Anthony Albanese bids for Australia to secure permanent role on United Nations Security Council
Australia has launched a bid to join the increasingly gridlocked institution. What is at stake?
Australia is bidding for a spot on the United Nations Security Council, with Anthony Albanese pushing for reform of the institution to ensure it remains a force for good.
The body has been gripped by geopolitical factionalism and gridlock, almost immediately after the body’s inception. The body split into a Western, “first world” US, France, UK bloc and a communist Soviet Union, China bloc that stymied each other during the Cold War and beyond.
The Security Council has proved flat footed and unable to act in any substantial way during some of the biggest threats to international peace, including: the Vietnam War, Russia-Afghanistan War, the Rwandan genocide, Syrian civil war, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and subsequent full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the Hamas-Israel war.
What is the Security Council’s function inside the UN?
The Security Council is the most powerful decision making body of the United Nations and is charged with “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security”.
The Security Council has five permanent members – the permanent five or ‘P5’ – and ten rotating members. The P5 are largely the five largest victors of WW2: the US, China, Russia, France, and the UK.
The P5 each hold veto power on substantive decisions of the Security Council. Middle powers, including Australia’s HV ‘Doc’ Evatt, lobbied to remove the P5 veto power during the San Francisco Conference in 1945 but were ultimately unsuccessful.
The ten non-permanent members of the Security Council do not hold veto power and are only granted a seat for two years. There is a regional distribution of seats that ensures the different regions of the world are represented on the body at any given time.
The most powerful cudgel wielded by the UN Security Council is the power to order interventions into “threats to the peace, breaches or the peace, and acts of aggression”.
This compares to the relatively lesser powers of the General Assembly – the plenary organ that includes all the UN member states – which can generally pass resolutions with a simple majority that have little to no enforcement power and determines the budget of the UN.
Who is on the Security Council and why is Australia trying to get a seat on the body?
Anthony Albanese has lobbied for Australia to get a seat on the Security Council in the 2029-30 session.
The last time Australia sat on the Security Council was in 2013-14.
Currently, the non-permanent members of the Security Council are: Algeria, Sierra Leone, and Somalia from the African group; Denmark and Greece from the Western European and Others group; Guyana and Panama from the Latin American and Caribbean group; Pakistan and South Korea from the Asia-Pacific group, and Slovenia from the Eastern European group.
Australia belongs in the “Western European and Others” grouping for membership of the body.
Strategic Analysis Australia director Peter Jennings said Australia would gain diplomatic prestige out of a non-permanent seat.
“The benefit you get is profile, you do obviously get a seat at a very significant table of countries, and you get to help to shape whatever the particular events are of the moment,” he said.
Mr Jennings suggested Labor bidding for a security council seat may force it to have a more expansive foreign policy agenda.
“One of the complaints I have about the government’s current approach to foreign policy – it’s doing very little with it,” he said.
“There’s no list of impressive achievements it wants to pursue beyond a little bit of theatre on Palestine.
“Where’s the arms control initiative, where’s the initiative for cooperation on space, or how to position more effectively on artificial intelligence?
“The cupboard seems to be bare.
“If you want to get that seat on the security council, what’s the platform? Why’s it worth a country’s time to vote for us?
“Maybe this is going to create a requirement for a more imaginative foreign policy agenda.”
Gridlock in the Security Council
The Security Council’s most awesome power is the ability to call on or authorise UN member states to contribute troops to “take action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security”.
It falls more broadly under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which empowers the UN Security Council to take non-military or military action in response to “threats to the peace, breaches or the peace, and acts of aggression”.
Chapter VII interventions have been rare and diminishing over time.
The most prominent example was the UN force that went to South Korea’s aid once the USSR-backed North Korea invaded the south in 1950. The Soviet Union at the time was boycotting the Security Council and therefore did not exercise its veto power. China at the time was represented by the Kuomintang, not the Communist Party led by Mao Zedong which had successfully overthrown the government.
The UN Security Council has also issued Chapter VII intervention resolutions in Somalia, in former Yugoslavia, and during the Gulf War.
Mr Jennings said the China-Russia bloc and the veto power almost “guarantees the Security Council is not going to be in a strong position to do good or affect change on big strategic issues”.
“A problem is China and Russia with the veto at a time when both countries are really out to upset or disturb the international order,” he said.
“More generally, the Trump critique of the UN as a failing institution is perhaps true. It’s a low point.
“It can from time to time help in unexpected ways – the UN was pretty good in prosecuting the shootdown of the Malaysian aircraft over Ukraine. The Russians didn’t actually use their veto power.
“They were helpful to us when we sent our stabilisation force into East Timor.
“It’s only as good as the members.”
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