(OTTAWA) Canada joined more than 100 allies around the world on Tuesday in forcing the crippled United Nations Security Council to face greater public scrutiny, while the Ukrainian government praised a senator Canada for tabling a tougher sanctions bill against Moscow.
Posted at 4:47 p.m.
Canada’s UN ambassador Bob Rae has called undemocratic the veto power granted to the five permanent members of the Security Council, as the General Assembly voted on Tuesday to subjugate the world’s most powerful body. to closer examination.
The General Assembly on Tuesday passed a resolution that would compel one of the five permanent members of the Council who have veto power – Russia, the United States, China, France and the United Kingdom – to appear before the representatives of the 193 countries to justify its decision to use it.
This resolution does not remove this controversial right of veto in the Security Council. But as Russia threatens to continue to use him to prevent any action to block its way in its war in Ukraine, Rae says the General Assembly’s historic vote underscores that the world will watch more carefully. by the permanent members of the Council.
This right of veto “is as anachronistic as it is undemocratic,” Rae said, explaining Canada’s support for the General Assembly resolution.
Reallocate frozen assets
Meanwhile, in Ottawa, the Senate was about to pass a tougher bill that could lead to the confiscation of billions of dollars in already frozen Russian assets. The Ukrainian Embassy in Canada has urged MPs to quickly pass this bill in the House.
Senator Ratna Omidvar’s bill would allow Russian assets frozen through sanctions to be used to support victims of Russian attacks – a rather unusual measure in the international financial landscape.
“We believe it is entirely fair that Russian state assets or ill-gotten gains of Russian oligarchs be part of the aggressor state’s reparations to the victim of this aggression,” the statement said. embassy.
“By passing Bill S-217, Canada will show leadership and could set an example to follow and show that the corrupt kleptocratic Russian regime will pay the full price for its crimes against Ukraine. »
Russia will have to explain itself
At the United Nations, the unprecedented resolution adopted on Tuesday means that Russia, for example, will have to explain itself to the nations gathered if it decides to veto the Security Council. The resolution provides that the General Assembly “shall hold a debate on the situation” which gave rise to any veto in the Council within 10 working days, and that the country which invoked it be among the first to speak.
Representatives from Russia and Belarus spoke out against the resolution, but their opposition was countered by envoys from dozens of countries that had sponsored the motion — a group, led by little Liechtenstein, that also included Canada.
From the assembly hall, Mr. Rae roundly condemned the failed United Nations system that enabled what he called Russia’s “shameful and unlawful act of aggression” against Ukraine.
The Canadian Ambassador said the recent impasse over Ukraine has come at a time when the world needs the Security Council most.
“We are witnessing the destruction of cities. We are witnessing the murder of women and children. We see the destruction of a country’s entire infrastructure – and we also see a country that resists. The Security Council may not be able to act. It doesn’t take away from us the ability to act,” Mr. Rae said.
Canada’s ambassador and world diplomats chatted in New York as Russian bombs continued to pound the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, large swathes of which have been reduced to rubble in a war that has killed thousands of Ukrainian civilians and forced millions of people to flee their homes.
“The use of the veto and the threat to use it in situations where heinous crimes are being perpetrated in Syria and Burma, and in Mariupol, for example, or in situations where a permanent member of the Security Council has launched a war of aggression against another UN Member State, as the Russian Federation is currently doing in Ukraine, is not only shameful, but also contrary to obligations under the UN Charter and international law,” said Mr. .Rae.