Veto

Veto (Latin, “I forbid”), in government, the executive power to abrogate or kill a measure that has already been passed by a legislature.

In the Security Council of the United Nations, each of the five permanent members—France, Great Britain, China, Russia, and the United States—has veto power over all substantive matters. The monarch of Great Britain has long had putative absolute veto power, but this prerogative has not been exercised since 1708. The president of the United States can veto a bill passed by Congress, though this veto can then be overridden by a two-thirds majority vote in Congress. The veto right given to Louis XVI of France in the constitution of 1790 drafted during the French Revolution, earned him and Marie Antoinette the nicknames “Monsieur Véto” and “Madame Véto”, after he vetoed the new Legislative Assembly's legislation.