The Security Council s First Fifty Years

Abstract

The provisions relating to the Security Council in the United Nations Charter of 1995 do not look much different from those in the Charter of 1945. Articles 23 and 27 were amended in 1965 to increase the membership of the Security Council from its original eleven to its present fifteen, with a corresponding change from seven to nine votes for the adoption of resolutions. No change was made in the five permanent members' veto power over substantive matters. Article 109 was amended in 1968 to increase from seven to nine the number of votes in the Security Council needed to complement a twothirds vote in the General Assembly for the convening of a Charter review conference. Otherwise, c'est la meme chose.' Not exactly. The changes over the fifty-year span in the practice of the principal organs of the United Nations are striking, especially in the practice of the Security Council. Some would say that the changes go so far as to weaken the constitutional integrity of the organization.2 Others are more sanguine, viewing most or all of the changes as normal, or at least as acceptable, steps in the development of the UN Charter as a living constitution. In any event, there is little doubt that the legal modalities of, and constraints upon, Security Council action today are not what they were thought to be in 1945.