In the face of some of the world’s worst conflicts, the Council has proved to be ineffective, in large part because one or more of its veto-wielding permanent members have backed one warring party or another.

Mass atrocities continue in the Darfur region of Sudan as China and Russia support the government. In Yemen, a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the West is implicated in the bombing of schools and hospitals. The Council’s starkest recent failure has been over Syria, with Russia backing the government as the United States, Britain and France support some opposition groups.

The Council’s considerable powers include sending in peacekeepers, and, today, about 100,000 soldiers and police officers are deployed to some of the world’s worst battlefields.

But the United Nations faces a crisis about what its troops are willing and able to do.

And peacekeepers have sometimes been accused of hurting the civilians they were sent to protect, with claims of sexual abuse in the Central African Republic and failure to prevent a massacre in South Sudan. Perhaps most damaging, peacekeepers have been blamed for introducing cholera to Haiti, killing more than 10,000.

Human Rights