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Argument: "Uniting for Peace" Resolutions to bypass UN vetoes are only symbolic
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Supporting evidence
- Brendan I. Koerner. "Can You Bypass a U.N. Security Council Veto?". Slate.com. March 12, 2003 - "There's an esoteric maneuver to get around a threatened veto: invoking the obscure U.N. Resolution 377, also known as the "Uniting for Peace" Resolution. In early 1950, the United States pushed through the resolution as a means of circumventing possible Soviet vetoes. The measure states that, in the event that the Security Council cannot maintain international peace, a matter can be taken up by the General Assembly. This procedure has been used 10 times so far, most notably in 1956 to help resolve the Suez Canal crisis. Britain and France, which were occupying parts of the canal at the time, vetoed Security Council resolutions calling for their withdrawal. The United States called for an emergency "Uniting for Peace" session of the General Assembly, which passed a withdrawal resolution. (A simple majority vote is required.) Britain and France pulled out shortly after.
- Yet these non-Security Council resolutions are more symbolic pressure tactics than anything else. The council still maintains responsibility for enforcement, so naysayers among the permanent members can likely prevent the actual dispatching of troops. Nor, as history has shown, will all nations buckle like Britain and France did in 1956. In 1980, the General Assembly convened in a 'Uniting for Peace' session and passed a resolution demanding the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Soviets merely shrugged."
- Thomas Weiss. "The Illusion of UN Security Council Reform". Washington Quarterly 2003 - "Another means of skirting the veto entails adopting “the General Assembly in Emergency Special Session under the ‘Uniting for Peace’ procedure.'26 Although this process has been used only three times to authorize military action—the last in the early 1960s for the Congo—it employs the idea of coalitions of the willing, which after all is one of the oldest aims of diplomats. Biting boycotts, for example, were set up against Italy by the League of Nations in the Abyssinian case of the late 1930s and by the UN against South Africa until the end of apartheid in the early 1990s. The original 'Uniting for Peace' resolution even contained a clause referring to the voluntary creation of a UN force in cases where the Security Council was unable to act, that is, when it was paralyzed by the veto.
- Acting through the General Assembly can be useful to circumvent a veto-wielding member of the Security Council in the clear international minority, but such a route has its limits. Once a security matter has been brought before the General Assembly, the main hurdle it faces is the requirement to have a two-thirds majority of members present and voting. Although the decision on the matter would only be a 'recommendation' (whereas the Security Council’s decisions are obligations), the necessary backing in the General Assembly might have a moral and political weight sufficient to categorize the use of force as 'legal' even without the Security Council’s endorsement. In such a case, the action would certainly be regarded as legitimate."
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