Saudi Arabia Rejects Seat on U.N. Security Council and Confuses Everyone

[Time]

On Thursday, the 193 countries making up the U.N. General Assembly held a secret ballot to select new members of the Security Council. Each year, the Assembly elects five new countries to serve two-year rotating posts; competition is keen, and countries lobby years in advance for a seat at what remains the highest table in international politics. In one round of balloting, the five countries rotating off­–Azerbaijan, Guatemala, Morocco, Pakistan and Togo–were replaced by Chad, Chile, Lithuania, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. There was a hearty round of applause and some criticism of human rights records, but otherwise little in the way of surprises from the annual election. Less than 24 hours later, Saudi Arabia announced it was rejecting its coveted seat on the Council, an unprecedented move that shocked the diplomatic community. Its diplomats cited the Council's inability to take firm action on the current crisis in Syria (ostensibly the fault of vetoes from Russia and China) and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (ostensibly the fault of the U.S.). "The manner, the mechanisms of action and double standards existing in the Security Council prevent it from performing its duties and assuming its responsibilities toward preserving international peace and security as required," the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "Allowing the ruling regime in Syria to kill its people and burn them with chemical weapons in front of the entire world and without any deterrent or punishment is clear proof and evidence of the U.N. Security Council's inability to perform its duties and shoulder its responsibilities." The rejection was especially surprising because Saudi Arabia had lobbied for the seat and reportedly given its diplomatic staff special training on Security Council procedures. A seat on the Security Council, in addition to giving a country a measure of prestige, allows them to be in the room for crucial votes, an opportunity no nation has ever turned down in recent times. "There's really no precedent for this in the council's history," says David Bosco, assistant professor of international politics at American University who writes frequently about

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