Can Russia continue to sit on the United Nations (UN) Security Council and claim to be, in this forum, the defender of peace and international cooperation, as well as the “judge” geopolitical affairs of the world? While continuing its war of invasion in Ukraine and its shelling of the towns and villages of the former Soviet republic?
Certainly not, believes Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who for several days has been calling for nothing less than the withdrawal of the permanent seat held by Russia on the Security Council, in order to restore credibility of the United Nations, he said.
An idea that resonates more and more in circles of reflection on international institutions, but whose implementation ultimately exposes its promoters to a wall that is difficult to overcome.
“It is legally possible to question Russia’s permanent seat in the Security Council, on the basis of Articles 108 and 109 of the United Nations Charter, summarizes in an interview with the Duty Lorenzo Gasbarri, specialist in international organizations, author of several essays on international law and professor at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, joined in Pisa, Italy. However, to change the composition of the Council would require a two-thirds vote of the countries making up the UN General Assembly. All permanent members of the Security Council [dont la Russie fait partie] will also have to accept this change. And Moscow is unlikely to vote for an amendment limiting its participation in the Security Council. »
Nevertheless, in an open letter published Wednesday by the American daily The Hill, the head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kuleba, believes that Russia no longer has the legitimacy it needs to remain within this Security Council, where it has “transformed the seat of a permanent member into a throne of impunity”, more than a year after the start of its war of invasion against Ukraine, he writes. He demands that Moscow lose “this seat in this honorable chamber”.
In 1991, Russia claimed this seat and any member had the opportunity to object, but it did not happen
“Today, Russia is neither a judge nor a solution to any of the world’s problems,” the politician added. [Elle] went above and beyond the rules [fondatrices de l’organisation internationale] long ago, attacking Georgia in 2008, threatening Moldova, illegally annexing Ukrainian Crimea in 2014, meddling in US domestic politics, weaponizing energy and information, instilling in its own population a militaristic and imperialist ideology, systematically using illicit drugs in international sports, sending its Wagnerian mercenaries to destabilize and exploit Africa. »
He adds: “Over the past year, Russia has invaded a neighboring country, attempted to annex its territory, systematically bombed residential areas, destroyed entire towns and villages, raped, pillaged, committed genocide and implemented probably the largest campaign of forcible transfer of children in modern history. Russia has not only violated the peace, it has torn it to shreds. »
Principles flouted
In his letter, the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs recalls that in 1945, the creation of the United Nations was intended to place on a world in ruins a new international framework so that in the future, international law takes precedence over the law of the most strong. Its Charter sets the tone from the first words of its preamble by posing the organization, a logical continuation of the League of Nations (SDN), resulting from the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, as a rampart “against the scourge of war”. for “future generations”.
In this perspective, the nations of the world thus entrusted to the five most powerful countries of the time, the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France and China, the mission of maintaining peace and international security within a Security Council. The seat of the USSR was recovered by Russia after the dissolution of this union, in 1991.
This transfer is however qualified as illegal by Dmytro Kuleba, who speaks of a “usurpation” justifying, according to him, that Moscow henceforth loses its influence in this body, just like its right of veto on the resolutions which are debated there.
“The simple change of the Soviet nameplate by the Russian plate was the greatest diplomatic fraud of the XXe century,” he wrote. Wrongly, however.
“In 1991, Russia claimed this seat and any member had the opportunity to oppose it, but that did not happen,” says Lorenzo Gasbarri.
Worse, Ukraine itself supported Russia’s presence in the UN Security Council by signing several agreements in Alma Ata, Kazakhstan, establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States with former Soviet republics. Among the provisions, the former republics agreed to support Russia’s maintenance of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the United Nations, “including as a permanent member of the Security Council and other international organizations”, says Mr. Gasbarri.
In February, the UN adopted a new non-binding resolution calling for upholding the principles of the UN Charter for a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine”. A symbolic gesture that has had no impact on the ongoing conflict.
The Security Council remains paralyzed by Russia, which systematically vetoes any Council resolution condemning its war of invasion launched against Ukraine.
This is what Moscow did on February 25, 2022 with a resolution “deploring Russian aggression”, and on September 30 with that condemning the annexation of four Ukrainian regions.
Vetoes put by a “criminal who occupies the seat of a judge”, writes Dmytro Kuleba, and whose presence in the Council, as long as it persists, will continue to “cast doubt on the legitimacy of the whole system of the United Nations,” he concludes.