The Security Council: Composition, Voting and the Veto

In one line

The Security Council is a body of fifteen with five permanent members whose concurrence is required on every substantive decision, it holds primary responsibility for international peace and security, and its decisions bind all Members.

Composition: article 23

Article 23(1). The Council shall consist of fifteen Members of the United Nations. The Republic of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America shall be permanent members. The General Assembly shall elect ten other Members to be non-permanent members, due regard being specially paid, in the first instance to the contribution of Members to the maintenance of international peace and security and to the other purposes of the Organization, and also to equitable geographical distribution.

The Charter text still names the Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and it has never been amended on this point. The seats are today occupied by the People's Republic of China, following General Assembly resolution 2758 of 1971, and by the Russian Federation, which took the Soviet seat on the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. In an answer, name the five as the Charter names them, then state how the two seats came to be occupied as they are, because that is the accurate account.

Article 23(2). Non-permanent members are elected for a term of two years, and a retiring member shall not be eligible for immediate re-election. The Charter also records the transitional arrangement when the Council grew from eleven to fifteen, two of the four additional members being chosen for one year.

The enlargement from eleven to fifteen was made by amendment to article 23 adopted in 1963 and in force from 1965, and it is the only significant amendment the Council's composition has ever received. Every later proposal has failed on article 108, which requires ratification by all the permanent members.

Article 23(3). Each member of the Council shall have one representative.

Primary responsibility: article 24

Article 24(1). In order to ensure prompt and effective action, the Members confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and agree that in carrying out its duties under this responsibility the Security Council acts on their behalf.

Article 24(2). In discharging these duties the Council shall act in accordance with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations, and its specific powers are laid down in Chapters VI, VII, VIII and XII.

Article 24(3). The Council shall submit annual and, when necessary, special reports to the General Assembly for its consideration.

Three points to take from article 24. Responsibility is primary, not exclusive, which leaves room for the Assembly under articles 10, 11 and 14. The Council acts on behalf of the Members, which is the theory that explains why its decisions bind them. And article 24(2) subjects the Council to the Purposes and Principles, which is the textual basis for the argument that the Council's powers are legally limited, though the Charter provides no organ to enforce that limit.