The UN Security Council: Are there checks to provide balance?

This is the text of a speech delivered to the Council on Foreign Relations, in Washington, D.C. in November 1993. The revival of the Security Council has come with a price: its new found power has been accompanied by questions about the council's continuing legitimacy. Calls for restructuring the membership of the council now are coming both from states with a presumptive interest in maintaining the status quo, such as the United States, as well as from states which do not have either permanent membership or the veto. Thus the Clinton Administration has now officially endorsed the idea that Germany and Japan be given permanent council membership.