Which country benefited the most from UN Security Council vetoes?












5















By benefited I mean avoided any sort of a negative decisions that could have been made by the UN Security Council if a big power didn't use the veto, such as being condemned, criticized, sanctioned, etc.










share|improve this question




















  • 7





    While some stats might be easy to find, it's not a very interesting question because a lot things don't get put to the Council if there's a threat of veto. The stuff that gets put to a vote in such cases is often a case of using the vote as a public relations venue.

    – Fizz
    19 hours ago






  • 4





    FYI: just for veto counts by country: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UNSC_veto.svg

    – Fizz
    18 hours ago






  • 2





    The problem with such a statistic is that it is difficult to count cases where people realized that it is pointless to propose a specific resolution because it would certainly get vetoed and didn't even try.

    – Philipp
    17 hours ago


















5















By benefited I mean avoided any sort of a negative decisions that could have been made by the UN Security Council if a big power didn't use the veto, such as being condemned, criticized, sanctioned, etc.










share|improve this question




















  • 7





    While some stats might be easy to find, it's not a very interesting question because a lot things don't get put to the Council if there's a threat of veto. The stuff that gets put to a vote in such cases is often a case of using the vote as a public relations venue.

    – Fizz
    19 hours ago






  • 4





    FYI: just for veto counts by country: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UNSC_veto.svg

    – Fizz
    18 hours ago






  • 2





    The problem with such a statistic is that it is difficult to count cases where people realized that it is pointless to propose a specific resolution because it would certainly get vetoed and didn't even try.

    – Philipp
    17 hours ago
















5












5








5








By benefited I mean avoided any sort of a negative decisions that could have been made by the UN Security Council if a big power didn't use the veto, such as being condemned, criticized, sanctioned, etc.










share|improve this question
















By benefited I mean avoided any sort of a negative decisions that could have been made by the UN Security Council if a big power didn't use the veto, such as being condemned, criticized, sanctioned, etc.







united-nations veto






share|improve this question















share|improve this question













share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited 11 hours ago









reirab

4,1841626




4,1841626










asked 19 hours ago









MocasMocas

410312




410312








  • 7





    While some stats might be easy to find, it's not a very interesting question because a lot things don't get put to the Council if there's a threat of veto. The stuff that gets put to a vote in such cases is often a case of using the vote as a public relations venue.

    – Fizz
    19 hours ago






  • 4





    FYI: just for veto counts by country: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UNSC_veto.svg

    – Fizz
    18 hours ago






  • 2





    The problem with such a statistic is that it is difficult to count cases where people realized that it is pointless to propose a specific resolution because it would certainly get vetoed and didn't even try.

    – Philipp
    17 hours ago
















  • 7





    While some stats might be easy to find, it's not a very interesting question because a lot things don't get put to the Council if there's a threat of veto. The stuff that gets put to a vote in such cases is often a case of using the vote as a public relations venue.

    – Fizz
    19 hours ago






  • 4





    FYI: just for veto counts by country: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UNSC_veto.svg

    – Fizz
    18 hours ago






  • 2





    The problem with such a statistic is that it is difficult to count cases where people realized that it is pointless to propose a specific resolution because it would certainly get vetoed and didn't even try.

    – Philipp
    17 hours ago










7




7





While some stats might be easy to find, it's not a very interesting question because a lot things don't get put to the Council if there's a threat of veto. The stuff that gets put to a vote in such cases is often a case of using the vote as a public relations venue.

– Fizz
19 hours ago





While some stats might be easy to find, it's not a very interesting question because a lot things don't get put to the Council if there's a threat of veto. The stuff that gets put to a vote in such cases is often a case of using the vote as a public relations venue.

– Fizz
19 hours ago




4




4





FYI: just for veto counts by country: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UNSC_veto.svg

– Fizz
18 hours ago





FYI: just for veto counts by country: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UNSC_veto.svg

– Fizz
18 hours ago




2




2





The problem with such a statistic is that it is difficult to count cases where people realized that it is pointless to propose a specific resolution because it would certainly get vetoed and didn't even try.

– Philipp
17 hours ago







The problem with such a statistic is that it is difficult to count cases where people realized that it is pointless to propose a specific resolution because it would certainly get vetoed and didn't even try.

– Philipp
17 hours ago












2 Answers
2






active

oldest

votes


















20














You can find the list of vetoed resolutions on Wikipedia.



Many of the vetoes are related to the Middle East, with the US or Russia exercising their veto power for the benefit of a local ally. Other regular veto-inducing topics tend to be more localized in time -- vetoes on new memberships, Cyprus conflict, India-Pakistan conflict, South African apartheid, etc.



Cmd+F is a poor proxy to explore the data, because resolutions that benefit e.g. Israel don't always mention the latter explicitly, and you'll need to take the time to massage the data in order to get precise stats. But from cursory inspection, Israel seems to top your list, with over 20 vetoes in favor; and Syria, with a dozen or so vetoes in favor, seems like a good contender for second place.



Also, Fizz and Philipp are spot on in their comments that sometimes, resolutions don't even get voted on to begin with, because it's clear they'll get a veto. And as point out by Fizz, the stuff that gets put to a vote in such cases is often a case of using the vote as a public relations venue. So take these stats with a fistful of salt.






share|improve this answer


























  • maybe worth pointing out that if there i, for example, a disproportionate amount of resolutions on one country, the chances are they'll get more vetos. Which makes the question a bit pointless.

    – Orangesandlemons
    15 hours ago






  • 1





    @Orangesandlemons: that's what the last paragraph says for all practical purposes.

    – Denis de Bernardy
    14 hours ago






  • 1





    It should be pointed out that the Middle Eastern Block of votes is pretty strong in the UN, and these two nations are driving a lot of Middle Eastern Politics.

    – hszmv
    8 hours ago



















12














There are probably no stats exactly for what you ask, but the common examples of often vetoed issues are




  • the Molotov doctrine of vetoing new UN members (pre-1970) because the UN general assembly didn't have enough votes (two-thirds majority) in favor of admitting the Eastern Europe Soviet-client states (like Albania, Bulgaria, Hungaria, or Romania).


  • the much more recent and more formal Negroponte doctrine of (US) vetoing unilateral condemnations of Israel in relation to the Palestinian conflict. But informally, a similar US doctrine existed in the 1970s, with its intensity depending on which party held the presidency.



One article says there were 35 USSR vetoes blocking new members; there's one case of USSR casting 15 such vetoes in one day on 13 December 1955. A Security Council's report phrases it (in its longer, research version) as




In the early years, the veto was cast primarily
by the USSR, with a considerable
number of these vetoes used to block the
admission of a new member state due to concerns
about the composition of the General
Assembly in the context of the Cold War.




The formal reason why the General Assembly usually rejected the Soviet clients was a violation of article 4.



Just blocking new admissions, of course, underestimates how many times the USSR vetoed self-servingly.



According to one source, well before the formal Negroponte doctrine, between 1970-1993 the US vetoed a Israel-related resolution 29 times; and that's out of 69 US vetoes in this time frame. How many such votes were cast varied a lot with the US presidency; e.g. a lot fewer were vetoed by the Carter administration (1) compared to Reagan's 18 vetoes. A more recent 2017 article claims that Israel benefited from 43 US vetoes at the UN. Even a Security Council's own report from 2015 says




Since 1970, the US has used the veto far more than any other permanent member, most frequently to block decisions that it regards as detrimental to the interests of Israel.




So I guess this bit is not too controversial, statistically.



Also




The use of the veto by Russia and China rose considerably since 2011, with the conflict in Syria accounting for the bulk of these. Since 2011, Russia cast 17 vetoes, 12 of which were on Syria. Six of the seven Chinese vetoes during this period were over Syria and one was on Venezuela.




So that makes Syria a beneficiary of 18 vetoes recently. Bware however that there's an issue of double counting here, because some of these resolutions, more precisely 6 of the 11 resolutions on Syria vetoed until 2014 (see next source) were actually vetoed jointly by both China and Russia.



There's one 2014 press article by a University of Westminster lecturer with a breakdown by source and "beneficiary".



enter image description here



The data is sourced from the UN (obviously), but I think the breakdown is author's own work, although that's not made terribly clear in the article. The graph clearly excludes the votes against memberships of new countries; that shows you how difficult it is to produce meaningful research on this. And then there's the combined version by issue/beneficiary, but with same caveat:



enter image description here



Also, I'm not sure if the issues with South-Africa and Namibia were entirely distinct given the long lasting South African Border War. Likewise for Southern Rhodesia. I guess someone could cluster these as "South Africa issue(s)". For balance though, the four Israel related-conflicts (with Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria) are also split in that graph.



Resolutions on South Africa issue(s), including those relating to neighboring Namibia and Southern Rhodesia were also sometimes jointly vetoed by the US, UK, and sometimes by France as well. So there's some double or even triple-counting there. E.g. the very first US veto at the UN was actually jointed with that of the UK, on Southern Rhodesia.






share|improve this answer


























  • Your answer is much more informative than mine IMHO. +1, and bounty coming your way if OP doesn't accept it.

    – Denis de Bernardy
    9 hours ago













  • Also, your answers on Politics and History are disgustingly good -- please keep it up. ;-)

    – Denis de Bernardy
    9 hours ago












Your Answer








StackExchange.ready(function() {
var channelOptions = {
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "475"
};
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);

StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function() {
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled) {
StackExchange.using("snippets", function() {
createEditor();
});
}
else {
createEditor();
}
});

function createEditor() {
StackExchange.prepareEditor({
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: false,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: null,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader: {
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
},
noCode: true, onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
});


}
});














draft saved

draft discarded


















StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fpolitics.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f40270%2fwhich-country-benefited-the-most-from-un-security-council-vetoes%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);

Post as a guest















Required, but never shown

























2 Answers
2






active

oldest

votes








2 Answers
2






active

oldest

votes









active

oldest

votes






active

oldest

votes









20














You can find the list of vetoed resolutions on Wikipedia.



Many of the vetoes are related to the Middle East, with the US or Russia exercising their veto power for the benefit of a local ally. Other regular veto-inducing topics tend to be more localized in time -- vetoes on new memberships, Cyprus conflict, India-Pakistan conflict, South African apartheid, etc.



Cmd+F is a poor proxy to explore the data, because resolutions that benefit e.g. Israel don't always mention the latter explicitly, and you'll need to take the time to massage the data in order to get precise stats. But from cursory inspection, Israel seems to top your list, with over 20 vetoes in favor; and Syria, with a dozen or so vetoes in favor, seems like a good contender for second place.



Also, Fizz and Philipp are spot on in their comments that sometimes, resolutions don't even get voted on to begin with, because it's clear they'll get a veto. And as point out by Fizz, the stuff that gets put to a vote in such cases is often a case of using the vote as a public relations venue. So take these stats with a fistful of salt.






share|improve this answer


























  • maybe worth pointing out that if there i, for example, a disproportionate amount of resolutions on one country, the chances are they'll get more vetos. Which makes the question a bit pointless.

    – Orangesandlemons
    15 hours ago






  • 1





    @Orangesandlemons: that's what the last paragraph says for all practical purposes.

    – Denis de Bernardy
    14 hours ago






  • 1





    It should be pointed out that the Middle Eastern Block of votes is pretty strong in the UN, and these two nations are driving a lot of Middle Eastern Politics.

    – hszmv
    8 hours ago
















20














You can find the list of vetoed resolutions on Wikipedia.



Many of the vetoes are related to the Middle East, with the US or Russia exercising their veto power for the benefit of a local ally. Other regular veto-inducing topics tend to be more localized in time -- vetoes on new memberships, Cyprus conflict, India-Pakistan conflict, South African apartheid, etc.



Cmd+F is a poor proxy to explore the data, because resolutions that benefit e.g. Israel don't always mention the latter explicitly, and you'll need to take the time to massage the data in order to get precise stats. But from cursory inspection, Israel seems to top your list, with over 20 vetoes in favor; and Syria, with a dozen or so vetoes in favor, seems like a good contender for second place.



Also, Fizz and Philipp are spot on in their comments that sometimes, resolutions don't even get voted on to begin with, because it's clear they'll get a veto. And as point out by Fizz, the stuff that gets put to a vote in such cases is often a case of using the vote as a public relations venue. So take these stats with a fistful of salt.






share|improve this answer


























  • maybe worth pointing out that if there i, for example, a disproportionate amount of resolutions on one country, the chances are they'll get more vetos. Which makes the question a bit pointless.

    – Orangesandlemons
    15 hours ago






  • 1





    @Orangesandlemons: that's what the last paragraph says for all practical purposes.

    – Denis de Bernardy
    14 hours ago






  • 1





    It should be pointed out that the Middle Eastern Block of votes is pretty strong in the UN, and these two nations are driving a lot of Middle Eastern Politics.

    – hszmv
    8 hours ago














20












20








20







You can find the list of vetoed resolutions on Wikipedia.



Many of the vetoes are related to the Middle East, with the US or Russia exercising their veto power for the benefit of a local ally. Other regular veto-inducing topics tend to be more localized in time -- vetoes on new memberships, Cyprus conflict, India-Pakistan conflict, South African apartheid, etc.



Cmd+F is a poor proxy to explore the data, because resolutions that benefit e.g. Israel don't always mention the latter explicitly, and you'll need to take the time to massage the data in order to get precise stats. But from cursory inspection, Israel seems to top your list, with over 20 vetoes in favor; and Syria, with a dozen or so vetoes in favor, seems like a good contender for second place.



Also, Fizz and Philipp are spot on in their comments that sometimes, resolutions don't even get voted on to begin with, because it's clear they'll get a veto. And as point out by Fizz, the stuff that gets put to a vote in such cases is often a case of using the vote as a public relations venue. So take these stats with a fistful of salt.






share|improve this answer















You can find the list of vetoed resolutions on Wikipedia.



Many of the vetoes are related to the Middle East, with the US or Russia exercising their veto power for the benefit of a local ally. Other regular veto-inducing topics tend to be more localized in time -- vetoes on new memberships, Cyprus conflict, India-Pakistan conflict, South African apartheid, etc.



Cmd+F is a poor proxy to explore the data, because resolutions that benefit e.g. Israel don't always mention the latter explicitly, and you'll need to take the time to massage the data in order to get precise stats. But from cursory inspection, Israel seems to top your list, with over 20 vetoes in favor; and Syria, with a dozen or so vetoes in favor, seems like a good contender for second place.



Also, Fizz and Philipp are spot on in their comments that sometimes, resolutions don't even get voted on to begin with, because it's clear they'll get a veto. And as point out by Fizz, the stuff that gets put to a vote in such cases is often a case of using the vote as a public relations venue. So take these stats with a fistful of salt.







share|improve this answer














share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited 17 hours ago

























answered 17 hours ago









Denis de BernardyDenis de Bernardy

14.6k33967




14.6k33967













  • maybe worth pointing out that if there i, for example, a disproportionate amount of resolutions on one country, the chances are they'll get more vetos. Which makes the question a bit pointless.

    – Orangesandlemons
    15 hours ago






  • 1





    @Orangesandlemons: that's what the last paragraph says for all practical purposes.

    – Denis de Bernardy
    14 hours ago






  • 1





    It should be pointed out that the Middle Eastern Block of votes is pretty strong in the UN, and these two nations are driving a lot of Middle Eastern Politics.

    – hszmv
    8 hours ago



















  • maybe worth pointing out that if there i, for example, a disproportionate amount of resolutions on one country, the chances are they'll get more vetos. Which makes the question a bit pointless.

    – Orangesandlemons
    15 hours ago






  • 1





    @Orangesandlemons: that's what the last paragraph says for all practical purposes.

    – Denis de Bernardy
    14 hours ago






  • 1





    It should be pointed out that the Middle Eastern Block of votes is pretty strong in the UN, and these two nations are driving a lot of Middle Eastern Politics.

    – hszmv
    8 hours ago

















maybe worth pointing out that if there i, for example, a disproportionate amount of resolutions on one country, the chances are they'll get more vetos. Which makes the question a bit pointless.

– Orangesandlemons
15 hours ago





maybe worth pointing out that if there i, for example, a disproportionate amount of resolutions on one country, the chances are they'll get more vetos. Which makes the question a bit pointless.

– Orangesandlemons
15 hours ago




1




1





@Orangesandlemons: that's what the last paragraph says for all practical purposes.

– Denis de Bernardy
14 hours ago





@Orangesandlemons: that's what the last paragraph says for all practical purposes.

– Denis de Bernardy
14 hours ago




1




1





It should be pointed out that the Middle Eastern Block of votes is pretty strong in the UN, and these two nations are driving a lot of Middle Eastern Politics.

– hszmv
8 hours ago





It should be pointed out that the Middle Eastern Block of votes is pretty strong in the UN, and these two nations are driving a lot of Middle Eastern Politics.

– hszmv
8 hours ago











12














There are probably no stats exactly for what you ask, but the common examples of often vetoed issues are




  • the Molotov doctrine of vetoing new UN members (pre-1970) because the UN general assembly didn't have enough votes (two-thirds majority) in favor of admitting the Eastern Europe Soviet-client states (like Albania, Bulgaria, Hungaria, or Romania).


  • the much more recent and more formal Negroponte doctrine of (US) vetoing unilateral condemnations of Israel in relation to the Palestinian conflict. But informally, a similar US doctrine existed in the 1970s, with its intensity depending on which party held the presidency.



One article says there were 35 USSR vetoes blocking new members; there's one case of USSR casting 15 such vetoes in one day on 13 December 1955. A Security Council's report phrases it (in its longer, research version) as




In the early years, the veto was cast primarily
by the USSR, with a considerable
number of these vetoes used to block the
admission of a new member state due to concerns
about the composition of the General
Assembly in the context of the Cold War.




The formal reason why the General Assembly usually rejected the Soviet clients was a violation of article 4.



Just blocking new admissions, of course, underestimates how many times the USSR vetoed self-servingly.



According to one source, well before the formal Negroponte doctrine, between 1970-1993 the US vetoed a Israel-related resolution 29 times; and that's out of 69 US vetoes in this time frame. How many such votes were cast varied a lot with the US presidency; e.g. a lot fewer were vetoed by the Carter administration (1) compared to Reagan's 18 vetoes. A more recent 2017 article claims that Israel benefited from 43 US vetoes at the UN. Even a Security Council's own report from 2015 says




Since 1970, the US has used the veto far more than any other permanent member, most frequently to block decisions that it regards as detrimental to the interests of Israel.




So I guess this bit is not too controversial, statistically.



Also




The use of the veto by Russia and China rose considerably since 2011, with the conflict in Syria accounting for the bulk of these. Since 2011, Russia cast 17 vetoes, 12 of which were on Syria. Six of the seven Chinese vetoes during this period were over Syria and one was on Venezuela.




So that makes Syria a beneficiary of 18 vetoes recently. Bware however that there's an issue of double counting here, because some of these resolutions, more precisely 6 of the 11 resolutions on Syria vetoed until 2014 (see next source) were actually vetoed jointly by both China and Russia.



There's one 2014 press article by a University of Westminster lecturer with a breakdown by source and "beneficiary".



enter image description here



The data is sourced from the UN (obviously), but I think the breakdown is author's own work, although that's not made terribly clear in the article. The graph clearly excludes the votes against memberships of new countries; that shows you how difficult it is to produce meaningful research on this. And then there's the combined version by issue/beneficiary, but with same caveat:



enter image description here



Also, I'm not sure if the issues with South-Africa and Namibia were entirely distinct given the long lasting South African Border War. Likewise for Southern Rhodesia. I guess someone could cluster these as "South Africa issue(s)". For balance though, the four Israel related-conflicts (with Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria) are also split in that graph.



Resolutions on South Africa issue(s), including those relating to neighboring Namibia and Southern Rhodesia were also sometimes jointly vetoed by the US, UK, and sometimes by France as well. So there's some double or even triple-counting there. E.g. the very first US veto at the UN was actually jointed with that of the UK, on Southern Rhodesia.






share|improve this answer


























  • Your answer is much more informative than mine IMHO. +1, and bounty coming your way if OP doesn't accept it.

    – Denis de Bernardy
    9 hours ago













  • Also, your answers on Politics and History are disgustingly good -- please keep it up. ;-)

    – Denis de Bernardy
    9 hours ago
















12














There are probably no stats exactly for what you ask, but the common examples of often vetoed issues are




  • the Molotov doctrine of vetoing new UN members (pre-1970) because the UN general assembly didn't have enough votes (two-thirds majority) in favor of admitting the Eastern Europe Soviet-client states (like Albania, Bulgaria, Hungaria, or Romania).


  • the much more recent and more formal Negroponte doctrine of (US) vetoing unilateral condemnations of Israel in relation to the Palestinian conflict. But informally, a similar US doctrine existed in the 1970s, with its intensity depending on which party held the presidency.



One article says there were 35 USSR vetoes blocking new members; there's one case of USSR casting 15 such vetoes in one day on 13 December 1955. A Security Council's report phrases it (in its longer, research version) as




In the early years, the veto was cast primarily
by the USSR, with a considerable
number of these vetoes used to block the
admission of a new member state due to concerns
about the composition of the General
Assembly in the context of the Cold War.




The formal reason why the General Assembly usually rejected the Soviet clients was a violation of article 4.



Just blocking new admissions, of course, underestimates how many times the USSR vetoed self-servingly.



According to one source, well before the formal Negroponte doctrine, between 1970-1993 the US vetoed a Israel-related resolution 29 times; and that's out of 69 US vetoes in this time frame. How many such votes were cast varied a lot with the US presidency; e.g. a lot fewer were vetoed by the Carter administration (1) compared to Reagan's 18 vetoes. A more recent 2017 article claims that Israel benefited from 43 US vetoes at the UN. Even a Security Council's own report from 2015 says




Since 1970, the US has used the veto far more than any other permanent member, most frequently to block decisions that it regards as detrimental to the interests of Israel.




So I guess this bit is not too controversial, statistically.



Also




The use of the veto by Russia and China rose considerably since 2011, with the conflict in Syria accounting for the bulk of these. Since 2011, Russia cast 17 vetoes, 12 of which were on Syria. Six of the seven Chinese vetoes during this period were over Syria and one was on Venezuela.




So that makes Syria a beneficiary of 18 vetoes recently. Bware however that there's an issue of double counting here, because some of these resolutions, more precisely 6 of the 11 resolutions on Syria vetoed until 2014 (see next source) were actually vetoed jointly by both China and Russia.



There's one 2014 press article by a University of Westminster lecturer with a breakdown by source and "beneficiary".



enter image description here



The data is sourced from the UN (obviously), but I think the breakdown is author's own work, although that's not made terribly clear in the article. The graph clearly excludes the votes against memberships of new countries; that shows you how difficult it is to produce meaningful research on this. And then there's the combined version by issue/beneficiary, but with same caveat:



enter image description here



Also, I'm not sure if the issues with South-Africa and Namibia were entirely distinct given the long lasting South African Border War. Likewise for Southern Rhodesia. I guess someone could cluster these as "South Africa issue(s)". For balance though, the four Israel related-conflicts (with Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria) are also split in that graph.



Resolutions on South Africa issue(s), including those relating to neighboring Namibia and Southern Rhodesia were also sometimes jointly vetoed by the US, UK, and sometimes by France as well. So there's some double or even triple-counting there. E.g. the very first US veto at the UN was actually jointed with that of the UK, on Southern Rhodesia.






share|improve this answer


























  • Your answer is much more informative than mine IMHO. +1, and bounty coming your way if OP doesn't accept it.

    – Denis de Bernardy
    9 hours ago













  • Also, your answers on Politics and History are disgustingly good -- please keep it up. ;-)

    – Denis de Bernardy
    9 hours ago














12












12








12







There are probably no stats exactly for what you ask, but the common examples of often vetoed issues are




  • the Molotov doctrine of vetoing new UN members (pre-1970) because the UN general assembly didn't have enough votes (two-thirds majority) in favor of admitting the Eastern Europe Soviet-client states (like Albania, Bulgaria, Hungaria, or Romania).


  • the much more recent and more formal Negroponte doctrine of (US) vetoing unilateral condemnations of Israel in relation to the Palestinian conflict. But informally, a similar US doctrine existed in the 1970s, with its intensity depending on which party held the presidency.



One article says there were 35 USSR vetoes blocking new members; there's one case of USSR casting 15 such vetoes in one day on 13 December 1955. A Security Council's report phrases it (in its longer, research version) as




In the early years, the veto was cast primarily
by the USSR, with a considerable
number of these vetoes used to block the
admission of a new member state due to concerns
about the composition of the General
Assembly in the context of the Cold War.




The formal reason why the General Assembly usually rejected the Soviet clients was a violation of article 4.



Just blocking new admissions, of course, underestimates how many times the USSR vetoed self-servingly.



According to one source, well before the formal Negroponte doctrine, between 1970-1993 the US vetoed a Israel-related resolution 29 times; and that's out of 69 US vetoes in this time frame. How many such votes were cast varied a lot with the US presidency; e.g. a lot fewer were vetoed by the Carter administration (1) compared to Reagan's 18 vetoes. A more recent 2017 article claims that Israel benefited from 43 US vetoes at the UN. Even a Security Council's own report from 2015 says




Since 1970, the US has used the veto far more than any other permanent member, most frequently to block decisions that it regards as detrimental to the interests of Israel.




So I guess this bit is not too controversial, statistically.



Also




The use of the veto by Russia and China rose considerably since 2011, with the conflict in Syria accounting for the bulk of these. Since 2011, Russia cast 17 vetoes, 12 of which were on Syria. Six of the seven Chinese vetoes during this period were over Syria and one was on Venezuela.




So that makes Syria a beneficiary of 18 vetoes recently. Bware however that there's an issue of double counting here, because some of these resolutions, more precisely 6 of the 11 resolutions on Syria vetoed until 2014 (see next source) were actually vetoed jointly by both China and Russia.



There's one 2014 press article by a University of Westminster lecturer with a breakdown by source and "beneficiary".



enter image description here



The data is sourced from the UN (obviously), but I think the breakdown is author's own work, although that's not made terribly clear in the article. The graph clearly excludes the votes against memberships of new countries; that shows you how difficult it is to produce meaningful research on this. And then there's the combined version by issue/beneficiary, but with same caveat:



enter image description here



Also, I'm not sure if the issues with South-Africa and Namibia were entirely distinct given the long lasting South African Border War. Likewise for Southern Rhodesia. I guess someone could cluster these as "South Africa issue(s)". For balance though, the four Israel related-conflicts (with Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria) are also split in that graph.



Resolutions on South Africa issue(s), including those relating to neighboring Namibia and Southern Rhodesia were also sometimes jointly vetoed by the US, UK, and sometimes by France as well. So there's some double or even triple-counting there. E.g. the very first US veto at the UN was actually jointed with that of the UK, on Southern Rhodesia.






share|improve this answer















There are probably no stats exactly for what you ask, but the common examples of often vetoed issues are




  • the Molotov doctrine of vetoing new UN members (pre-1970) because the UN general assembly didn't have enough votes (two-thirds majority) in favor of admitting the Eastern Europe Soviet-client states (like Albania, Bulgaria, Hungaria, or Romania).


  • the much more recent and more formal Negroponte doctrine of (US) vetoing unilateral condemnations of Israel in relation to the Palestinian conflict. But informally, a similar US doctrine existed in the 1970s, with its intensity depending on which party held the presidency.



One article says there were 35 USSR vetoes blocking new members; there's one case of USSR casting 15 such vetoes in one day on 13 December 1955. A Security Council's report phrases it (in its longer, research version) as




In the early years, the veto was cast primarily
by the USSR, with a considerable
number of these vetoes used to block the
admission of a new member state due to concerns
about the composition of the General
Assembly in the context of the Cold War.




The formal reason why the General Assembly usually rejected the Soviet clients was a violation of article 4.



Just blocking new admissions, of course, underestimates how many times the USSR vetoed self-servingly.



According to one source, well before the formal Negroponte doctrine, between 1970-1993 the US vetoed a Israel-related resolution 29 times; and that's out of 69 US vetoes in this time frame. How many such votes were cast varied a lot with the US presidency; e.g. a lot fewer were vetoed by the Carter administration (1) compared to Reagan's 18 vetoes. A more recent 2017 article claims that Israel benefited from 43 US vetoes at the UN. Even a Security Council's own report from 2015 says




Since 1970, the US has used the veto far more than any other permanent member, most frequently to block decisions that it regards as detrimental to the interests of Israel.




So I guess this bit is not too controversial, statistically.



Also




The use of the veto by Russia and China rose considerably since 2011, with the conflict in Syria accounting for the bulk of these. Since 2011, Russia cast 17 vetoes, 12 of which were on Syria. Six of the seven Chinese vetoes during this period were over Syria and one was on Venezuela.




So that makes Syria a beneficiary of 18 vetoes recently. Bware however that there's an issue of double counting here, because some of these resolutions, more precisely 6 of the 11 resolutions on Syria vetoed until 2014 (see next source) were actually vetoed jointly by both China and Russia.



There's one 2014 press article by a University of Westminster lecturer with a breakdown by source and "beneficiary".



enter image description here



The data is sourced from the UN (obviously), but I think the breakdown is author's own work, although that's not made terribly clear in the article. The graph clearly excludes the votes against memberships of new countries; that shows you how difficult it is to produce meaningful research on this. And then there's the combined version by issue/beneficiary, but with same caveat:



enter image description here



Also, I'm not sure if the issues with South-Africa and Namibia were entirely distinct given the long lasting South African Border War. Likewise for Southern Rhodesia. I guess someone could cluster these as "South Africa issue(s)". For balance though, the four Israel related-conflicts (with Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria) are also split in that graph.



Resolutions on South Africa issue(s), including those relating to neighboring Namibia and Southern Rhodesia were also sometimes jointly vetoed by the US, UK, and sometimes by France as well. So there's some double or even triple-counting there. E.g. the very first US veto at the UN was actually jointed with that of the UK, on Southern Rhodesia.







share|improve this answer














share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited 13 hours ago

























answered 18 hours ago









FizzFizz

13.8k23287




13.8k23287













  • Your answer is much more informative than mine IMHO. +1, and bounty coming your way if OP doesn't accept it.

    – Denis de Bernardy
    9 hours ago













  • Also, your answers on Politics and History are disgustingly good -- please keep it up. ;-)

    – Denis de Bernardy
    9 hours ago



















  • Your answer is much more informative than mine IMHO. +1, and bounty coming your way if OP doesn't accept it.

    – Denis de Bernardy
    9 hours ago













  • Also, your answers on Politics and History are disgustingly good -- please keep it up. ;-)

    – Denis de Bernardy
    9 hours ago

















Your answer is much more informative than mine IMHO. +1, and bounty coming your way if OP doesn't accept it.

– Denis de Bernardy
9 hours ago







Your answer is much more informative than mine IMHO. +1, and bounty coming your way if OP doesn't accept it.

– Denis de Bernardy
9 hours ago















Also, your answers on Politics and History are disgustingly good -- please keep it up. ;-)

– Denis de Bernardy
9 hours ago





Also, your answers on Politics and History are disgustingly good -- please keep it up. ;-)

– Denis de Bernardy
9 hours ago


















draft saved

draft discarded




















































Thanks for contributing an answer to Politics Stack Exchange!


  • Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!

But avoid



  • Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.

  • Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.


To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.




draft saved


draft discarded














StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fpolitics.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f40270%2fwhich-country-benefited-the-most-from-un-security-council-vetoes%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);

Post as a guest















Required, but never shown





















































Required, but never shown














Required, but never shown












Required, but never shown







Required, but never shown

































Required, but never shown














Required, but never shown












Required, but never shown







Required, but never shown







Popular posts from this blog

Knooppunt Holsloot

Altaar (religie)

Gregoriusmis