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UN Security Council

The United Nations Security Council was formed in 1945 with the purpose of maintaining international peace and security. It is comprised of fifteen members, ten of which are temporary members serving two-year terms. The remaining five, France, the United Kingdom, People’s Republic of China, Russia, and the United States of America are permanent members of the Security Council and have the power to veto any substantive resolution. The temporary members are voted in by the General Assembly on a regional basis. The current members serving out their two-year terms are the following:

 

  • Bolivia

  • Egypt

  • Ethiopia

  • Italy

  • Japan

  • Kazakhstan

  • Senegal

  • Sweden

  • Ukraine

  • Uruguay

 

The United Nations was formed in the aftermath of the Second World War as a replacement for the failed League of Nations. The current P5 nations were the world powers on the winning side at the time of the formation of the UN. The official inception of the UN occurred on October 24th 1945 while the first meeting of the Security Council took place on the 17th of January 1946 in London. Since then the Security Council has authorized peacekeeping and military missions in South Korea during the Korean War, during the Suez Canal crisis, in the Congo, West Guinea, Cyprus, Iraq, and Namibia, as well as many others with varying degrees of success.

 

Despite enjoying some successes in its various missions, the Security Council has also faced much criticism for its failures in various instances such as the Rwandan Genocide, the UN mission to Bosnia, and the UN mission in Somalia as well as occasions in which member states acted without Security Council authorization as is the case of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

 

The topics for the UNSC will be:

 

1. The crisis in Myanmar

 

2. Escalating tensions in the Korean Peninsula 

 

3. The situation in South Sudan

 

United Nations Security Council - Background Guide:

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