The Veto in Practice: A Catalog of Vetoes 2014-Present

The Article 27(3) Mechanism

The veto derives from Article 27(3) of the UN Charter, which requires that non-procedural decisions of the Security Council be made by an affirmative vote of nine members "including the concurring votes of the permanent members." The Yalta formula of 1945 fixed the five permanent seats (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States) and the practice — dating from the 1946 Spanish question — has treated abstention by a P5 member as non-blocking, despite the textual reference to "concurring votes." That construction was endorsed by the International Court of Justice in its 1971 Namibia Advisory Opinion (paragraph 22), which confirmed that consistent Council practice had crystallized into law.

From 1946 through 2024 the Council recorded approximately 320 vetoes. The Soviet Union/Russia leads the count; the United States is second, with most U.S. vetoes concerning Israel and the Middle East. France and the United Kingdom have not vetoed since 23 December 1989 (Panama). China used the veto sparingly until the Syria file opened in October 2011.

Tempo Since 2014

The 2014–present period has been the most veto-saturated decade since the early Cold War. Four files dominate:

Syria. Russia and China jointly or separately vetoed sixteen draft resolutions on Syria between 4 October 2011 and 2023. The 2014 marker was the 22 May 2014 draft (S/2014/348) referring the Syrian situation to the International Criminal Court — vetoed by Russia and China against thirteen affirmative votes. Cross-border humanitarian access mechanisms (Resolution 2165 of 2014 and its renewals) were progressively narrowed by Russian vetoes culminating in the 11 July 2023 veto that terminated the Bab al-Hawa authorization.

Ukraine. Russia vetoed S/2022/155 on 25 February 2022, the draft deploring its own invasion. Russia abstained on the convening of an Emergency Special Session under the "Uniting for Peace" procedure (Resolution 2623 of 27 February 2022) — a procedural vote where the veto does not apply. On 30 September 2022, Russia vetoed a draft condemning its purported annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson (S/2022/720).

Israel-Palestine. The United States vetoed draft resolutions on Gaza on 18 October 2023 (S/2023/772, Brazilian text), 8 December 2023 (S/2023/970, UAE text demanding ceasefire), 20 February 2024 (S/2024/173, Algerian text), and 18 April 2024 (S/2024/312, on Palestinian UN membership recommendation). Resolution 2728 of 25 March 2024 passed only because the United States abstained rather than vetoed, an inflection point in the Biden administration's posture.

Venezuela, Mali, DPRK. Russia and China vetoed S/2019/186 (Venezuela, 28 February 2019, U.S.-drafted), S/2022/431 (DPRK sanctions tightening, 26 May 2022 — the first DPRK-sanctions veto since the regime's inception in 2006), and S/2023/506 (Mali sanctions panel, 30 August 2023, Russia solo veto terminating the Panel of Experts).

Procedural Consequences

Resolution 76/262 of 26 April 2022 — the Liechtenstein-led "veto initiative" — now requires the General Assembly to convene within ten working days of any veto to hold a debate on the situation. The first such debate addressed the 25 February 2022 Russian veto; subsequent debates have covered every veto since, creating a documentary trail and political cost that did not previously attach to P5 obstruction.

Decoding the Patterns

Three analytic observations should guide practitioners reading the post-2014 veto record.

First, co-vetoing has become a Sino-Russian signaling device. Of the sixteen Syria vetoes, China joined Russia on the substantive political texts (2011, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019) but increasingly let Russia veto alone on technical humanitarian renewals (2020, 2022, 2023). The pattern reveals Beijing's preference to associate with high-politics blocking while preserving distance from humanitarian obstruction. The 26 May 2022 DPRK veto (S/2022/431) was the first formal Sino-Russian double veto on Northeast Asian security since the 1970s, and it ended a fifteen-year P5 consensus on tightening DPRK sanctions running from Resolution 1718 (2006) through Resolution 2397 (2017).

Second, U.S. vetoes have re-clustered on Israel after a relative pause. Between 2011 and October 2023 the United States cast only one veto — 18 February 2011, on Israeli settlements. From October 2023 through April 2024 it cast four. The Biden administration's selective abstention on Resolution 2728 (25 March 2024) and on Resolution 2720 (22 December 2023, humanitarian aid mechanism) indicates calibrated rather than reflexive protection — a return to the Obama-era posture exemplified by the 23 December 2016 abstention on Resolution 2334.

Third, the Liechtenstein veto initiative has changed the cost calculus without changing the rule. Russia has been compelled to defend its 25 February 2022 Ukraine veto, its 30 September 2022 annexation veto, and its July 2023 Bab al-Hawa veto in plenary GA debates under Resolution 76/262. The United States likewise defended its Gaza vetoes before the Assembly. The initiative does not override the veto — Article 108 entrenchment makes Charter amendment effectively impossible without P5 consent — but it converts the veto from a quiet procedural act into a public political act.

Reform Trajectories

The "ACT Group" Code of Conduct (launched 23 October 2015) commits 130 states to refrain from voting against credible draft resolutions on genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes; the France-Mexico Initiative (announced 2013, formalized 2015) seeks P5 self-restraint on mass-atrocity situations. Neither binds the P5 that have not signed (the United States, Russia, and China have all declined the ACT Code; France and the UK are signatories).

The Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) on Security Council reform, mandated by Decision 62/557 of 15 September 2008, continue without text-based negotiation — itself a procedural choke point insisted upon by the "Uniting for Consensus" group (Italy, Pakistan, Mexico, Argentina, and others) opposed to new permanent seats for the G4 (Brazil, Germany, India, Japan).

Practitioner Takeaways

When drafting a Council product, the penholder must map vetoes not as a binary but along three axes: (1) substantive file (Syria, Ukraine, Gaza, DPRK, Venezuela, Mali); (2) text type (sanctions, humanitarian, political condemnation, referral to international justice); and (3) co-veto configuration (Russia solo, China solo, Sino-Russian joint, U.S. solo). The 2014–present record shows that text type often predicts the veto more reliably than the file: ICC referrals and atrocity-accountability language draw vetoes nearly automatically, while technical mandate renewals can sometimes survive if scoped narrowly enough to deny the blocking P5 a political handle.