UN to dispute relocate to restrict veto power of Security Council long-term members
UNITED NATIONS: Liechtenstein is to convene the UN General Assembly on Tuesday to discuss a draft resolution– backed by Washington– requiring the 5 permanent members of the Security Council to validate their usage of the veto.
An old idea focused on making Security Council long-term members cut down use of their veto powers, it has actually been revived by Russia’s current invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow’s veto power has allowed it to incapacitate action in the Security Council, which is expected to intervene in such disputes as guarantor of international peace, as defined by the Charter of the United Nations.
The Liechtenstein proposal, co-sponsored by some 50 nations including the United States but, significantly, none of the other four long-term members of the Security Council– Russia, China, France and Britain– ought to be the topic of an upcoming vote, according to diplomats.
The Security Council likewise has 10 non-permanent members, who do not have the right of veto.
The proposition text, gotten by AFP, attends to a convocation of the 193 members of the General Assembly “within 10 working days of the casting of a veto by one or more irreversible members of the Security Council, to hold an argument on the circumstance regarding which the veto was cast.”
Amongst the co-sponsors who have committed to voting for the text are Ukraine, Japan and Germany, the latter two expecting seats as irreversible members in a possibly bigger Security Council in view of their global political and economic impact.
The positions of India, Brazil or South Africa, and other competitors for a potential long-term seat have not yet been exposed.
Even if it does not sponsor the text, France will enact favor, according to one diplomat.
How Britain, China and Russia, whose support would be crucial to such a controversial initiative, will vote is unclear.
Since the very first veto ever utilized– by the Soviet Union in 1946– Moscow has actually released it 143 times, far ahead of the United States (86 times), Britain (30 times) or China and France (18 times each).
“We are particularly concerned by Russia’s shameful pattern of abusing its veto benefit over the past 2 years,” said the United States ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, in a statement.
The adoption of the Liechtenstein resolution “will be a significant action toward the accountability, transparency, and responsibility of all” the long-term members of the Security Council, she added.
France, which last utilized the veto in 1989, proposed in 2013 that the permanent members jointly and willingly limit their usage of the veto in case of a mass atrocity.
Co-sponsored by Mexico and supported by 100 countries, the proposition has up until now stalled.
Released at Tue, 19 Apr 2022 04:46:38 +0000