The UN Security Council: still room for compromise?

Abstract The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has struggled to respond effectively to recent major crises, such as Russia's war against Ukraine and the Israel–Hamas war in Gaza, and has faced accusations of irrelevance. The Security Council has, however, kept up less widely appreciated diplomacy over second-order crises, which suggests that its veto-holding permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States—the P5) still see some use for the institution. While elected members of the UNSC have played an important role in ensuring its survival, China has been a key ‘swing’ voter in many sensitive UN debates. The Trump administration has been negative towards the UN as a whole, but it has shown some interest in conducting transactional diplomacy through the UNSC. The P5 can still maintain a pragmatic approach to compromising on crises—especially those that do not affect their core interests—through the UNSC and the broader UN system.