According to the established procedure, from April 2, 2023 russia will preside over the UN Security Council for a month.
❗️The Council consists of a total of 15 members, among which the United States, China, France, russia and the United Kingdom are permanent, and the other 10 are elected by the General Assembly for a two-year term. The place of the country presiding over the UN Security Council changes every month, and the order is determined in alphabetical order of names in English.
The predicted event caused considerable indignation of other UN members.
The permanent representative of the country at the UN, L. Thomas-Greenfield, emphasized that russia will use its place in the Security Council to spread disinformation.
The representative of Ukraine at the UN S. Kyslytsia said that russia, which commits war crimes and shelling Ukrainian cities, cannot preside over the General Assembly.
Polish Foreign Minister Z. Rau does not expect anything constructive from this presidency and believes that April will be a waste of time at the UN.
Permanent Representative of Estonia to the UN R. Tammsaar published an appeal on behalf of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, where russia’s April chairmanship of the UN Security Council was called “shameful, humiliating and dangerous”.
What did the chairmanship give to russia?
russia has repeatedly abused its chairmanship of the UN Security Council – the last time was in February 2022, when it used its status to spread fakes about the “illegitimate Kyiv regime”, the situation in Donbas and the damage of economic sanctions. As a member of the General Assembly, the russian federation abused the right of veto, preventing the adoption of resolutions condemning its invasion of Ukraine. What did russia achieve this time?
Firstly, the chairman of the UN Security Council managed all draft resolutions, had the final say on the appointment of special rapporteurs on challenges important for international peace and security, and inhibited the discussion of topics of concern to the kremlin.
On the other hand, according to the temporary rules of the procedure, if the GA is considering an issue with which the presiding delegation is somehow connected, it must transfer its chairmanship for this meeting to the delegation that is next on the list. That is, during the consideration of “Ukrainian issues”, russia had to hand over the chairmanship of the delegation to Switzerland for that day. That is why the russians did not set any issues concerning Ukraine for April.
Secondly, the russian federation temporarily received the most important international information platform for promoting its messages. The minister of foreign affairs of russia s.lavrov take advantage of the situation, during the meeting he accused the USA of the groundlessness of the right to speak on behalf of the entire world community, the collective West of promoting its rules on the international arena, and the IMF of turning into a tool to achieve US military goals. In addition, in order to weaken the positions of the West, lavrov declared the need to expand the composition of the Security Council at the expense of African and Asian countries, proved the kremlin’s vision of “its” tasks in Ukraine and assured that it is impossible to consider the “Ukrainian question” in isolation from the geopolitical context.
Thirdly, the kremlin will try to use this opportunity to refute accusations of terrible war crimes in Ukraine and to discredit the decision of the International Criminal Court against putin. russian diplomats are already trying to put on the agenda of the Security Council the holding of an “informal meeting” in April on the positioning of the deportation of children from Ukraine as a “salvation”.
What shall we do?
russia’s scandalous chairmanship of the General Assembly shows the need to reform the UN, because russia has no moral and political right to be not only in the Security Council, but also in the UN in general. This is exactly the process that Ukraine initiated in December 2022. The reason was a gross violation of paragraph 2 of Article 4 of the UN Charter, when the russian federation automatically acquired membership in the Organization without any statutory grounds after the collapse of the USSR. Ukrainian officials emphasize that the russian federation must go through the defined international legal path of acquiring membership in the Organization, followed by a vote in the General Assembly on the expediency of accepting the russian federation as a member of the General Assembly.
Another way to exclude a russian representative from participating in UN Security Council meetings is to use the procedure of denying his presence. It is important that 9 votes are enough to pass such a procedural decision, the right of veto is not applied.
The proposed scenarios are very difficult to implement, because the UN Charter does not provide for the possibility of depriving a country of permanent membership in the Security Council. Excluding a country from the UN requires the consent of two-thirds of the members of the UN General Assembly and the unanimous approval of this decision by the Security Council. Currently, most of the UN member states are not ready to support such an initiative. In addition, the international community sees in the exclusion of russia from the UN risks of escalation and loss of control over the situation.
So, while the issue of russia’s participation in the UN remains debatable, the main task of the world community will be to protect the UN charter from destructive russian influence.
