eli5..Why is it that the UN security council has 5 permanent members who can veto a resolution and what criteria did they use to choose those countries?
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The countries were chosen because they founded it. (Well, slightly more complicated, the Republic of China was sort of replaced by China in 1971, but that wasn’t changing the *country* but the *government recognised to rule that country*, and Russia replaced the USSR in 1991).
The funding countries were very keen to have a forum for world governments that could pass binding resolutions, but didn’t want to be bound by them (have your cake and eat it right?), so they gave themselves Veto powers.
Every other country has just gone along with this because nobody wanted to say no to the 5 most powerful countries on earth (at the time, but still 5 members of the top 10)
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