Justifications for Practices of Human Rights Enforcement: The UN Security Council

The rules and institutions of international law have important roles to play in creating the conditions for peaceful coexistence. Nonetheless, international law perpetuates and hardens inequalities of power among states, and immunizes states against accountability for their actions, allowing some states to engage in unchecked violations of human rights. Russia invades the territory of Ukraine with little consequence, and China continues to violate human rights of its citizens with impunity. We can shed light on many of these actions from the perspective of these countries’ special status in international law. Russia and China are permanent members with veto powers of the Security Council (SC). The SC has the exclusive authority to use force to protect the basic rules of the United Nations’ Charter such as sovereign equality, territorial integrity, and the protection of international peace. This special institutional status gives them political clout and power to intimidate other countries that seek to hold them accountable, and to veto measures designed to reduce their abuses of international rules. Viewed from perspective of theories of justice which emphasize equality, accountability, and institutional power exercised in accordance with rule of law principles, the special status conferred by SC membership is highly problematic. I will develop this argument drawing on a normative theoretical framework consisting of the best contemporary theories of accountability and justice. I will show that the membership and decision rules of the SC solidify the inequalities among countries by increasing the power of already powerful states, and by enabling them to engage in exploitative and unjust action at home or abroad.