United Nations Security Council
Scholar Sudhir Chella Rajan argued in 2006 that the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, who are all nuclear powers, have created an exclusive nuclear club that predominately addresses the strategic interests and political motives of the permanent members—for example, protecting the oil-rich Kuwaitis in 1991 but poorly protecting resource-poor Rwandans in 1994. Since three of the five permanent members are also European, and four are predominantly white Western nations, the Security Council has been described as a pillar of global apartheid by Titus Alexander, former Chair of Westminster United Nations Association.
European Union and the United Nations
The EU holds its observer membership alongside the full memberships of all its 28 member states, two of whom (France and the United Kingdom) are permanent veto-holding members of the UN Security Council (UNSC). Furthermore, where the EU has a defined position on a UNSC agenda item, those states shall request the High Representative to be invited to present the EU's position. This however does not impact on the right of those states to form their foreign policy (stated in ).