An indictment of the veto system as the UN’s most elegant excuse for doing nothing when it matters most.
By Dalal Abu Diab 12B
The veto power is not a check on international conflict. It’s a monopoly on global consequence—a velvet noose wielded by five states who long ago decided that international law is a buffet: take what you want, starve the rest.
The United Nations Security Council, that sanctified chamber of peace and protocol, is in reality a 1940s gentleman’s club that never quite got the memo that the Empire died. (It didn’t, of course—it just changed its dress code.) The veto system was its founding handshake: a deal struck not for peace, but to keep the winners in control. China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US—the P5, a cartel by any other name—granted themselves the ability to block any resolution they dislike, no matter the blood trail behind it. In theory, it prevents rash action. In practice, it prevents action, full stop.
Syria is the canonical example. Since 2011, Russia has vetoed at least 17 resolutions concerning the Assad regime, most of them dealing with war crimes, chemical weapons, and ceasefires. Civilians gassed, starved, barrel-bombed—blocked. Each veto a middle finger to justice, with a gold-plated UN stamp. But Russia is not alone. The US has protected Israel from over 50 resolutions since the 1970s, including one as recent as February 2024 that called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, where civilian death counts are now tabulated like weather forecasts. China blocked action on Myanmar. France and the UK merely outsource their imperialism through NATO now, but the veto sits quietly in their back pocket like a diplomatic revolver.
The logic is elegant in its cruelty. You can bomb, invade, starve, or surveil. You can arm rebels, drone journalists, and mine your ally’s opposition into extinction—just don’t worry, because the veto’s got your back. It’s not a security measure; it’s sovereign immunity dressed in blue.
They say the veto ensures global stability. It doesn’t. It ensures predictability—for those in power. It turns the Security Council into a theatre of impotence, where the script is written by the P5 and the rest of the cast are expected to nod solemnly while the curtain drops on another resolution that will never see the light of enforcement.
And when things go wrong? When another chemical weapon strikes a market square, or another famine is engineered by blockade, or another ethnic cleansing is livestreamed? The P5 gather, hold emergency sessions, deliver grave expressions, and veto accountability with the kind of poise only inherited impunity can buy.
What the veto creates is a caste system of sovereignty. There are states that must obey, and there are states that get to write the rules. The UN Charter insists on the sovereign equality of nations. The veto laughs in its face. A single hand can erase consensus. A single word—”no”—can invalidate law. And it is always the same hands that hold the pen.
This isn’t law. It’s ceremony. It’s international cosplay. Worse, it’s colonialism reanimated through legalese. The General Assembly votes in favour of Palestinian self-determination year after year. The Human Rights Council publishes report after report on settler violence, apartheid policies, displacement campaigns. But the moment any of this reaches the Security Council, the lights dim, the actors enter, and the veto performs its final act: silence.
Let’s stop pretending this is neutrality. It’s not. It’s complicity. The United States will not allow a ceasefire in Gaza, just as it would not allow condemnation of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre, or the 2008 bombing of Gaza, or the 2014 war. Russia did the same for Assad, for its own invasion of Ukraine, for wherever its shadow reaches. These are not defensive vetoes. They are political assassinations of accountability.
But perhaps the most remarkable thing about the veto isn’t its misuse. It’s that we still pretend it works. That international law students still take courses on collective security as if the system isn’t rotting from its foundations. That journalists still write headlines like “Security Council Deadlocked” as if the deadlock is news, and not architecture.
Calls for reform are cute. Proposals to add permanent members from Africa or Latin America, to limit vetoes in genocide cases, to establish override mechanisms—these are flowers planted on concrete. The P5 will never vote themselves out of power. And why would they? The veto is the most cost-effective tool in imperial history. One vote blocks a war crimes tribunal. One gesture protects billions in arms deals. The age of boots and bayonets is over. This is the age of bureaucratic empire.
Meanwhile, the rest of the UN system plays make-believe. The General Assembly passes moral resolutions. The International Criminal Court issues symbolic warrants. Humanitarian agencies clean up what diplomacy leaves behind. But the real decisions happen behind the veto. The rest is just fallout management.
Consider, instead, a more modern performance of veto-enabled theatre: the Iraq War, a masterclass in deceit wrapped in diplomatic pageantry. In 2003, the United States sought Security Council approval for an invasion it had already planned. When it became clear that France would veto any authorising resolution, the US withdrew the draft and went in anyway. But not before staging a performance worthy of a Pulitzer. Colin Powell, then-Secretary of State, stood before the Council waving a vial of fake anthrax, spinning tales of mobile weapons labs and intercepted calls. The intelligence was fabricated. The visuals were pure spectacle. No resolution. No mandate. No consequences. The veto wasn’t used—but its mere presence allowed the illusion of diplomacy to collapse into the convenience of unilateral action. And once the rubble settled, there were no war crimes tribunals, no reparations, no accountability. Just Powell, years later, calling the moment a “blot” on his record, and the rest of the world expected to pretend the blot didn’t seep into the entire credibility of the Council itself.
“We think the price is worth it.”
– Madeleine Albright (Ex Secretary of State) when asked on 60 Minutes about half a million Iraqi children dying due to sanctions supported by the US veto power at the UN.
Meanwhile, Tony Blair, operating from the other side of the Atlantic, played his role with the zeal of a man auditioning for a legacy. He warned Parliament that Saddam could deploy chemical weapons in 45 minutes. He cited intelligence. He cited urgency. What he failed to mention was that some of this “intelligence” had been lifted verbatim from a Californian graduate student’s thesis—typos and all. The so-called “dodgy dossier,” presented as state-sanctioned analysis, was in fact a copy-paste job from the internet. The legal basis for war was shaky, the moral argument thinner still. The Chilcot Inquiry would later confirm what millions already knew: the evidence was distorted, the threat inflated, and the war anything but inevitable. But by then, Iraq was already burning. A million lives extinguished for a PowerPoint presentation, and Blair walked offstage into consultancy contracts and polite standing ovations.
The UN said nothing. Why? Because the P5 don’t just hold vetoes over resolutions. They hold vetoes over memory.
Take the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. Conducted without Security Council authorisation, it was framed as a humanitarian intervention. No vote, no mandate. Just jets, targets, and a post-facto press briefing. Civilian infrastructure was obliterated, media buildings reduced to rubble, and a Chinese embassy hit “by accident.” Russia protested. China protested. But the veto had no chance to speak—because the vote was never tabled. Why bother with a Council when you can bypass it entirely?
Or take Yemen, where the Saudi-led coalition—backed by US and UK arms, intelligence, and diplomatic cover—has decimated hospitals, schools, and funerals. The Security Council has passed precisely zero resolutions condemning the campaign. Not for lack of evidence. Not for lack of bodies. But because those who supply the bombs also supply the vetoes. A silent agreement: let the war rage, but not in the minutes of the Council.
And what about Libya? The Council approved a no-fly zone in 2011 under Resolution 1973, ostensibly to protect civilians. NATO interpreted this as a green light for regime change, bombing Gaddafi’s forces until the state itself collapsed. The resolution said “protect.” The airstrikes said “topple.” No accountability followed. Just another country cracked open and abandoned, filed under “complex aftermath.”
The same happened in 1949 Syria. And 1958 Lebanon. And 1963 Iraq. Every time a leader challenged Western extraction, the gears turned: coups, assassinations, military support. Today, those tactics have evolved. It’s no longer about installing puppets. It’s about vetoing consequences. Same empire, sharper tools.
The veto is not broken. It is working exactly as intended. It is a firewall against redistribution. Against justice. Against the historical reckoning that decolonisation demanded but never received. It preserves a world where the powerful never have to say, “we were wrong.”
So no, the Security Council isn’t failing. It is succeeding—with alarming efficiency—in shielding the same actors from the same crimes they claim to prevent. The veto doesn’t paralyse the Council. It empowers it—to do nothing, when doing nothing suits the powerful.
And until that changes, let’s stop calling it peacekeeping. Let’s call it what it is: an aristocracy of states, stitched together with formal language and the corpses of forgotten civilians. History will look back and ask who stood by. The answer will be: the ones with the power not to.