If Biden wants to save the UN, he should kill the veto

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One option for reform is to give the new permanent members the same veto power. That’s what the African nations demand as a group. After all, what’s the value of a seat if you can’t say no to anything? As almost everybody else points out, though, that would gum up the council even more.

The alternative is to scrap veto powers altogether. That would be great for multilateralism, bad for the interests of the great powers. One obvious problem is that all five would have to surrender their prerogative simultaneously. Good luck telling that to the Russians.

Then again, if the US were to lead by calling for such a step, the rest of the world, including the Global South, might rally to its position and turn away from Russia and China. That seems like a good idea.

Alas, it’s not in the cards. “We use our veto to promote the interests of the US government,” Thomas-Greenfield recited when pressed. “And yes, people think it leads to dysfunction. But for us, it is a power that we have, and we do use that power. I’m not going to make any excuses for it.” Oh well. Any other ideas?

Lots, actually. As Anjali Dayal, a scholar of international law, points out, the US could do much, even short of abolition, to restrain the veto. For example, the UN Charter already stipulates that states must abstain from voting (which includes vetoing) when their own interests are at stake. Could somebody enforce that, please?

The UN could also require that powers wielding their veto must appear before the General Assembly (and potentially be shamed in the court of world opinion), or even that the assembly can override a veto with a supermajority.

If there is any leadership at all on this subject, it comes not from the US but from the least powerful of the “permanent 5,” France and the UK. Neither has used its veto since 1989. In 2013, France even suggested a rule that suspends all veto powers in cases of mass atrocities or genocide. Taken up by Mexico, the initiative has the backing of more than a hundred member states.

Even here, the devil is in the details. What counts as genocide? Many people include Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine, but two veto powers, Moscow and Beijing, won’t. What about Israel’s bombing of Gaza? The International Court of Justice in The Hague is grappling with that one; the US will simply say no.

It would be naive to blame any single country for the dysfunction of the system. It merely reflects a chaotic world, which, in the absence of a global government, tends toward anarchy. But that’s why the US has, since midwifing the United Nations after World War II, seen itself as the hegemon providing order when necessary.

That ambition is now gone. If Donald Trump succeeds Biden, he will snub the “globalists” at the UN and let the institution unravel. If Kamala Harris wins, she’ll carry on in Biden’s vein. That means, as Biden will show this week, signaling virtue while nodding to vice.

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