The UN General Assembly on Tuesday adopted by consensus a resolution requiring the five permanent members of the Security Council to justify their use of the veto. This rare reform, revived by the war in Ukraine, was greeted with applause.
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 “make them pay a higher political price” when they have recourse, sums up 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 once morest texts that are immediately unacceptable?
The future will tell. Some countries might push the United States to use its veto on texts related to Israel. On the other hand, Washington might vote in the Security Council on a draft resolution strengthening sanctions once morest North Korea, which has been under discussion for several weeks now, knowing full well that Moscow and Beijing would veto it.
First advanced two and a half years ago, the reform provides for the General Assembly to be convened “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”.
Co-sponsorship
Nearly a hundred countries had joined Liechtenstein in co-sponsoring this text, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, as well as all the member countries of the European Union. Russia and China did not join the sponsors of the text. It will “divide” the UN even more, had railed before the adoption a Russian diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity.
Among the co-sponsors of the resolution are, in addition to Ukraine, Japan and Germany, two States aspiring to permanent member status in a possible enlarged Security Council – an enlargement that has been deadlocked for years – to better represent today’s world. But neither Brazil, which recalled on Tuesday that the veto can be useful to guarantee peace, or India, other potential candidates for a permanent position on the Council, were in the list of co-sponsors obtained by AFP .
Russia targeted?
The project “is not targeting anyone”, assured the Liechtenstein ambassador, Christian Wenaweser. “It is not directed once morest Russia”, he insists as the vote following more than two years of fruitless gestation coincides with the paralysis of the Security Council to stop the Russian invasion, due to the right of Moscow’s veto.
For the United States, Russia has been abusing its right of veto for two decades and the text adopted must make it possible to remedy this.
The resolution aims to “promote the role of the United Nations, multilateralism and the voice of all of us who do not hold veto power and do not sit on the Security Council on matters of international peace and security”, argued Christian Wenaweser.
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, argues however an ambassador asking not to be identified.
In addition to its five permanent members, the Security Council also has ten members elected for two years, without the right of veto. 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).
This article has been published automatically. Sources: ats / afp
