Just say no! Key moments in the veto’s history

With Russia and China just having vetoed a draft resolution on Syria, it’s worth looking back at some key moments in the history of the veto power, drawn from my book on the Council:  

Summer 1944: At talks in Washington, veto power agreed in principle by the United States, U.K., and Soviet Union.

February 1945: At the Yalta summit, details of the veto power are finalized. Veto may be used on "substantive" resolutions, but not procedural ones.

June 1945: UN Charter signed in San Francisco. The veto power remains intact despite fierce resistance from some states. A U.S. senator attending the conference writes in his diary: "This veto bizness is making it very difficult to maintain any semblance of a fiction of ‘sovereign equality’ among the nations here at Frisco."

February 1946: First use of the veto, by the Soviet Union. The early and frequent resort to the veto power stuns many observers. A few years later, Soviet ambassador Andrei Vishinsky defends frequent use of veto power. "The veto, they say, has been applied 50 times! [It] may well be applied 150 times in such conditions because it is a means of self-defence against the pressure, the dictation which the states that believe themselves to be strongest and mightiest..are trying to exercise against other states in international affairs."

November 1950: In the context of the Korean war, the United States attempts to circumvent the Soviet veto by working through the General Assembly. This "Uniting for Peace" approach was later quietly dropped by the U.S. as the General Assembly became a less friendly political environment, although other states have periodically attempted to use it.

Fall 1956: British and French veto Security Council action during the Suez crisis. This was the first use of the veto power by the British.

August 1968: Soviet Union vetoes Council condemnation of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. American ambassador thunders, "Your veto…may stifle the legal votes of this Council, but it cannot suffocate the soul of a proud people…"

March 1970: United States uses its veto power (with the British) for the first time, on a resolution regarding Rhodesia.

August 1972: The People’s Republic of China, which finally took over the UN seat from Taiwan the previous year, uses its first-ever veto, to oppose the admission of Bangladesh. In general, China shows itself to be reluctant to use the veto except on regional issues, a pattern of restraint that continues to the present.

September 1972: U.S. again uses the veto, on a resolution relating to the Middle East. U.S. Secretary of States describes the use of the veto as "good medicine." During this period, the U.S. develops the practice–still very much alive–of using the veto to squelch Council criticism of Israel.

October 1983: U.S. vetoes Council condemnation of the Grenada invasion.

Early 1987: Then UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar scolds the P5 for their frequent use of the veto power. The veto power, he says, "is not something given to them generously by the membership of the United Nations. The veto power implies that they have to work in order to reach agreement for the peaceful solution of international problems."

With the end of the Cold War, the veto power has been employed much less frequently. There were  no vetoes at all in 1991, 1992, 1996, 1998, 2000 or 2005. Since 2005, however, there’s been at least one veto every year–all by Russia, China, or the United States (Britain and France have become extremely reluctant to deploy the veto). Today’s Syria vote is another data point suggesting that a practice that once appeared to be fading away is likely here to stay.