UN Security Council: Future Prospects for a Compromised Hegemon

Abstract

The Security Council has unlimited legal authority to impose itself on the world and it is guided by the interests of the P-5. The combination of absolute legal authority and the substantive goals of the Great Powers gives the Security Council an imperial character. But it is fractured by the requirement for P-5 consensus. The SC is therefore a compromised hegemon. To international interventionsts, liberal or otherwise, the paralysis that comes from Great-Power disagreement looks like a defect of the Council that impedes its ability to rule the world. But to people who see centralized global power structures as a problem rather than a solution, Council inactivity may be a respite from being ‘governed’ from above.