US Security Council veto runs counter to post Cold War trend
( 2001-03-28 15:59 ) (7 )

The United States on Tuesday became the first member of the UN Security Council in over two years to use its veto, bucking a trend towards consensus which has prevailed since the Cold War.

Only the five permanent members have the power to veto council decisions and none had done so since February 25, 1999, when China opposed renewing a UN force peacekeeping in Macedonia.

The veto power, enshrined in Article 27 of the United Nations Charter, is one of the most controversial features of the Security Council and one of the sharpest spurs to its reform.

For that reason, the permanent five -- the P5 as they are known in diplomatic jargon -- have used their power sparingly in recent years.

Tuesday's veto of a text which Washington judged too critical of Israel was the 73rd cast by the US representative in the 55-year history of the United Nations.

Until Tuesday, only nine vetoes had been cast by any of the P5 in the past decade.

The previous US veto, on March 21, 1997, blocked condemnation of the building of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem.

On December 18 last year, the United States threatened to veto another draft on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but a "no" vote was unnecessary because supporters of the text could rally only eight of the nine votes required to adopt a resolution.

The council votes in public, with those in favour raising their hands first at the horseshoe table. Seeing that the "ayes" were insufficient on that occasion, the United States joined six other members in abstaining.

To date, Russia has used its veto 120 times, the United States 73, Britain 32, France 18 and China five times.

But the record since 1946 shows a shift away from confrontation towards consensus.

More than half Russia's vetoes (a total of 81) were cast (by the Soviet Union) in the first 10 years of the UN's existence.

In the same period, 121 resolutions were passed by the council.

Since then, the number of adopted resolutions has mushroomed: a total of 637 were passed in the final decade of the 20th century, almost as many as in the whole of the preceding 44 years.

The first US veto was cast on March 17, 1970, on the situation in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), a question which attracted most of the early British vetoes.

Most US vetoes have dealt with the Middle East, South Africa or US actions in Central America.

(Agencies)