated mandate in order to restore some semblance of stability to the region at hand.