French-Mexican initiative to limit UN Security Council veto in atrocity cases
Updated: 5 days ago
On September 21, on the sidelines of the 81st session of the General Assembly, the foreign ministers of France and Mexico chaired a meeting with a simple goal: to gather more states behind the idea that the veto should not be used when genocide, crimes against humanity or large-scale war crimes are being committed. The political statement, first presented by France and Mexico in 2015, gained twenty-one additional supporters in the last four months and now counts 128 states. The news of the day was the United Kingdom. Its foreign secretary announced that London would endorse the statement, making it the second permanent member of the Security Council to do so. diplomatiediplomatie
In my previous article, I argued that the paralysis of the Security Council comes from a legal design, the veto in Article 27(3) of the Charter, and not from the United Nations as an idea. This initiative is the most concrete attempt to deal with that design without touching the Charter itself.
What the initiative is, and what it is not
It is important to be precise here. The statement is not a treaty, not a Charter amendment and not a General Assembly resolution. Supporters describe it as an exercise in building a political norm, not a legal change. The commitment is voluntary: a permanent member promises that it will not use its veto to block action in atrocity situations, and nothing in international law forces it to keep that promise. riotimesonline
The reason for this modest form is the Charter itself. Amending it requires the approval of two thirds of the General Assembly and the ratification of all five permanent members (Articles 108 and 109). Asking the five to vote away their own veto is, in practice, a request that will not be granted. So the authors of the initiative chose a different path: instead of removing the power, ask the holders to promise not to use it in the worst cases.
Why a non-binding promise still matters
There are three reasons to take it seriously. First, numbers. With 128 supporters, the initiative is only one state short of two thirds of UN members. That is 129 of 193, the same majority the General Assembly needs for important decisions. A political statement signed by that majority would be hard to describe as the position of a few. justiceinfo
Second, the cost of the commitment is not the same for everyone. The United Kingdom has not used its veto since 1989, so its promise costs little today. That is a fair criticism, but it also gives London credibility to ask others for restraint. A promise from a state that has already shown restraint is a standard against which the others can be measured. riotimesonline
Third, the initiative changes who has to explain what. Under the 2022 veto initiative (Resolution 76/262) that I discussed before, a vetoing state has to justify itself in the General Assembly after the fact. The French-Mexican statement works before the fact: it creates a standing expectation that, in atrocity cases, the default is not to veto. The two tools together move the burden of justification toward the state that blocks the Council.
The limits
The three permanent members that have used the veto most in recent years (the United States, Russia and China) are not part of the list; the French statement itself counts the UK as only the second permanent member to join, after France. The initiative therefore does not yet constrain the states whose vetoes explain most of the paralysis on Gaza and Ukraine.
There is also a problem of definition. The statement does not say who decides that a situation is a case of mass atrocity. A permanent member can always argue that the situation in question does not qualify, which is exactly what vetoing states tend to say about their own conduct or the conduct of their allies. Without a neutral way to make that call, the commitment depends on the honesty of the one who makes it.
Why Mexico and France, and why the Assembly
It is not by chance that this initiative comes from a permanent member (France) together with a middle power (Mexico). It combines the credibility of someone who sits inside the system with the pressure of someone who stands outside it. And it is not by chance that it lives in the General Assembly, the one organ where the veto does not exist. The statement is, in a way, a bridge: it asks the Council to behave as if the Assembly’s majority could vote on it.
A norm in the making
None of this fixes what was built in 1945. A voluntary promise can be broken, and the Charter will remain as it is. But international law has often been built this way: first as political expectation, then as common practice, and only later as written rule. The French-Mexican initiative does not remove the veto. It aims to make its use in the worst situations something that every permanent member has to explain to the rest of the world, and, as the number of supporters grows, harder to explain.
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