On his recent New York visit to the UN General Assembly, Taoiseach Micheál Martin pulled no punches in condemning both Russia’s attack on Ukraine and its abuse of its veto power in the UN Security Council. Speaking to journalists, he said its violations of the UN Charter, should “call Russia’s membership of the security council (SC) into question.”
Ireland now comes to the end of its two-year elected membership of the security council, but there is no mechanism for removing a veto-wielding permanent member (Russia, China, the United States, the United Kingdom and France) no matter how egregious its conduct.
Responding a few days later to an Irish Times editorial that called for Ireland to lead a campaign for the abolition of the veto, Russia’s combative ambassador to Ireland, Yuri Filatov defended its use as a “unique consensus-building mechanism, designed to arrive only at fully agreed, common denominator decisions on crucial matters of international peace and security. The use of the veto by the permanent five is an indispensable part of that mechanism”.
In 2015 at the outset of Russia’s SC presidency, ambassador Vitaly Churkin also claimed that the veto is “a tool which allows the SC to produce balanced decisions”.
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A bit rich from a state that, far from seeking consensus, is engaged in blatant flouting of the charter and the rules of war by attacking a sovereign state and bombing its civilians and their vital infrastructure.
Russia’s behaviour, its illegal use of the veto and the veto itself, need to be called out again and again. No matter how difficult the cause of abolition
The “consensus-building mechanism” argument has long also been deployed in defence of the national state veto in the EU, but the gradual rollback of its use has, on the contrary, begun to unlock decision-making gridlock. Where the veto remains, the union finds itself hostage to the voting blackmail of states like Hungary.
In reality the UN veto is a mechanism conceived to protect the “great powers” and their client states from criticism, and which allows Russia to act with impunity in breach of the charter and its special responsibilities as an SC member. It was a compromise provision built in to UN decision-making, deemed necessary to ensure the great powers would participate, contributing to UN legitimacy, while leaving them unconstrained on the world stage.
The charter provides (article 27 (3)) that in SC votes under chapter VI [the pacific settlement of disputes] “a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting” – legally, then, Russia should not be voting on resolutions relating to its invasion of Ukraine.
Yet it has done so repeatedly, wielding its veto without ever provoking the slightest objection or protest from fellow members of the SC, including Ireland.
Why the silence? Part of the answer lies in a general perception that even talking about the veto’s abolition is pointless as it would require the support of those who wield it, as likely as turkeys voting for Christmas. No point in using up political capital in unwinnable battles, the argument goes.
SC reform, driven by a group of 28 states (the Accountability, Coherence and Transparency (ACT) group), including Ireland, has instead focused on enlargement and the slowly growing consensus that the democratic credibility of the SC requires the permanent membership to be expanded to include such big powers as Brazil, Germany, Japan and India, as well as a rotating seat for Africa. Some representation is also needed for small island states.
Ireland has supported a successful recent Liechtenstein initiative that requires those deploying vetoes to come to the General Assembly to justify themselves
While there is some prospect that enlargement of the council from 10 to about 26 may be on the cards, there is little likelihood, however, that the new permanent members will also be given the veto.
Focus on the veto issue has been confined largely to finding ways of voluntarily minimising its use, and the equally damaging threat of its use – “veto restraint” – within the present rules. There has been support for getting permanent members to sign up to codes of conduct – most specifically agreement not to wield vetoes on resolutions intended to prevent or halt mass atrocities. France and the UK, which have not used their vetoes for some years, have signed up.
And Ireland has supported a successful recent Liechtenstein initiative that requires those deploying vetoes to come to the General Assembly to justify themselves – Russia has done so at least once, but appears not to be susceptible to pressure from shame.
Nevertheless, Russia’s behaviour, its illegal use of the veto and the veto itself, need to be called out again and again. No matter how difficult the cause of abolition. Unless that case is made loudly within the UN, the organisation itself will lose credibility as a voice for humanity.