United Nations Security Council veto power
The United Nations Security Council veto power is the power of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to veto any decision other than a "procedural" decision.
A permanent member's abstention or absence does not count as a veto. A "procedural" decision also cannot be vetoed.
The veto power is controversial. Supporters state that the United Nations would break down if it attempted to enforce binding action against a permanent member and that the veto is a critical safeguard against United States domination. Russia and China regard the veto as a promoter of international stability and a check against military interventions. Critics say that the veto is the most undemocratic element of the UN, as well as the main cause of inaction on war crimes and crimes against humanity, as it effectively prevents UN action against the permanent members and their allies.
UN Charter
Although the word "veto" is not used in the United Nations Charter, the power of veto originates in Article 27 of the Charter, which states:- Each member of the Security Council shall have one vote.
- Decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members.
- Decisions of the Security Council on all other matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members including the concurring votes of the permanent members; provided that, in decisions under Chapter VI, and under paragraph 3 of Article 52, a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting.
Any one of the permanent members may veto a resolution by casting a negative vote. However, a permanent member abstaining or a permanent member being absent does not count as a veto.
In a separate article, the Charter also requires that amendments be ratified by all of the permanent members. In addition, ratifications cannot be abstained on. This gives the permanent members an even stronger absolute veto over any change to the absolute veto power.
Due to all of the permanent members being considered great powers, the power of veto has also been called the "great power veto" or "great power unanimity".
Origins
The idea of a veto over the actions of international organisations was not new in 1945. In the League of Nations, the predecessor to the United Nations, every member of the League Council had a veto on any non-procedural issue. At the foundation of the League, there were 4 permanent and 4 non-permanent members. The League Council had expanded by 1936 to have 4 permanent and 11 non-permanent members, which meant that there were 15 countries with veto power. The existence of such a large number of vetoes made it very difficult for the League to agree on many issues.The veto was the result of extensive discussion during the negotiations for the formation of the United Nations at Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta. At Dumbarton Oaks, the Soviet delegation argued that each nation should have an absolute veto that could block matters from even being discussed, while the British delegation argued that nations should not be able to veto resolutions on disputes to which they were a party. At Yalta, the American, British and Russian delegations agreed that each of the permanent members could veto any action by the council, but not procedural resolutions, meaning that the permanent members could not prevent debate on a resolution. This veto provision became known as the Yalta formula. The evidence is that the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and China all favored the principle of unanimity, not only out of desire for the major powers to act together, but also to protect their own sovereign rights and national interests. Harry S. Truman, who became President of the United States in April 1945, wrote: "All our experts, civil and military, favored it, and without such a veto no arrangement would have passed the Senate."
As the precise limits of the veto power were seen as ambiguous, the voting formula subcommittee presented a formal questionnaire to the sponsoring members containing 22 questions on how they interpreted the veto power. They responded with a 10-point statement, also called the San Francisco Declaration, which France later joined as well. The statement says that a veto cannot be used to stop the Council from considering a topic at all, but interpreted its applicability broadly, including that the veto power could be exercised in the question of whether an issue is procedural or non-procedural. This has been called a double veto as it involves initiating a vote on whether an issue is procedural, using a veto to force it to be termed non-procedural, and then using a second veto on the issue itself. As the other countries disagreed with this interpretation, it was not adopted into the Charter, and it is unclear whether the San Francisco Declaration is formally binding. The permissibility of a double veto has never been resolved, but the permanent members later reached an informal agreement to avoid using it, and it has not been used since 1959.
A central goal of the United Nations at its founding was to make sure the five Great Powers would continue working with the UN, in order to avoid the lack of universality that had diminished the political strength of the League of Nations. At San Francisco, the Big Five made it clear that there would be no United Nations if they were not given the veto. Francis O. Wilcox, an adviser to the US delegation, described the dramatic negotiations: "At San Francisco, the issue was made crystal clear by the leaders of the Big Five: it was either the Charter with the veto or no Charter at all. Senator Connally dramatically tore up a copy of the Charter during one of his speeches and reminded the small states that they would be guilty of that same if they opposed the unanimity principle. 'You may, if you wish,' he said, 'go home from this Conference and say that you have defeated the veto. But what will be your answer when you are asked: "Where is the Charter"?
Bypassing the veto
The veto only applies to votes that come before the United Nations Security Council, so the United Nations General Assembly is unaffected.From Article 27, both elected and permanent members must abstain from certain votes about issues where they are among the interested parties. The specific language was a compromise between the idea that one should not be able to pass judgement on their own actions, and the principle that the Security Council should not act against its permanent members. However, there are no clear guidelines about how to establish when the requirements are met, and its application has been inconsistent.
In 1950, the General Assembly adopted the "Uniting for Peace" resolution, which was backed by the United States as a safeguard against potential vetoes by the USSR. It has been argued that with the adoption of this resolution, and given the interpretations of the Assembly's powers that became customary international law as a result, that the Security Council "power of veto" problem could be surmounted. By adopting A/RES/377 A, on 3 November 1950, over two-thirds of UN Member States declared that, according to the UN Charter, the permanent members cannot and should not prevent the General Assembly from taking any and all action necessary to restore international peace and security in cases where the Security Council has failed to exercise its "primary responsibility" for maintaining peace. Such an interpretation sees the General Assembly as being awarded "final responsibility"—rather than "secondary responsibility"—for matters of international peace and security, by the UN Charter. Various official and semi-official UN reports make explicit reference to the Uniting for Peace resolution as providing a mechanism for the General Assembly to overrule any Security Council vetoes, thus rendering them little more than delays in UN action, should two-thirds of the Assembly subsequently agree that action is necessary. In 1956, the resolution was used to help resolve the Suez Crisis. When invoked, it creates an emergency special session of the General Assembly., the procedure has been invoked 11 times.
There are a number of possible reforms to the Security Council that could affect the veto. Proposals include: limiting the use of the veto to vital national security issues; requiring agreement from multiple states before exercising the veto; abolishing the veto entirely; and embarking on the transition stipulated in Article 106 of the Charter, which requires the consensus principle to stay in place. The American Journal of International Law has stated that the veto could conceivably be bypassed by superseding the Charter with a new one.
The Republic of China was expelled from the United Nations despite having a veto and despite expulsions being veto-able, as the General Assembly decided that the issue was about who had the credentials to represent an existing member, rather than the actual addition or removal of a member.
Use
History
The use of the veto has gone through several distinct phases, reflecting the shifting political balance on the Security Council. From 1946 to 1969, a majority of the Security Council was aligned with the United States, which cast no vetoes because it won every vote. To block resolutions from the Western majority, the Soviet Union cast of all the vetoes. France and the United Kingdom occasionally used the veto to protect their colonial interests, and the Republic of China only used the veto once.The Western majority eroded through the 1960s as decolonization expanded the membership of the United Nations. The newly independent countries of the Third World frequently voted against the Western powers, which led the United States to resort to the veto. After the first United States veto in 1970, the Soviet ambassador declared, "Using your automatic majority you imposed your will on others and forced it down their throats. But times have now changed." From 1970 to 1991, the United States cast of the vetoes, sometimes joined by French and British vetoes. The Soviet Union cast fewer vetoes than any of the Western powers, and the People's Republic of China used the veto only once.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, there was a brief period of harmony on the Security Council. The period from 31 May 1990 to 11 May 1993 was the longest period in the history of the UN without the use of the veto. The number of resolutions passed each year also increased. The use of the vetoes decreased after the end of the Cold War, with the rate of vetoes decreasing to less than one-third of the previous level, despite a substantial increase in the number of resolutions considered. Usage of the veto picked up in the early 21st century, most notably due to the Syrian Civil War. Since 1992, Russia has been the most frequent user of the veto, followed by the United States and China. France and the United Kingdom have not used the veto since 1989.
As of 18 September 2025, Russia/Soviet Union has used its veto 129 times, the United States 89 times, the United Kingdom 29 times, China 19 times and France 16 times. On 26 April 2022, the General Assembly adopted a resolution mandating a debate when a veto is cast in the Security Council.