The Wire

The most powerful body within the UN, the Security Council is made up of 15 members, 5 with permanent status and the right to veto any decision of the council and 10 non-permanent members who are elected every 2 years. The Council’s failure in it’s role to keep the peace in world affairs has been blamed on many factors, one being the reluctance of the world’s most powerful countries to devote the resources and troops necessary for peacekeeping. The politics of the Security Council were catapulted onto the world stage in 2002 when the council failed to back the United State’s push to invade Iraq. Erica Vowles spoke to James Paul the executive director of the Global Policy Forum, a group representing the interests of non-government within the UN, Margaret Reynolds President of the United Nations Association of Australia, and Professor Daniele Archibugi, a specialist on UN Reform and a visiting lecturer at the London School of Economics, about the weaknesses of the Secutiry Council and obstacles in the way of reform.