It will now be a question of justifying oneself. The United Nations General Assembly adopted by consensus on Tuesday, April 26, a resolution requiring the five permanent members of the Security Council to justify their use of the veto. A rare reform that was revived by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Directly targeting the United States, China, Russia, France and the United Kingdom, the only holders of the veto, the measure initiated by Liechtenstein is intended to “to pay a higher political price” when they use it, summarizes an ambassador from a country that does not have one and asks to remain anonymous.
Will the reform encourage the five permanent members to use less of the veto provided for in the United Nations Charter? Or will it have an incentive effect to knowingly provoke more against texts that are immediately unacceptable? The future will tell. Some countries could push the United States to use its veto on texts related to Israel. For its part, Washington could vote in the Security Council on a draft resolution strengthening sanctions against North Korea, which has been under discussion for several weeks now, knowing full well that Moscow and Beijing would veto it.
Asked about the reform during his first trip to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was “very favorable to a moderate use of the right of veto”. “The veto has probably been used too many times. In many circumstances it is used without a country’s vital interests existing”he added.
Since the first veto ever used (by the Soviet Union in 1946 on the Syrian and Lebanese file), Russia has used it 143 times, far ahead of the United States (86 times), the United Kingdom (30 times), China and France (18 times each). First advanced two and a half years ago, the reform adopted on Tuesday by the 193 member countries of the General Assembly provides for their convocation “within ten working days following the opposition of one or more permanent members of the Security Council, to hold a debate on the situation in which the veto was expressed”.
Nearly a hundred countries had joined Liechtenstein in co-sponsoring this text, including the United States very quickly, the United Kingdom and France in extremis in unison with the rest of the members of the European Union. Russia and China did not sponsor the text. he goes “divide” even more the UN, had railed before the adoption a Russian diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity.
The text is “not directed against Russia”
The project “do not aim at anyone”, assured the ambassador of Liechtenstein, Christian Wenaweser. “It is not directed against Russia”he insisted as the vote after more than two years of fruitless gestation coincided with the paralysis of the Security Council to stop the Russian invasion, due to Moscow’s right of veto.
The text is not binding and nothing prevents a country having used its veto from not coming to explain it to the General Assembly. Its application, with immediate effect, “will shed light” on the use of this right and on the “blockages” of the Security Council, however, argues an ambassador asking not to be identified.