Discuss the structure and functions of UN Security Council? (2023, 10 Marks)
The Security Council holds “primary responsibility” for international peace (Article 24) and is the only organ whose decisions bind every member (Article 25). Its design came from the Yalta formula of 1945: the great powers would underwrite collective security only if it could never be turned against them. Structure and functions follow from that bargain.
Structure
- Fifteen members: five permanent members named in Article 23 (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States) and ten elected for two-year terms by a two-thirds Assembly vote, without immediate re-election. India has served eight elected terms, most recently 2021–22.
- Elected seats rose from six to ten through the only Council amendment yet made, adopted 17 December 1963, in force 31 August 1965. Africa holds three, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Western Europe two each, and Eastern Europe one.
- Voting (Article 27): procedural matters need any nine votes; substantive matters need nine including the concurring votes of the permanent members, the veto. An abstention does not block adoption (Namibia, 1971).
- The presidency rotates monthly and Article 28 lets the Council meet at any time; penholders draft most texts.
Functions
- Pacific settlement (Chapter VI): investigating disputes (Article 34) and recommending terms, all non-binding.
- Enforcement (Chapter VII): determining a threat to the peace, breach or act of aggression (Article 39), then ordering provisional measures, sanctions (more than a dozen regimes in 2026) or force. With no Article 43 forces, it authorises coalitions rather than commanding troops.
- Powers built by practice: peacekeeping mandates, the Yugoslav and Rwanda tribunals, ICC referrals (Darfur, Libya), rule-making such as resolution 1373 on terrorist financing, and assessed funding for African Union-led operations (resolution 2719, 2023).
- Institutional: recommending new members and the Secretary-General (four straw polls for the 2026 succession by 29 September), electing ICJ judges with the Assembly, and acting on unperformed judgments (Article 94(2)).
Evaluation
Realists see the Council as a great-power concert with legal powers: it acts when the five agree and stalls when they do not. Eight vetoes were cast in 2024, the most since 1986; in 2026 China and Russia vetoed drafts on Hormuz shipping (April) and the Iran sanctions panel (September). Yet Ian Hurd (After Anarchy, 2007) shows that states still seek its approval because it confers legitimacy nothing else can.
Conclusion
The Council holds the widest powers of any international body yet cannot use them against its permanent members. That is the price of keeping the great powers inside, and why India’s call for reformed multilateralism targets composition and the veto.