Editor’s Note: Sofiya Schulze is a young expert in the Global Governance Innovation Network. This commentary is part of the GGIN’s Next Generation Experts series, which aims to elevate youth research and writing. She works at the intersection of global governance and organizational change. This commentary draws on her master’s thesis, Breaking the Deadlock: An Analysis of United Nations Security Council Reform as an Organizational Change Process, written under the supervision of Nathan Clark and guidance of Dr. Vesselin Popovski. The research includes an analysis of Security Council reform negotiations and interviews with Member State representatives, academics, and UN experts.

By Richard Ponzio, Director, Global Governance, Justice & Security Program

The ongoing war in Ukraine, which is now approaching its fifth anniversary, has repeatedly exposed the UN Security Council’s inability to halt armed conflicts, revealing the flaws of its organizational design. With the aggressor being a permanent member of the Security Council, Russia has been able to use its veto to shield itself from binding Council measures addressing its own conduct and to block action aimed at ending the conflict.

The war in Ukraine is not the only conflict where the Security Council fails to perform its primary responsibility to ensure peace and security in the world. Its repeated paralysis across different crises has intensified calls for comprehensive reform of the organization. At the center of the reform debate are the composition of the Council’s five permanent members (P5) and non-permanent members, as well as the P5’s disproportionate power with the privilege of the veto.

Increasing Reform Momentum 

The Council’s composition still largely reflects the geopolitical order established after the Second World War in 1945. Despite significant growth in UN membership following decolonization, many regions remain underrepresented. At the same time, the veto allows the five permanent members, US, China, Russia, UK, and France (the winners of WWII), to block Council resolutions when it conflicts with their own interests or those of their allies.

For 18 years, Member States have been attempting to find consensus over competing positions on a reform model through the Intergovernmental Negotiations on Security Council Reform (IGN). Yet, the process remains stuck in a deadlock of opposing views regarding the size of the Council, equitable regional representation, expansion of permanent membership, and whether the veto power of the P5 should be retained, extended, or limited.

Propelled by a changing geopolitical landscape, challenges requiring effective international collaboration, and declining legitimacy resulting from repeated inaction, the reform ambition has experienced renewed momentum, which is reflected in the Pact for the Future. Adopted in September 2024, the Pact represents a collective political commitment for Member States to work together and advance comprehensive reform of the United Nations. It was proclaimed as “the strongest language […] and the most concrete step towards Council enlargement since 1963” by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. 

The 2025 Elements Paper, a document issued to summarize each year’s negotiation progress, described the Pact as a “historic breakthrough,” ushering in “a bold new era in the IGN process.” Yet the 2025 and 2026 Elements Papers appear to be almost identical, which means that despite renewed momentum and political commitment, the 80th session failed to produce further breakthroughs or clarity on how reform should be approached.

Why Renewed Momentum Has Not Translated into Progress

The deadlock, which persists despite urgency, momentum, and acknowledged political commitment, suggests that the obstacle lies not only in disagreements over what a reformed Security Council should look like, but also in how the reform process is structured. 

Mandated by General Assembly Decision 62/557, the IGN is meant to find the “widest possible political acceptance” among five closely connected reform clusters (categories of membership, the question of the veto, regional representation, size of an enlarged Security Council and Working Methods of the Security Council, and the relationship between the Council and the General Assembly). Since 2022, successive Elements Papers have recorded the position that the five clusters are interlinked and that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.” While this approach is grounded in the need to balance deeply connected and politically sensitive issues of  Security Council reform, the complex nature of the matter leads to an inherently time-consuming debate and creates a circular problem.

This dilemma becomes particularly evident in the debate on “text-based negotiations.” Unlike most intergovernmental negotiations, the IGN does not proceed on the basis of an agreed negotiating text. The informal character allows positions to be repeated without concrete wording being negotiated. While some prominent members such as the G4 strongly advocate to move toward text-based negotiations, groups such as Uniting for Consensus as well as Russia, resist a text-based process, until enough convergence exists across all five clusters. The result is a process that asks Member States to resolve their differences before fully entering the stage designed to negotiate them. Within the five clusters, the veto, as the most impactful structural flaw of the organization, remains one of the main topics of disagreement. 

The Veto: Both a Reform Issue and a Barrier to Reform

In 2022, Russia cast two vetoes on Security Council resolutions condemning its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and rejecting the referendums held in occupied Ukrainian territories, preventing the Security Council from collectively responding to actions threatening international peace and security. Not only can the veto impact individual resolutions, but it also poses a significant structural challenge for reform: It acts as a massive roadblock for possible Charter amendments through the mechanism embedded in Articles 108 and 109 of the Charter. 

Under Article 109, a General Conference to review the Charter can be convened. While the Conference itself can’t be vetoed, any proposed amendment would enter into force only after ratification by two-thirds of UN members, including all five permanent members. Due to this final ratification requirement, it is commonly perceived as unlikely for the P5 to ratify any Charter changes that would limit their veto privileges. 

Many Member States agree that the veto requires a limitation, which has resulted in attempts to limit the veto without amending the Charter. The “Veto Initiative,” introduced in 2022, requires the General Assembly to convene a meeting if a resolution is blocked by a veto. The initiative gives the wider membership an opportunity to debate the blocked action and invites the vetoing state to account for its decision. While it does aim to enhance accountability within the Security Council, it does not legally restrict the use of the veto.

Veto Limitations Provided in the Charter

The UN Charter already contains a clause which legally limits voting rights of Security Council members: Article 27(3) requires a Security Council member that is a party to a dispute to abstain from voting. The clause refers to decisions regarding pacific settlements of disputes (Chapter VI) of the Charter, allowing the Council to call on the parties to resolve their dispute through diplomatic means. As Russia is a direct party to the conflict in Ukraine, its participation in votes concerning the pacific settlements of a conflict it is involved in could have made Article 27(3) applicable. However, no procedure existed to prevent Russia’s participation in the vote. Although Russia’s abstention would not have ended the war automatically, a passed resolution would have sent a strong political signal and increased political pressure on Russia.

In Action 41 of the Pact for the Future, Member States already explicitly committed to fully implementing Article 27(3). This would require agreement on a clear procedure to prevent a “party to a dispute” from voting. So far, there has been limited attention dedicated to this issue. The IGN remains primarily focused on the future composition and working methods of a reformed Council, and there is no working group dedicated to Action 41. Ahead of the high-level review of the Pact for the Future in September 2028, Member States should clarify when the abstention requirement applies and how it can be invoked before a Council vote.

Enforcing compliance with Article 27(3) would not automatically solve the issue of reforming the Security Council. It could, however, help improve the current Council’s effectiveness by preventing a permanent member from controlling decisions concerning a dispute in which it is directly involved. This could impact not only individual resolutions, but also demonstrate the Council’s ability to adapt and respond to external pressures, reinforce trust, and foster collaboration towards a broader, comprehensive reform.