The UN Charter vests the 15-member United Nations Security Council (UNSC) with the weighty responsibility of maintaining peace and security in our world. If we look back over the 80 years since this international system came into being, emerging from the debris of World War II, one can only adjudge it an abysmal failure. It could not guarantee peace in the second half of the 20^th century, while the first quarter of the 21^st  has witnessed deadly wars raging from Afghanistan to Ukraine, and especially throughout Africa and across the Middle East.

International power structures date back to a world barely recognizable compared with today. The UN Charter was written two decades before decolonisation of most African and Asian countries. Starting with 51 states in 1945, UN membership was roughly one quarter of its current size, 193 states. The Security Council is a model of disequilibrium, with five states holding permanent membership (the P5), including three close strategic allies, the US, UK and France, and four of them – Russia – counting as countries in the Global North. Meanwhile, the Global South is significantly underrepresented with Africa (54 countries), Asia (48) and Latin America and the Caribbean (33) having only one permanent member between them - China.

A P5 member can typically block Security Council efforts to prevent or resolve wider conflagration with its veto or threat of veto. Russia/the USSR and the US have used this mechanism more than any other members and it has become the most widely recognized factor in the dysfunction of the UNSC. By contrast, the Council derives its legitimacy and credibility from how member states fulfil their mandate by exercising powers on behalf of other countries, in addition to its membership representation.

The rotating membership of the 10 non-permanent Council seats are key to establishing this credibility and legitimacy.  Members are elected by the General Assembly (that is all UN member states) for two years. Every January, five members join the Council, and five others leave having completed their term. At any time there are three members from Africa (the A3), two from Asia and the Pacific, two from Latin America and the Caribbean, two from Western Europe and “Others”, and one from Eastern Europe. The current configuration is – Algeria, Mozambique, Sierra Leone; Japan, South Korea; Ecuador, Guyana; Malta, Switzerland; Slovenia.

The overrepresentation is clear with the Western Europe/Others group compounding the outsized influence of three P5 members, with the possibility of a supportive Eastern European country making a voting block of six. Meanwhile, examples of underrepresentation are rife – just ask the one billion citizens of India! The lack of an Arab seat is also of consequence, given the 22 Arab states, their 0.5 billion inhabitants and the massive geo-strategic significance of their region. 

There is a workaround to counterbalance the MENA’s absence from UNSC quotas. Since 1968, an Arab country has always been represented alternately as either an African or an Asia-Pacific group member. For 2024-25, Algeria takes this slot, as one of the A3. In 2022-23, the United Arab Emirates sat as part of the Asia quota. Bahrain is expected to represent Asia from 2026.

This fragmentation of the Arab states’ representation in the Council dilutes its cohesiveness, while the complexities of relations with their neighbours in Africa and Asia can further erode their impact. For example, when Egypt and Ethiopia were in the Council in 2017, there was justifiable concern about hostile bilateral relations over water rights and the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile. The issue loomed over proceedings and, as things transpired, the GERD itself could only be addressed after both countries’ terms ended.

How have such factors impacted the region’s ability to shape the Council’s agenda and outcomes on the Middle East? It is hard to find a consistent answer given the incongruence of two principles applying to countries elected as non-permanent Council members. States should represent their regions, lending legitimacy to UNSC resolutions related to specific regional questions – but states should also follow individual national interests, and this sometimes comes at the expense of bilateral or multilateral relations.

Let’s look at this in practice:

UNSC Resolution 1973 imposed a no-fly zone over Libya in 2011 and ushered in the NATO bombing campaign. With five countries (Brazil, China, Germany, India and Russia) abstaining, Arab support was critical for the adoption of this position by the Council, provided by Lebanon’s affirmative vote, representing a consensus among the League of Arab States (LAS) at the time.

UNSCR 2334 (December 2016) reaffirmed the illegality of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian lands and called on countries to “distinguish between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967”. The resolution was adopted 14-0 in the last days of the Obama administration (much to the anger of Israel). The draft had initially been presented by Egypt, but the day before the vote happened its President Sisi was “persuaded” by President-elect Trump – not even in office yet – to withdraw the proposal, and Egypt complied. The following day, four other non-permanent Council members tabled the same draft in Egypt’s stead, and it was supported across the board, except for the US abstaining. Malaysia, New Zealand, Senegal and Venezuela deserve recognition for taking this stand after the Arab UNSC member caved in to US pressure.

In February 2020, another Arab state found itself in a similar fix, facing a frontal US attack, and the result was the same. Alongside Indonesia, Tunisia had circulated a draft resolution rejecting President Trump’s ultimately abortive Middle East peace plan, the so-called “Deal of the Century”, as a breach of international law. UNSC diplomacy had proceeded in full expectation of the US veto. This time Washington’s pressure not only led to the withdrawal of the draft but also foreshadowed the sacking of Tunisia’s highly respected ambassador, Moncef Baati. For President Kais Saied, fresh from his election, it seemed that pleasing the US administration was worth the price of Tunisia’s humiliation and that of its ambassador to the UN.

UNSCR 2624 in February 2022 by contrast was a national interest win for the United Arab Emirates during its membership; this text adopted the nomenclature of “the Houthi terrorist group” and added Yemen’s Houthi movement, officially known as Ansar Allah, as a sanctionable entity on a list that had previously included only individuals, such as the group’s leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi. Four states, Brazil, Ireland, Mexico and Norway, abstained over concerns the terminology was used absent of an internationally agreed definition of “terrorism” and the potential for adverse humanitarian consequences for Yemenis. Meanwhile, veto-wielding Russia, previously the main obstacle to this designation, voted in favour of the Emirates text. An explanation for this unexpected Russian support could be found in the Emirati abstention votes few days earlier on draft resolutions critical of Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

A more holistic note was struck by Kuwait during its term as elected Arab representative in 2018-19. This included the adoption of a groundbreaking Presidential Statement to promote closer cooperation between the UN and the LAS, leading to concrete steps taken by the two bodies. Kuwait was also behind the Council’s first resolution on persons missing in armed conflict – an issue with global resonance and specific national importance in the case of Kuwaitis missing after the Iraqi occupation of 1990-91. Kuwait, with fellow Council member Sweden, was also behind UNSCR 2401 calling for a month-long ceasefire throughout Syria, unanimously adopted after intense negotiations and despite much US and UK pressure to force Russia to use its veto (by tabling the draft resolution before consensus had been reached).

The war on Gaza has tested Arab diplomacy in unprecedented ways. It was not the UAE but Malta that ushered the first adopted resolution on Gaza, UNSCR 2712, to facilitate essential goods and services reaching Gaza’s population in November 2023. Earlier and subsequent negotiations, and use of the US veto, have been extensively covered in the media. But UNSCR 2728 stands out as the first resolution adopted in favour of a (temporary) ceasefire, nearly six months into Israel’s campaign. The text, introduced by 10-non-permanent Council members, demanded “an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan” – even though there were only two weeks left of the Islamic holy month – and Israel continued its relentless assault on Gaza with the backing of the US, which had abstained in the March 25 UNSC vote.

The litany of failure and weakness stands in contrast to Kuwait’s performance as a state which achieved results by balancing its responsibility for regional representation and national interest. There is no guarantee having an exclusively dedicated Arab regional seat on the Security Council would bring more examples to the fore. You only have to consider the dysfunction of the LAS to recognise the presumptuousness of such an expectation. But the emergence of an A3 voice, with one member state typically communicating a consolidated position on behalf of the African Union, is an example to follow. Certainly, the current split between African and Asian seat quotas blocks even the emergence of a channel for a consistent Arab voice as a starting point.

This article is an edited version of a talk delivered at the Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford University on November 8, 2024.