Experts praise Poroshenko’s call for restrictions on UN Security Council veto powers

Questions have been revived again
today after Russia’s invasion and annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and
its war against the Ukrainian eastern Donbas.

In the last 18 months, Russia vetoed
two Security Council resolutions related to Ukraine – one that would have
condemned the sham referendum the Kremlin organized in Crimea, and another that
would have set up an international tribunal into the crash of Malaysian
Airlines Flight MH17. The airliner is believed to have been shot down by a
Russian Buk anti-aircraft missile system, killing 298 people aboard. The Dutch
Safety Board will issue a final investigative report on Oct. 13.

So it was no surprise that Ukrainian
President Petro Poroshenko, speaking in the General Debate at the 70th Session
of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 29, made particular mention of
the issue of UN reform, calling for “the gradual limitation of the veto right,
with its further cancellation.”

Poroshenko told the UN General
Assembly on Sept. 29: “In every democratic country, if someone has stolen your
property, an independent court will restore justice, in order to protect your
rights, and punish the offender. However, we must recognize that in the 21st
century our organization lacks an effective instrument to bring to justice an
aggressor country that has stolen the territory of another sovereign state.”

In making its call to limit veto
rights in cases of mass attrocities, Ukraine has found a powerful ally in
France, another of the five permanent members of the body.

French Foreign Minister Laurent
Fabius, speaking
at a UN Security Council meeting on Sept. 30, said that France had committed to not using its veto in case of mass atrocities
and potential genocide, and hoped others would soon follow suit, Reuters
reported. France, along with the United Kingdom, has not used its UN Security
Council veto since Dec. 23, 1989.

“We hope there will be more
commitments to ensure that these situations, like in Syria, where there are
mass atrocities and the UN Security Council is paralyzed by the veto,
disappear,” Fabius told reporters after the meeting.

In the case of Syria, Russia and
China have used their veto seven times to block Security Council action, and to
strike down threats of sanctions against the government of Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad.

Since Feb. 18, 2011, when the United
States vetoed a resolution on the Middle East, only Russia and China have used
their power to block the council’s resolutions.

According to Poroshenko, Russia’s actions have been an “abuse of the
veto right, and its use as a ‘license to kill’ is unacceptable.”

Volodymyr Vasylenko, an expert in
international law and former Ukrainian ambassador, supports the French
initiative championed by Poroshenko, saying that more than 70 countries have
already given it their backing and that it “even might be put before the General
Assembly.”

But limiting the veto powers looks to
be a hopeless task, according to Vasylenko.

“To make changes in the UN Charter,
at least two-thirds of the General Assembly’s members have to vote for it, and
then the decision has to be approved by the entire Security Council, including
Russia,” Vasylenko told the Kyiv Post. “But it isn’t just Russia that’s the
problem. Other permanent states, such as the United States and China, wouldn’t
want to deprive themselves of their veto rights either.”

Hryhoriy Perepelytsia, an expert in international affairs, agreed. He
said the four other permanent members, apart from France, would wish to retain
their full veto powers for as long as being a nuclear power – which all are –
is associated with having a special status and influence on world affairs.

However, Perepelytsia also told the Kyiv Post that returning to the
question of overhoauling the UN Security Council is long overdue. He called
Poroshenko’s embrace of France’s initiative “a step in the right direction,” but
said it won’t be enough.

As for wilder Ukrainian hopes of achieving Russia’s expulsion from the
United Nations – that’s also a non-starter under UN rules.

While Chapter II of the UN Charter does provide for the expulsion of a
member state under a resolution passed by the UN General Assembly,
recommendations for expelling a country have to be made by the UN Security
Council, where it again faces the Russian veto.

The UN has never, in fact, expelled a member state, and there is no
provision in its charter for a nation to withdraw by itself.

Russia, as part of the Soviet Union, was expelled from the precursor to
the United Nations, however.

The League of Nations, which was set up after World War I and dissolved
in 1946 following the creation of the United Nations, expelled the Soviet Union
in December 1939 following Moscow’s invasion of Finland.

The Soviet Union was the only member ever expelled from the League of
Nations, but even then, the already discredited body had to break its own
voting rules to achieve it, as the representative of the Soviet Union, a member
of the league’s council, was not present when the vote was taken.

So given that the likelihood is low of any fundamental changes in the UN
Security Council, was Poroshenko merely trying to score political points?

“We can’t ignore this problem, as such initiatives form the opinion of
the international community,” Perepelytsia said.

Vasylenko agreed and, while
acknowledging that changes to the Security Council’s powers are not likely
anytime soon, nations such as Ukraine and France should keep pushing for
change.

“To change something, you have to
keep trying,” he said.

Kyiv Post staff writer Alyona Zhuk
can be reached at [email protected]