President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has reiterated the resolve of Ghana in advocating sweeping reforms in the United Nations (UN) to enable it to address the numerous challenges confronting the global community.
The UN was formed in 1945 to ensure world peace based on the proposals from representatives of China, the Soviet Union (now Russia), the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA).
The UN Charter therefore gave veto power and permanent membership to these five countries, sometimes referred to as the P5, in the hope that their status would ensure their participation in the UN and particularly its Security Council.
Over the years, some UN members have called for reforms in the UN due to certain happenings across the globe.
President Akufo-Addo’s statement that “we belong to the side that are advocating radical reforms….” obviously affirms it.
The experts say that even though there have been calls for reforms in the UN since the 1990s, there has not been the consensus as to where and how the reforms should take effect.
However, it is clear the focus is on the use or rather misuse of the veto power held by the P5.
Interestingly the US, one of the P5, is also calling for reforms but the experts say they do not believe it will allow its vote power to be touched.
The truth is that the P5 have the privileges as the only members with the authority to make binding decisions, especially at the Security Council.
This means the P5 can stop some of the Security Council decisions, however critical they are to the rest of the193 States constituting the UN.
Definitely, this is not palatable to the 188 other States who join the P5 to form its General Assembly, which is the main deliberative, policymaking and the most representative organ of the UN.
It is said, for instance, that in the past, the P5 used the UN Security Council to create common action against ‘belligerents’ in the international system such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq,
However, they fail to take any meaningful actions on a number of issues if one or two of them do not see the actions to be in their national interest.
This shows the greatest bias on the part of the P5 but it seems for now it is not easy to touch them.
Imagine that as of May 2022, Russia/USSR has used its veto 121 times, the US 82 times, the UK 29 times, China 17 times, and France 16 times.
From the look of things, it is clear the UN needs reforms but it appears the reforms are difficult to realise.
However, we encourage President Akufo-Addo and others like President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkiye to continue with their calls for reforms even beyond the Security Council.
We believe one day, such calls can appeal to the conscience of the P5 to see the need to listen to the rest of the world and “veto the desires of the whole world.”
