Responsibility Shirking at the United Nations Security Council: Constraints, Frustrations, Remedies
| Date | 01 November 2015 |
| Published date | 01 November 2015 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12259 |
| Author | Kjell Engelbrekt |
Responsibility Shirking at the United Nations
Security Council: Constraints, Frustrations,
Remedies
Kjell Engelbrekt
Swedish Defense University
Abstract
The United Nations Security Council is the primary international body in charge of upholding international peace and
security. Permanent and nonpermanent member states share in the responsibility to avert great power conflicts and
thwart asymmetric disputes, regional instability and civil war, but the former task has priority and the prerogatives and
therefore the obligations of the five permanent member states widely exceed those of countries that hold two-year
elected seats. The bifurcation of roles nevertheless produces ‘responsibility shirking’, which weakens Council perfor-
mance on the latter type of tasks. This article suggests that responsibility shirking is underreported in the literature
even though it is well known to diplomatic practitioners. It considers three types of remedies to the situation, arguing
that amendments to the UN Charter or the Provisional Rules of Procedure are unlikely, but that piecemeal and prag-
matic reform could precipitate a change of mindset. In particular, allowing nonpermanent member states to co-chair
the drafting of resolutions is likely to engage all member states in the core business of the Council.
Policy Implications
•Elected member states (E10) should be engaged in the core business of the UNSC by way of piecemeal and prag-
matic adjustment to existing working methods and ‘ways of doing things’.
•Permanent member states (P5), which in recent years have indicated they are prepared to charge the former with
additional tasks, should facilitate this development.
•The notion of ‘shared penholdership’, which allows E10 countries to initiate and co-draft Council resolutions, ought
to be a test case of such adjustment.
•P5 countries must nevertheless make sure that the quality of resolutions does not suffer and that a collaborative
atmosphere at the UNSC is maintained.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is the single
international body vested with powers to adopt resolu-
tions binding on all UN member states. The UN Charter
specifically assigns the Council responsibilities in the
realm of international peace and security, and the latter
has since its inception in 1946 gradually elaborated a
system of rules and practices that allows it to respond to
a wide variety of challenges (Prantl, 2005; Hurd, 2007; Bo-
sco, 2009; Sievers and Daws, 2014). Originally set up as a
diplomatic device preventing, mitigating and resolving
intergovernmental conflicts, in the late 1940s and 1950s
the Council launched what came to be referred to as
peacekeeping and, in the early 21st century, extended its
activities to counterterrorism and so-called peace build-
ing –integrating aid and stabilization measures. While
the Council is widely perceived to successfully execute
its ‘concert’mechanism –averting great power conflict –
it is frequently disputed that the same applies to the
‘governance’mechanism, which is supposed to thwart
asymmetric disputes, regional instability and civil war
(Bosco, 2009; Hassler, 2013). It remains, nonetheless, the
world’s only international body whose executive is in
permanent session (Calvocoressi, 1985).
Both the ten elected member states (E10) and the five
permanent veto countries (P5) are acutely aware of the
heavy responsibilities associated with UNSC membership
and therefore have incentives to diminish, deflect or shift
at least part of that burden (Erskine, 2003; Boulden, 2006;
Murray, 2011). As in any system of collective governance,
individual states want to be seen as responsible yet will
Global Policy (2015) 6:4 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12259 ©2015 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy Volume 6 . Issue 4 . November 2015 369
Research Article
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