United Nations Security Council

The Security Council is a principal organ of the United Nations (UN). Under the UN Charter, the Security Council is charged with the primary responsibility of the maintenance of international peace and security. The charter also gives the Security Council wide powers under Chapter VI to use diplomatic means to assist the parties of a dispute to resolve their conflict by peaceful means. In the event that no peaceful reconciliation is possible, Chapter VII of the charter also confers on the Security Council the right to define a breach of the peace, that is to name an aggressor, and thereafter mobilize economic sanctions and, ultimately, military force against any member state that the Security Council judges to be a threat to international peace and security. The wider UN membership of 192 countries agrees to accept and carry out the resolutions adopted by the Security Council. In this way, the Security Council is credited with a unique moral and legal authority in the post-1945 construction of international order.

The Security Council comprises fifteen member states. Five are permanent members, which have occupied their positions since the founding of the UN in 1945. The permanent members are: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Ten additional nonpermanent members are elected by a regional formula and serve a two-year term. The ten regional members are elected from five groups: five from the African and Asian regions combined, two from Latin America and the Caribbean, two from Western Europe, and one from Eastern Europe.

The Security Council operates under a rotating presidency. This advances monthly by the Englishlanguage name of each member. The presidency is responsible for calling and chairing all meetings of the Security Council during that month. The UN Secretary-General can also bring matters to the attention of the Security Council. Resolutions adopted by the Security Council are binding in international law. Although the charter forbids the UN to interfere in matters of domestic jurisdiction, this protection does not extend to conduct that the Security Council, acting under Article 39, judges to be a threat to international peace and security.

The adoption of a resolution by the Security Council requires a majority of at least nine of the fifteen members. However, each of the five permanent members has veto power over the adoption of any substantive resolution by the Security Council. The original logic of this provision was to limit the adoption of resolutions and the potential military commitments entailed to those that had the consensual support of the five victorious powers of the 1945 settlement. It was also intended to prevent any one of them from using the mechanism of the UN to legitimate a war on each other. The five permanent members also have veto power over the reform of these entrenched powers. Any reform of the UN Charter requires a resolution to be adopted by the Security Council and ratification by the five powers' constitutional processes. In the case of the United States, this would require a vote of the Senate.

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