Security council reform

Abstract

Over its first fifty years of existence the United Nations has become an established part of the firmament of international relations, involved in a massive range of activities, many of which are the essence of the functioning of international society. Despite divergent views of the UN Member States as to the actual value of the world Organisation, the need persists for an institution which can, in some way, however imperfectly, articulate the twin ideas of a universal society of states and the cosmopolitan universality of humanity. The Security Council wields considerable power and is precisely the single most important organ of the United Nations. Yet its revival has accentuated the gap between the Security Council itself and Member States not represented on it, and between the Permanent Members and temporary members of the Security Council, thus generating demands that its composition should no longer be dominated by the victors of the Second World War, but should instead accurately reflect the modern world.