Global Policy Forum

By Thalif Deen

The United Nations Security Council, the only body empowered to declare war and peace and also impose punitive economic and military sanctions, is being increasingly challenged by defiant member states.

Despite a slew of recent Security Council resolutions, Sudan is refusing to permit a proposed 20,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force into Darfur; Eritrea has rejected a call to withdraw from a buffer zone with neighbouring Ethiopia; North Korea has threatened to continue its nuclear weapons programme despite sanctions; and Iran is defiant about enriching uranium even in the face of a possible economic and military embargo next month. Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also failed to get an assurance from South Korea that it would abandon funding its ongoing industrial zone and tourist resort in North Korea despite mandatory U.N. economic sanctions on Pyongyang.

"Every member state publicly swears by the United Nations," says a senior U.N. official, "but when a country's national interest is under threat, it has no qualms about challenging the authority of the world body." The defiance, he argued, may also be a backlash against the domination and manipulation of the 15-member Security Council by its five veto-wielding permanent members: the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia.

Concurring with that view, Stephen Zunes, professor of politics at the University of San Francisco, told IPS: "It is not only a backlash against the strong-armed tactics of the United States in pushing for sanctions, but a reaction to U.S. double-standards regarding enforcement of U.N. Security Council resolutions."

The United States has not only blocked enforcement of Security Council resolution 1172, which calls on India and Pakistan to eliminate their nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, but the administration of President George W. Bush has signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with India and has announced the sale of nuclear-capable fighter-bombers to Pakistan, said Zunes, who has written extensively on non-compliance with U.N. resolutions.

Similarly, he said, the United States has blocked enforcement of Security Council resolution 487, which calls on Israel to place its nuclear facilities under the trusteeship of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and continues its close strategic cooperation with Israel.

Norman Solomon, executive director of the Washington-based Institute for Public Accuracy, says the credibility of the United Nations largely hinges on the credibility -- and adherence to international law -- of those who exert control over the United Nations as a world body. "To the extent that the Security Council is seen as a tool of Washington's quest for modern-day empire, the U.N.'s practical authority will stand and fall on that basis," Solomon told IPS.

Right now, he pointed out, the United Nations is doubly disempowered. The inability of the U.N. system to prevent the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- and the Security Council's retroactive endorsement of the occupation of Iraq -- have given the impression that Washington can override the United Nations or bend the Security Council to the White Houses will.

"But the limits of U.S. power have become clear as the greatest military force on the planet is stretched thin. In effect, the United Nations has come to be regarded as a tool of a superpower that is unable to dominate the world as it has strived to do during the first half-dozen years of the 21st century," said Solomon, author of "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death".

Addressing the U.N. General Assembly last month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahamadinejad publicly challenged the powers exercised by the Big Five in the Security Council, specifically the United States and Britain.

"If the governments of the United States or the United Kingdom, who are permanent members of the Security Council, commit aggression, occupation and violation of international law, which of the organs of the United Nations can take them to account?," the Iranian president asked. "Can a Council in which they are privileged members address their violations? Has this ever happened before?."

Ironically, it was the turn of the one of the five permanent members, namely China, to also express reservations over last week's Security Council resolution on North Korea. The resolution, adopted unanimously by all 15 members of the Council, authorises the 192 U.N. member states to inspect cargo going in and out of North Korea, primarily to detect the transfer of weapons of mass destruction. Although the implementation of the resolution is mandatory, China has publicly expressed its dissent.

Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya warned that the proposed inspections -- aimed at preventing illicit trafficking in nuclear, biological and chemical weapons -- could create "conflict that could have serious implications for the region." Just after the resolution was adopted, the Chinese envoy told delegates that "sanctions were not the end in themselves." He said China, which currently accounts for nearly 40 percent of all Pyongyang's imports and exports, did not approve of the practice of inspecting cargo to and from North Korea, and he also had reservations about related provisions of the resolution.

Denis Halliday, a former U.N. assistant secretary-general who headed the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food programme in Iraq, told IPS that some of the recent developments raised very interesting issues. He said peacekeeping missions require agreement of the host country; sanctions on North Korea have sections that are not mandatory, allowing China to be flexible; and proposed 100 per cent mandatory sanctions on Iran would leave no room for legitimate flexibility. "However given the U.S./UK violation of the U.N. charter with the invasion/occupation of Iraq, I have no doubt other states will feel free to snub Security Council resolutions-- and who can blame them?" he said.

Halliday also said that many will recall how the five permanent members cheated Security Council mandated constraints relating to U.N. sanctions on Iraq -- particularly over oil purchases, contracts and large oil sales, over and above authorised levels. "I believe that until the five permanent members respect international law and end double standards (such as 'Israel can have nuclear weapons but Iran cannot'), the U.N.'s effectiveness is a legitimate question," he added.

Historically, Israel is one of the few member states to consistently defy the Security Council by refusing to accept or violating over 40 resolutions, primarily because of the unwavering support it has from the United States.

Zunes said there are scores of Security Council resolutions regarding international humanitarian law and related issues currently being violated by U.S. allies like Israel, Turkey and Morocco, over which the United States has used the threat of its veto power to block enforcement.

These include resolutions 446, 452, 465 and 471, which call on Israel to withdraw from its settlements in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem; resolution 497, which calls on Israel to rescind its annexation of the Golan Heights; and resolutions 252, 267, 298, 476 and 478, which call on Israel to rescind its annexation of greater East Jerusalem; among others.

Similarly, with the support of France, the United States has also blocked a series of resolutions regarding Morocco's ongoing occupation of Western Sahara -- both from the 1970s -- which called for the unconditional withdrawal of Moroccan forces and, more recently, resolutions simply calling for an internationally-supervised referendum on the fate of the territory.

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