The UNSC has failed Gaza and the Global South. It's time to reform this colonial relic

Last October, an Israeli airstrike on the Al Ahli-Arab hospital in Gaza killed at least 471 men, women and children. The carnage was sickening.

I remember thinking, "No one can look away now. Regardless of who caused the explosion this at least will force the world to act."

I was wrong. The very next day — even as the BBC described “body parts still being collected” amid “blood-soaked mattresses strewn about the compound” — the UN Security Council (UNSC) could not be moved.

Brazil introduced a resolution that would have condemned Hamas’s large-scale attack and called for the immediate release of Israeli hostages, but the US vetoed it because its accompanying call for humanitarian pauses did not cater sufficiently to its ally, Israel.

Days later, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) voted 121-14 for a ceasefire in Gaza and Israel – but again the UNSC took no notice.

Two months later, under the threat of more US vetoes, the Security Council could still not agree for the violence to stop even as Israel blocked aid, weaponised food, and carried out operations that killed tens of thousands more.

The UN’s mandate to maintain global peace and security is more important today than ever.

The UNSC remains crucial to enforce global standards of legality, international humanitarian law and human rights.

However, a new Oxfam report into the Security Council’s record over the past decade on 23 of the world’s bloodiest, most protracted conflicts shows that its permanent members – the US, Russia, China, France and the UK – are primarily pursuing their own national interests and acting as judge and jury of their own military adventures and those of their allies.

There is a fundamental inequality at the heart of our global peace and security system that gives these five countries greater power than the other 188 UN Member States combined.

What is going wrong with the UNSC?

The UNSC was built upon a colonial legacy that has simply outlived its time.

Let’s start with the veto, something originally intended to ensure that the military powers of the 20th Century didn’t weaponise the Security Council against one another.

Today, it’s a colonial relic and an obstacle to efforts to challenge the interests of the powerful in the name of civilians affected by conflict.

Of the 30 vetoes cast by the Security Council over the last ten years, a whopping 27 of them were on resolutions relating specifically to Ukraine, Syria the occupied Palestine territory and Israel.

These are where the UNSC members have some of their most important strategic interests. For instance, in 2023 Russia vetoed an extension of cross-border humanitarian assistance to Northern Syria which left 4.1 million people with little or no access to food, water and medicine. Russia has also vetoed all four resolutions on Ukraine, despite being an aggressor in the conflict and, by UN’s own rules, should be disqualified from voting let alone from vetoing.

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The US meanwhile has used its veto six times to block resolutions unfavourable to its ally Israel. This has helped to create an environment for Israel to continue its attacks, settlement expansion and human rights violations with impunity.

Yet even these numbers don’t tell the whole story. The veto has become such a blockage that often states don’t even introduce resolutions because they know they will simply get vetoed.

We found huge inconsistencies as to when and how resolutions are introduced and how effective they are, too.

The Security Council has passed nearly 80 resolutions on both South Sudan and Sudan, 53 on Somalia and 48 on Libya. But none of these have led to lasting peace.

Many have not been followed up with concrete actions or sufficient resources in, for instance, peace-keeping, peace-building or humanitarian assistance.

Despite the Democratic Republic of Congo having had 25 UNSC resolutions in the past 10 years, for instance, the UN mission there (MONUSCO) has been hindered by underfunding and lack of coordination.

On the other hand, some conflicts have attracted scant or even no attention from the Security Council.

Time and again, when ordinary people are at their most desperate for help, we now expect the Council to reject, water down, or simply not act properly upon its own resolutions for peace.

The human cost of this failure is unacceptable.

In the past decade, more than a million people have been killed in the 23 wars studied by Oxfam, while the number of those in humanitarian need has more than doubled to over 230 million people.

Humanitarian aid can no longer meet the needs of all these people when the Security Council keeps failing to find ways to end the conflicts.

The humanitarian cost of war hit nearly $57 billion in 2023 but rich donors met only 43% of this, leaving more than 100 million people without aid.

In today’s climate crisis, where humanitarian needs already spilling out of control, the UN Security Council cannot condemn the world to interminable wars on top of it.

Oxfam is calling on UN member states to use the Summit of the Future to spark a new vision to advance the ideals upon which the UN was based and build a system that puts equality at the heart of decision-making. The Pact for the Future needs to offer tangible steps to decolonise the Security Council.

This starts with an overhaul of the UN Charter, to ensure all members truly uphold the “do no harm” principle, and powerful nations are held equally accountable to the rest of the world. Our peace and security architecture must no longer be controlled by a handful of military powers who can block peace, evade accountability, and perpetuate conflicts.

Amitabh Behar, interim Executive Director of Oxfam International, is a global civil society leader who specializes in people-centric advocacy, governance accountability, social and economic equality, and citizen participation. Behar previously served as the Chief Executive Officer of Oxfam India.

Prior to Oxfam, Behar was the Executive Director of the National Foundation for India and Co-Chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty. He has also served as the Vice-Chair of the Board of CIVICUS and Board Chair of Amnesty International India. He currently serves on the boards of several other organizations, including the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability, an Indian public policy think-tank.

Follow Amitabh on X: @AmitabhBehar

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.