ABSTRACT
The Security Council, which, on paper, has the power to order the use of force to compel nations to “make peace,” is made up of representatives from fifteen of the member countries. It originally had eleven members, five permanent and six elected by the General Assembly. The expansion was implemented January 1, 1966. The five permanent places go automatically to the so-called great powers, the permanent members that dominated the writing of the original charter at San Francisco in 1945: the United States, Britain, France, China, and the Soviet Union (now Russia). The occupants of the other ten places are elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly.
