ABSTRACT
Customary international law is inherently vulnerable to the criticism that it is not democratically legitimate, as many of its ‘customs’ have resulted from the practice of undemocratic states. The United States and the United Kingdom, as permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations, are two of only seven countries to have maintained unbroken democracy throughout the 20th century.44 However, throughout the history of the United Nations, at least one of the permanent members of the Security Council has been a dictatorship.45 Although a majority of founders were democratic countries, the prompt discarding of democracy in many newly independent colonies, combined with the spread of communist rule, has made the majority of member states undemocratic for most of the existence of the United Nations. This has brought about widespread cynicism regarding its operation in democratic countries since the early 1960s.
