The veto power of the five permanent United Nations Security Council members is the bane of countless failed resolutions across decades. Now, Mozambique’s ambassador says such power should never be wielded in any dire humanitarian crisis.

Pedro Comissário, who leads the Council in May as rotating president and has a law degree, told PassBlue on April 23 that the veto, concentrated in the hands of only five countries known as the “P5” — Britain,  China, France, Russia and the United States — is one reason the most important body in the UN cannot act unanimously in wars such as in Gaza, where, for example, a child is killed every 10 minutes.

“Veto should have never been allowed in cases of flagrant violation of international humanitarian law as we are witnessing in Gaza at this moment,” Comissário said. Mozambique is “not powerful enough in the world to override the veto, to say you cannot apply a veto because people are dying; 70 percent of those people are children and women and there is unwarranted destruction of civilian infrastructures. We cannot say stop, the United Nations cannot say stop. We are in a very unfair, unjust and imperfect world.”

A total of 312 vetoes have been cast in the Council since 1945; 253 of them swatted down matters of global peace and security — the main work of the body. The former USSR/Russia has used the veto 152 times, followed by the US with 91. Since October 2023, the US, Russia and China have cast vetoes to block resolutions that could have provided immediate solutions to the incessant suffering of innocent people in Gaza. As of May 1, 34, 568 people have been killed in the Palestinian enclave since the Israeli-Hamas war started on Oct. 7.

Ten days after the fatal Hamas attack in southern Israel, the US blocked an exhaustively negotiated Brazil-led draft resolution calling for a humanitarian pause in Gaza. At the time, the humanitarian losses had just begun to mount once Israel began retaliating against Hamas in the Palestinian enclave. The Brazil draft failed despite gathering 12 yes votes. The US has since blocked three more resolutions as the Gaza war rages.

“We deeply regret that the draft could not be adopted due to a veto,” Comissário said in his speech during the Council vote on Oct 18.

Many of the vetoes killing draft resolutions in the Council have been used to strengthen political allegiances with allies or to reaffirm global dominance and relevance. For instance, the US has consistently used the veto to shield Israel despite, for example, its disproportionate show of military might in Gaza and the fact that it is a nuclear power. Russia and the US are also constantly in opposition with each other, making it almost impossible to achieve consensus among the permanent members, let alone the 10 elected members.

A proposal by France and Mexico in 2015 aimed to suspend veto use in cases of atrocities. As of July 2022, 104 member states and 2 UN observers have signed the declaration, but it has not been applied.

Ryan Cummings, a nonresident senior associate of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), in Cape Town, South Africa, said using the veto to block issues of overwhelming concern to members in the Council and the 193-member General Assembly highlights the deep inequality baked into the UN system. The relevance of the UN will continue to be on the skids if certain countries override the majority’s interest, Cummings said.

“We need some form of reform in terms of how bodies such as the United Nations, and specifically, the United Nations Security Council, is structured,” Cummings said in an interview with PassBlue. “It’s very difficult where you have a large proportion of majority of countries voting on an issue or perceiving an issue in a very specific way, and then you have one or two countries, because of the internal strategic objectives, seeing things differently, and then having the ability to obstruct the resolutions that are being formulated.”

Most UN member states agree that the institution needs reforming and offer a range of propositions. Loud calls are now being heard for an African country to become a permanent member of the Council. Caribbean countries want a rotating seat for small island developing states. India, Germany, Japan and Brazil have all been clear for years that they should each have a permanent seat.

Moreover, most member states agree that the postwar world powers that informed the current UN structure need to be more representative of the new world where Western dominance is no longer a given. Comissário said one factor to consider in UN reform is addressing the inherent inequality in global institutions.

“We are living in an imperfect world, with imperfect institutions, and the United Nations is among those not-perfect institutions,” he said. “This imperfection originated from the beginning of the Charter of the United Nations. The fact that we have 193 member states of the United Nations and 15 Security Council members and five of them have veto power is the source of imperfection. It is the source of the incapacity of the world to act when it needs to.”

Mozambique’s Council presidency in May is the second time the southern African country has taken the hot seat since it became an elected member in 2023. It will use its rotating presidency this final time to concentrate on the suffering of women and youth caught by happenstance in armed conflicts, particularly in Gaza and Ukraine. By pairing the two cohorts of youth and women, Comissário said in a press briefing on May 1, the Council will “pay homage” to the work the two groups have been doing worldwide for peace.

Mozambique Foreign Minister Verónica Macamo will chair the debate. Two other signature sessions will be held, one on protecting civilians in armed conflict; and the other on strengthening the role of African countries in “global security and development challenges,” Mozambique’s program of work says.

The agenda will also contend with developments in Gaza and Ukraine as well as standing items on Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Libya. A May 10 session in the General Assembly will debate the US veto cast in the Security Council on April 18 against Palestine’s UN membership application. The Assembly is expected to vote on a draft resolution that will kick back the application to the Council for reconsideration, although higher priorities in Gaza — namely, an invasion of Rafah — could take precedent, a Council diplomat told PassBlue.

Each month, PassBlue profiles UN diplomats as their countries assume the Council presidency. To hear more details about the goals of Mozambique in May, listen to PassBlue’s latest podcast episode on UN-Scripted, produced by Damilola Banjo and Olivia Ndubuisi, on SoundCloud and Patreon. The episode also features Ryan Cummings, a regional expert on southern Africa.

PassBlue: How was your first year in the Security Council? As one of the three elected African nations in the body, do you think the continent gets enough respect there?

Comissário: The Council is very tough, but we are doing our very best to fulfill the promises that we made to the fellow membership of 192 member states of the United Nations to deliver to the best of our ability. [When we were elected] we had defined a few priorities and our complete devotion to the agenda of international peace and security. We also promised that we would focus on conflict in Africa.

PassBlue: It’s been a difficult two years globally for peace and security. Ukraine, Gaza and Myanmar are just a few of many conflicts spread across the world.  Do you think that conflicts in Africa have gotten enough attention in the Council?

Comissário: They have gotten a lot of attention. The agenda of the Council is full of African issues being considered with many resolutions being tabled and adopted. We cannot complain about the attention of African issues in the Security Council. What is difficult is that we are not finding adequate solutions for these pressing problems.

PassBlue: The last time we spoke, more than a year ago, you said the insurgency in Cabo Delgado in Mozambique was declining but extremist attacks have reportedly increased since the last half of 2023. What is your view on the worsening insecurity?

Comissário: The degree of intensity of these terrorists depends to a large extent on the support they get from the outside. Our military is doing a good job, but we are faced with clandestine activities that fuel these terrorist attacks and the network. If you look elsewhere, it is the same. When they receive more logistical support from the outside, their activities intensify, but there is also another phenomenon for the intensification when our defense forces, together with the SADC [Southern African Development Community] and Rwanda forces, are pressuring these terrorists, they try to deviate and act in other regions. So this gives the impression that terrorism is intensifying, but it reflects these two factors: foreign support and intense activities from our defense forces.

PassBlue: What are Mozambique’s signature events in May?

Comissário: We start with the theme of women, youth, peace and security. We want to discuss the role of youth and women, particularly young women, in contributing to international peace and security and what the international community can do to foster and encourage the participation of young women in this endeavor. No. 2, we are proposing that we defend the issue of protection of civilians in situations of conflict. This is extremely important not just from our own experience, but also drawing from the experience in Gaza and from Ukraine. No. 3: We also want to invite Council members to analyze the role of African states in promoting the important issues of peace and development.

PassBlue: Can African countries in the Council chart a different course for conflict resolution?

Comissário: Yes, of course. This morning, for example, we were discussing the issue of peace and security in DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo]. When we discuss these topics in the Council, it does not mean that it is the only actor that can act effectively to impose peace and security on the conflict parties. We need the participation of other actors, including those who are involved in the conflict. You cannot make peace without them.

PassBlue: On Gaza, will there be an initiative during your presidency that could de-escalate the war? 

Comissário: Every member of the United Nations General Assembly is hoping for peace. The overwhelming members of the international community condemn the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas. But ever since the war intensified in Gaza, all eyes have been on Israel to take measures to de-escalate and address the humanitarian needs of the people in Gaza. It was in this context that Mozambique, with the other nine elected members of the Council, worked hard to pass Resolution 2728, which demanded a lasting ceasefire, the freeing of the hostages and humanitarian assistance to the Gaza population. This resolution is not being fully implemented because Israel is insisting that they have to carry out their campaign, which has so far killed more than 34,000 people. Most of them are children and women.

PassBlue: None of the Council resolutions on the Israeli-Hamas war are being fully respected. Can the Council ever get Israel to stop its military operation in Gaza and the violence in the West Bank? Does the Council have any authority whatsoever?

Comissário: We do have the authority in the Council. But to implement every resolution, you always need the unanimous support of the Council. For these resolutions to be implemented, we can only rely on Israel and those states that support Israel unconditionally. Without that, there is nothing we can do.

PassBlue: How do we get such a consensus? And do you agree that politics overrides humanitarian needs in the Council?

Comissário: We are living in an imperfect world, with imperfect institutions, and the United Nations is among those not-perfect institutions. These imperfections originated from the beginning of the Charter of the United Nations. It is embedded in the organization. The fact that we have 193 member states of the United Nations and 15 Security Council members and five of them have veto power is the source of imperfection, the source of incapacity for the world to act when it needs to act. The veto should have never been allowed in cases of flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, as we are witnessing in Gaza; the veto should never be valid under those circumstances. [Mozambique is] not powerful enough to override the veto, to say you cannot apply a veto because people are dying. . . . We cannot say stop, the United Nations cannot say stop. We are in a very unfair, unjust and imperfect world.

Mozambique’s ambassador to the UN: Pedro Comissário, 66
Ambassador to UN since: 2022
Language: English and Portuguese
Education: Master’s degree in international law and constitutional law; postgraduate degree in international law and international relations from Columbia University, New York City.

His story, briefly: Comissário is a well-known Mozambican diplomat and international relations expert born in Caia, Sofala Province, Mozambique, on Sept. 18, 1957. He began his career in diplomacy in 1980, when he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. He was director of the Central Bureau for the Prevention and Combat Against Drugs from February 2019 to January 2020. He has also held diplomatic positions, including as ambassador to Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia. From 2012 to 2018, he was his country’s permanent representative in Geneva to the UN and the World Trade Organization. He served concurrently as permanent representative to the UN Industrial Development Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and ambassador to Switzerland. From 2006 to 2012, he was ambassador to the Nordic countries, based in Stockholm. He was appointed as the Mozambican ambassador to the UN on Sept. 17, 2022.

“I had always wanted to study philosophy, but my father asked if philosophy would feed my family,” he said. “Later, I resolved to study law. However, my father died two years before I completed my law degree at all.”

Country Profile

Prime Minister: Adriano Afonso Maleiane
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation: Verónica Macamo
Type of Government: Unitary multiparty republic
Year Mozambique Joined the UN: 1975
Terms in the Security Council: 2023-24
Population (2021): 32.08 million

Damilola Banjo

Damilola Banjo is a reporter for PassBlue. She has a master’s of science degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a B.A. in communications and language arts from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. She has worked as a producer for NPR’s WAFE station in Charlotte, N.C.; for the BBC as an investigative journalist; and as a staff investigative reporter for Sahara Reporters Media.