United Nations Security Council – All You Need To Know

The United Nations Security Council is one of the six important organs of The United Nations. This wing is entrusted with the task of ensuring international peace and security. This organ of the United Nations has 15 members and each of them has one vote. As per the charter of the United Nations all the remaining nations are expected to follow the decision taken by the members of the council.

This council primarily is a principal organ of United Nations and is empowered to take obligatory decisions for the member nations. It has powers of international peace keeping and authorizing military action. This organ of the UN is considered the most crucial of all of the six other principal organs.

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History of United Security Council

•  The United Nations was formed after the World War II to address the misgivings of the League of Nations which was an earlier organisation to ensure peace and security among the member nations. So the Security Council being a part of UN was working ever since.
• The first session of the council was held on 17^th January 1946 but in the following years it was paralyzed because of the ongoing cold War between The United States and the Soviet Union. However it authorized military interventions during the Korean War and Congo Crisis.
•  As discussed in Britannica during the Cold War in June the Soviets have boycotted the council and over the issues of China’s permanent membership of United Nations. Then the U.S has taken full advantage of the absence of Soviets vote and decided to authorise the military intervention in support of South Korea in the Korean War.
• Post 1980s and in the early 21^st century the power and authority of the Security Council grew by many notches. During these decades many countries have forward for peacekeeping operations. In a span of 3 decades that is from 1948 to 1978 thirteen operations of such kind have taken place. But from 1987 to 2000 (13 years) nearly a dozen countries have gotten themselves involved in peacekeeping operations.
• Some of the countries are Angola, Liberia, Somalia and also the Balkans. These operations were highly successful and UN was awarded The Noble Peace Prize in the year 1988.

Motto of UNSC and its Members

• The United Nations which responsible for the collective peace and security of the all the member nations, its organ Security Council is authorised to investigate into any situations that are threatening the international peace and security.
• It is an important body which makes sure the member nations are maintaining the obligatory rudiments laid down to ensure peace and security.
• The members of the Security Council being very powerful economically and also in their military might have huge responsibilities on their shoulders. They see to that no amount of disagreements and diplomatic failure results in utilization of arms and violence. They play a crucial role in shaping up the diplomatic scene of the world.
• They ensure peace and security of the non member nations which are also known as third world countries.

What Does UNSC Do?

 The Security Council has some detailed functions laid out to perform in the charter. As mentioned in the United Nations website some of the powers and functions are:

1. To ensure peace and security by following the rules those are laid out in the charter of United Nations.
2. It also investigate and examine situations are ma potentially lead to failure of diplomatic talks.
3. After detailed investigation it recommends procedures for peaceful resolution of the dispute.
4. It also has the authority to call upon other member nations which have an edge in the trade with those countries to partially interrupt economic relations with the disputing country.
5. It can formulate plans to regulate the enrichment and testing of arms especially the nuclear arms.
6. It can authorise member countries to take military action against the aggressive nation.
7. It can recommend new member into the council
8. It has he powers to debate and discuss issues that are a threat to international peace and security.

India and Unit Nations Security Council:

•  India was one of the founding members of the United Nations in the year 1944.
• It also participated in the United Nations Conference on International Organisation in the year 1945.
• India supports and embraces all the fundamental principles of United Nations.
• India made yeomen contributions to the global organisation in peace keeping and also made efforts to ensure all the rules are followed that are laid out in the charter.
• Indian has been a charter member of United Nations but it is still a non permanent member of the Security Council. It has been a non permanent member of the council for eight terms.
• India is a member of G4 nations wherein the members of the group back each other for permanent membership of the council. The status and authority of the permanent members of the Security Council has not changes since its formation. India also participated in the peacekeeping operations in South Korea.

India has been demanding permanent membership of quite some years now. It has justified its demand by mentioning factors like India’s high population, world’s largest liberal democracy. It is fifth largest economy in the world and third largest in terms of purchasing power parity in the world. It participated in as many as 40 peacekeeping missions since the formation of United Nations. All these factors make India’s demand for permanent membership a legitimate one.

The Bottom Line

Security Council though has been successful in many mission in these decades it has been a failure in peacekeeping missions in Rwanda and Bosnia which raised many questions on the effectiveness of the United Nations.  The permanent members of the Security Council should work towards charting pout better peace missions and also expanding the membership of the council to other deserving nations. This makes the global organisation more democratic and one that is worth turning towards in times of dispute and diplomatic failure.