Reforms to the United Nations' Security Council: A Case Study of Nigeria

Abstract

Since 1993, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly has debated calls for reform to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Proposed reforms have included amendments to the use of the veto, improved representation of member countries in the permanent membership and an expansion of the Council's permanent members. The continent of Africa is not represented in the permanent membership of the UNSC, though it is the largest regional group in the UN. With three of the Council’s five permanent members from Europe and one each from the Americas and Asia, the African Union argues this situation is historically unjust and contributes to a lack of balance of the Council. This thesis seeks to examine any possibilities of expansions to the UNSC’s permanent membership, as well as whether Nigeria, an African country, may qualify for such a seat, based on defined criteria and as captured in the following research questions:

Is there a case for expansion of permanent member seats on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)? If there is a case for such expansion, is Nigeria eligible, based on defined criteria, for one of these additional permanent member seats? To answer the two research questions, this thesis explored events leading to the formation of the UN and the UNSC, and leading up to calls for reforms to the latter. Using qualitative comparative analysis, it reviews four major reform proposals and seeks to determine whether there is a case for expansion of UNSC permanent members and whether Nigeria, as a case study, is eligible for a permanent member seat, based on this study’s defined criteria. While these two elements are confirmed by this research, the study concludes that any reforms would be difficult to achieve consensus from UN and UNSC members without significant compromise.