The Biden administration has advocated for the restructuring of the United Nations Security Council (U.N.S.C.), an undertaking that officials believe would restore confidence in the world’s top governing organization by acknowledging today’s fragmented map of global power, according to “The Washington Post“.
The still-evolving U.S. proposal anticipates the addition of roughly half a dozen permanent seats to the council, but without granting those nations veto power.
Biden’s envoy to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, is meeting with officials from the organization’s 193 member nations to elicit views on a possible expansion of the influential council ahead of the global leaders’ annual meeting in New York this autumn.
Richard Gowan, U.N. director for the International Crisis Group, indicated that the Security Council has fallen short of its mandate. “But the more the U.N. declines…the more fragmented, the more regionalized, and the more competitive the world will become,” he added.
At the U.N. General Assembly in September, Biden stated his support for adding new permanent seats to the council, including seats for African and Latin American countries.
The Security Council’s authority stems from its capacity to approve binding decisions, as opposed to those enacted by the U.N. General Assembly. In addition to the five permanent seats, the council contains ten non-permanent members who are chosen for a two-year term.
Since the founding of the U.N. following World War II, the United States, France, Britain, China, and the Soviet Union — subsequently Russia — have exercised veto power on questions of war and peace as the Security Council’s five permanent members. In contrast, the council’s rotating membership lacks such authority.