Many blame the United States and the Biden administration for Israel’s continued assault on Gaza, and the civilian deaths that continue to mount. Many also blame the US for the failure to end Israel’s 70-plus year conflict with the Palestinians. Yet, to blame the US for Israel’s actions in Gaza in which significant civilian casualties are mounting ignores the geopolitical pressures to maintain alliances that the US, and all other permanent five Security Council members face that help, in some sense, to stabilize the world from complete anarchy.
The missile strikes will eventually stop and the unspoken tenuous truce that we call life will return to Israel and the Palestinian territories. But what, if anything, can protect innocent civilians on all sides in the future, not only in Israel but around the world, from the top global powers’ inability to set firm limits on their allies’ acts of war?
The Council’s failure to pass a resolution or even agree on a simple statement on the current crisis reflects a deep and ironic failure in the way it was designed in 1945 – with a mismatch between the council’s structure, comprising powerful member states having powerful geopolitical interests, and its purpose in the UN Charter: to exercise “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.” The changing nature of warfare since World War II, with five times more intrastate than interstate conflicts and far more civilians killed on average per conflict, means stopping atrocities requires the council to defend its right under the charter to step in even when perpetrators claim their sovereignty forbids council action.
As the foremost reference book on the UN Charter, The Simma Commentary, states, “Today, it is agreed... sovereignty cannot mean... absolute power over internal matters.”
Moreover, the conflicting geopolitical interests of the five permanent council members (P5) – the US, UK, France, Russia and China – often lead to automatic positions taken on whether mass atrocities are occurring before facts are ever analyzed.
In 2005, all UN member states adopted the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine. They agreed states are obligated to protect their populations from genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing, should help states struggling to do so, and when any state “manifestly fails” to protect its populations “are prepared to take collective action in a timely and decisive manner, through the [Security Council].” How quickly times have changed. Will the hallowed phrase “Never again!” ever be more than just words?
What realistic reform can be instituted to decrease the chances that P5 geopolitical interests will once again prevent the Council from fulfilling its duty to take action when atrocities occur? The council can create a subsidiary organ under Article 29 of the charter – hereafter referred to as the “Mass Atrocities Division” (MAD) – comprising experts on international human rights and humanitarian law, mediation and peace-building, sanctions and humanitarian intervention.
THE SECURITY Council’s creation of the independent and impartial war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the 1990s as internal organs illustrates how the MAD could be created. Doing so would only require the support of nine council members, without vetoes – not the impossible task of amending the charter.
The MAD would pass draft resolutions the council would be required to consider whenever it fails to pass its own resolutions on unfolding mass atrocities. Determinations of whether atrocities truly are unfolding would be based on independent research, consultations with regional experts, review of early warning information held by UN and regional international organizations, and intelligence voluntarily shared by states.
The MAD’s draft resolutions would place pressure on council members to adopt more unified positions since it would have power to hold press conferences detailing its opinions on the council’s resolutions, or absence thereof, on mass atrocities.
Much as the US Government Accountability Office assesses bills proposed by Congress through a nonpartisan lens to publicize likely costs involved if such bills are passed – which would otherwise be endlessly disputed along party lines – the MAD’s non-geopolitical positions would act as a benchmark against which Council members’ positions would be scrutinized by the international media and by the MAD itself.
While convincing Russia and China in particular to support the MAD’s creation would not be easy, it would not be impossible. Arguments that Western permanent members’ interests would be strengthened at their expense are undercut by the fact that the UN General Assembly would select experts on the MAD based on their strength of credentials, records of impartiality, and diverse geographic origins. To ensure the MAD’s independence, its experts could not be nationals of, permanent residents of, or have financial interests with council member states.
Moreover, Russia and China could rely on the MAD’s independence to serve as a check on calls for action if motivated by “Western Interventionism.” Further, the MAD could not advocate intervention in P5 homelands, or regime change anywhere. Rather, its draft resolutions must seek to bring warring parties to negotiate, and verify peaceful means cannot stop atrocities before recommending using force.
The MAD’s creation would begin to erode the P5 veto shield which allows and even encourages allied state perpetrators to commit atrocities. It would not on its own bring peace to Israel; yet, without it, there is little hope of peace ever being established. I call on world leaders everywhere to urgently consider this essential reform at this critical moment.
The writer is a conflict researcher who specializes in atrocity prevention and the Protection of Civilians in conflict zones. He has worked most recently with UN peacekeeping. He co-authored a report to the International Peace Institute in 2020, Transitioning to Peace: Recommendations for a Future UN Presence in Sudan, outlining steps the Security Council should take to protect civilians and human rights in Darfur in preparation for the withdrawal of the peacekeeping mission, UNAMID. Currently, he is a graduate student at Columbia University specializing in international conflict resolution and UN studies.