Read The United Nations Security Council and War:The Evolution of Thought and Practice since 1945 for Free Online Page B

this issue. It demonstrates how important it is for the UN to have the main protagonists in a conflict agreeing to UN action, even if they are not members of the Security Council. Indonesia succeeded in the same way over East Timor for over two decades. The internal divisions in Colombia and Sri Lanka, despite having international implications, have also avoided Security Council attention. China, Russia, and the UK have shown similar sensitivities over Taiwan and Tibet, Chechnya, and Northern Ireland respectively. There are many other examples.
    It is the question of Palestine, however, which has most often and most controversially slipped away from the UN’s grasp. One of the great tasks of the United Nations at its inception was to bring freedom and independence to territories where the native population had a justified claim to nationhood but had not been able to determine their own future. Palestine, though the circumstances were exceptional, clearly came into this category. Yet throughout the life of the UN, the organization has never succeeded, despite the manifestly expressed wish of the vast majority of its members, in settling this most poisonous of international disputes, nor even in establishing a principal role in addressing it. Israel hasdeclined to accept such a role for the UN and has retained the backing of the most powerful member state, the United States, in doing so.
    The Middle East Peace Process, as it is optimistically labelled, has been affected more than any other agenda item by the threat or the use of the veto. While many observers of the UN accept that the veto was the price that had to be paid at the beginning to secure the support of the strongest powers, the majority of member states now resent the privilege more than any other aspect of the UN’s machinery. It adds to the frustration felt by Palestine’s supporters, which has boiled over into many other UN issues as they seek to raise the cost of the failure to resolve the conflict. The question of Palestine symbolizes, even more emphatically than Iraq, the limits of the UN’s powers when member states are divided. It is also a manifestation of the absence of democratic principles and practice at the global level, even when democracy is so strongly advocated at the national level as a principal remedy for conflict.
H OW D OES S ECURITY C OUNCIL P RACTICE R ELATE TO THE C HARTER P ROVISIONS ?
     
    Since the United Nations was established in 1945, the size and nature of the organization has evolved and the world has changed. It is much harder to elicit effective action from an organization of 192 members with little inclination to accept guidance or leadership from any particular elite than it was with the original membership of 51 and the circumstances of the Cold War. The legacy of the colonial era, the memory of competing superpowers, and the dominance of security issues, including the real risk of nuclear annihilation, still influence national and regional attitudes in the new millennium, even when the substantive priorities of the majority are focused on the unequal distribution of global wealth and a rapidly changing balance of global power. Nevertheless there is a growing sense of political independence everywhere, which encourages polarization rather than coherence. With this evolution, it is remarkable that the UN remains an organization so much in demand and doing so much good. The Security Council continues as a magnet for political attention and, when it gets its mandate right, can play a considerable role in maintaining international peace and security.
    Yet there are severe strains. One of them surrounds the right to a veto resting with the five Permanent Members. This no longer has as much relevance to the balance of superpower interests as it did in the Cold War context. It is seen more as an anachronistic privilege, used too often for narrow national reasons to haveretained any real credibility. The UK, which has avoided the