TEMPO.CO, London - Amnesty International has urged five permanent members of the UN Security Council to give up their veto power in cases where mass killing, war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed.

"The United Nations Security Council was created to protect civilians to provide peace and security and they have dismally failed. We are saying therefore one of the instruments through which this failure has ended up happening is the abuse of the veto by the permanent five members of the Security Council time and again," said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

He said the council's five permanent members – the UK, China, France, Russia and the US – had used their veto "promote their political self-interest or geopolitical interest above the interest of protecting civilians."

He added that Part of the solution would be those countries surrendering their Security Council veto on issues related to mass killing and genocide.

The year 2014 was a catastrophic year for victims of conflict and violence. Amnesty International said laws of war were carried out in at least 18 countries of the 160 studied in its annual report and the refugee crisis globally reached its highest level since World War II with 50 million people.

Around four million people were Syrians who lost their homes as well as thousands of migrants dying in Mediterranean Sea seeking better lives in Europe.

In order to reduce the number of war crimes, Amnesty urged arms trade to countries such as Iraq, Syria, South Sudan and Israel to stop. Amnesty International research director Anna Neistat said those countries were proved to have committed crimes against humanity.

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