World is changing, so must the UN Security Council

In practice, the UN Security Council has formal and informal debates, which lead to ‘resolutions’ or ‘decisions’—these official decrees are like the laws that are passed by U.S. Congress, with one key difference in the Security Council: All votes are not equal. In the Security Council, the permanent five members have veto power over substantial resolutions. Under the U.N. charter, the permanent five alone hold the veto. When a member of the P5 votes against a resolution, it fundamentally ends it, even though the other 14 members might have voted yes. Overall, Russia has been the most frequent veto user, followed by the U.S. and the U.K.

New Delhi, Mar.14.– Rajya Sabha MP Dr Radha Mohan Das Agrawal, as a member of the Indian delegation to the 146th Inter-parliamentary Union summit in Bahrain, on Monday suggested that the United Nations and its Security Council (UNSC) must be open to adapting to change. Dr. Radha Mohan Das Agrawal

"In the ever-changing world, with the passage of time not only things change but the problems and challenges also change. When the UN was formed, the idea was to protect nations from war. But, now the world has all sorts of different problems like threats from new and emerging technology, nuclear wars and weaponization of outer space, regional conflicts, climate changes, pandemic, hunger, poverty and so on,", said Dr. Agrawal while insisting that dynamics of a changing world has created new needs that call for new understandings.

He said that "we fail to understand why in this ever changing world, the UN Security Council is refusing to change. We talk of participatory democracy at national levels and expect power to be shared with the public at large. But when the question of participatory democracy at the level of UNSC comes, we are silent? Why is it so? The UN is not made of only five countries but 195 odd countries. The structure of non-permanent and permanent members in UNSC needs to be changed," he said.
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