The airwar, Russia and the UN Charter Article 23(1)

[fdr]

That's a yes, then?

I want to copyright "BU", I am sure it will come in handy over the years.

Is not the denial of gas to Poland and Bulgaria yet another huge mistake, if not the biggest?

It adds pressure to prospective wavering opponents, but that is not the case for Bulgaria or Poland. Long term it is an own-goal, with catastrophic effects on Russia.
It immediately hurts Russia's funding of it's war. All nations will be moving away from Russian energy as well as any other product reliance with such a flakey country. f-Troop just perfected sanctions on Russia.

In geopolitical and economic terms this will surely echo down the years, as customers [not only for gas] take note that the implied threats are, as circumstances change, actually carried out.

yup. F-Troop just wrecked their own economy for the foreseeable future.
Did the west pay Putrid to frag his own economy, and then blame it on generals and bad wiring?

Hitherto BU [BU = Before Ukraine] Western pragmatism's default was "they would not dare do it because it would hit them in the pocket". Wrong. That Rubicon has been crossed.

yup. New bloopers on fails of governments in the future...

This is like Putin leading the King to a trick, without being sure if the ace and all the trumps have gone.

Decisions are made by imperfect. people, on emotions, and with bias on the facts that are presented.
Dictators guarantee they get bad info because they are dictators.

The scramble for energy security will now hot up to fever pitch. Nuclear, anybody?

​​​​​​​Thorium Fast Breeder
Thorium Pebble Bed Modular Reactors
There is no PWR that cannot fail, the design has to be stable with a coolant system casualty, no PWR is.
FRG had THTR-3000, a PBMR(MPBR), and was spooked by a minor feed fault that coincided with Chornobyl. Well, 80 minor events. It was a learning experience, and no one ended up with 2 heads.
MSRs were the very first power reactor... they make some sense, more than PWRs. MSR avoids the issues of production that seems to beset the THTR.

​​​​​​​PWRs use little of the fuel for energy before they have to be replaced.
Thorium cycle can reuse PU, U, at low enrichment and burn the fuel up far more.
Th is relatively abundant, much more that U is.



Designing a power station that can be impacted by a positive void coefficient is up there in the own goal records. putting a moderator in the end of a control rod is another, "is bad" idea. Shooting at nuclear reactors "is bad"...

So, yes, kind of.

IAEA Thorium Reactor Benefits and Challenges (https://www-pub.iaea.org/mtcd/publications/pdf/te_1450_web.pdf)

[GlobalNav]

I wanted to say "Like Korea, c1950" but I thought the term peace was due to be exercised. The Charter comes with an absolute right for self-defense, and also a policy of collective defense by Charter signatories against aggressor nations.

There is no legal right that Russia has to invade a sovereign nation, and doing so just because you happen to have nukes is no basis for global security.

Very good posts by both of you - Lonewolf50 and FDR - thank you.

I would also say it’s time to strip Russia if it’s Security Council seat. Ukraine might be a good candidate or Poland.

[fdr]

He knows he’s losing big time, same with Laugharov, it all smacks of desperation. The only country interfering in Ukraine is Russia.

Russia's president says any country interfering in Ukraine will be met with a "lightning-fast" response
Vladimir Putin says Russia will use "tools no one else can boast of having" if anyone "creates unacceptable threats"
Russian energy giant Gazprom says it has cut gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria over their refusal to pay in roubles
The EU accuses Russia of using energy to try to blackmail countries supporting Ukraine
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has meanwhile accused Russian special services of carrying out attacks in a breakaway region of Moldova

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-61224804

This is the head of F-Troop threatening "lightning-fast" responses against... Russia? This is definitely the "Gang that couldn't shoot straight". As you note, the only country that is interfering in Ukraine is Russia. He's making up good material for Eddie Izzard to work with to follow up the "Death Star Canteen" and "Do you have a flag?" skits.

I looked on Amazon and couldn't find magic tools, found magic thread and other accouterments of the art of magicians. Did find some references for dictators on how to cope with hyperinflation and still keep your butt out of a National Tomb, titled "international relations for dummies". Had a companion volume, "When to plan attacks on a muddy country to avoid visits to proctologists for relief".

Gazprom is assisting F-Troop to implode their economy. The rest of us were wanting that to be done by Europe, India, China etc. At least Gazprom was kind enough to put a hand grenade under their jowls only after the temperature in Europe was rising for Spring.

Re Moldova (Trans- whatever, the place that is in a time warp of Stalin, and the USSR... that one, Ladas everywhere...) could just be bad luck and bad wiring... what it won't be is 3rd parties, No country in its right mind would be expanding the war, and the only country known to not be in its right mind is the home of F-Troop, to whit, Russia. Doesn't take Benedict Cummerbund & Martin Freeman to point a finger at F-Troop.



Death Star Canteen


Flags

[Lonewolf_50]

I would also say it’s time to strip Russia if it’s Security Council seat.
There is no authority that can actually do that. We've been over this before, in this thread and the JB one. There are five members who are more equal than the others, and Russia is one of those five.
You may as well rant about stripping the US of its Security Council seat.
Not gonna happen.
The UN exists because there was enough political will to make it exist, and enough to keep it existing, warts and all. (Korea was quite the test of that new organization at the time....)
It does not have to exist.
Like the League of Nations before it, the UN can stop existing. I don't think we'll be better off if that's the case, but it's one of the possible futures of this world. It works (such as it does work) because the Powers so wish it.
Ukraine might be a good candidate or Poland.
How about India or Brazil? :p
A few squadrons of F-22 and F-35 would be nice, their life expectancy would be OK in the air, just being on the ground would be unhealthy. The planes aren't much use without trained crews to fly them, trained techs to keep them running, and the logistic tail to support them. They are complex weapons systems. (Your assessment on their vulnerability on the ground I concur with). And Death by Tray is certainly a classic. :)

[fdr]

There is no authority that can actually do that. We've been over this before, in this thread and the JB one. There are five members who are more equal than the others, and Russia is one of those five.
You may as well rant about stripping the US of its Security Council seat.
Not gonna happen.
The UN exists because there was enough political will to make it exist, and enough to keep it existing, warts and all. (Korea was quite the test of that new organization at the time....)
It does not have to exist.
Like the League of Nations before it, the UN can stop existing. I don't think we'll be better off if that's the case, but it's one of the possible futures of this world. It works (such as it does work) because the Powers so wish it.

How about India or Brazil? :p
The planes aren't much use without trained crews to fly them, trained techs to keep them running, and the logistic tail to support them. They are complex weapons systems. (Your assessment on their vulnerability on the ground I concur with). And Death by Tray is certainly a classic. :)

And yet a motion to remove Russia from the UNSC is being tabled in the UNGA. The means by which it may be removed there needs a measure of support, so perhaps various countries need some commentary from their own constituents.

[GlobalNav]

There is no authority that can actually do that. We've been over this before, in this thread and the JB one. There are five members who are more equal than the others, and Russia is one of those five.
You may as well rant about stripping the US of its Security Council seat.
Not gonna happen.
The UN exists because there was enough political will to make it exist, and enough to keep it existing, warts and all. (Korea was quite the test of that new organization at the time....)
It does not have to exist.
Like the League of Nations before it, the UN can stop existing. I don't think we'll be better off if that's the case, but it's one of the possible futures of this world. It works (such as it does work) because the Powers so wish it.

How about India or Brazil? :p
The planes aren't much use without trained crews to fly them, trained techs to keep them running, and the logistic tail to support them. They are complex weapons systems. (Your assessment on their vulnerability on the ground I concur with). And Death by Tray is certainly a classic. :)

I understand that the Security Council itself cannot change its membership but I think the General Assembly does have such authority. Anybody remember how PRC replaced Taiwan?

[Lonewolf_50]

And yet a motion to remove Russia from the UNSC is being tabled in the UNGA. The means by which it may be removed there needs a measure of support, so perhaps various countries need some commentary from their own constituents. Your lack of sources to support your fantasy are noted. When you cite sources for that action, I'll be interested.
"Well," as Judge Smails said, "We Are Waiting (https://thumbs.gfycat.com/FelineJoyfulDromaeosaur.webp)!"

[Lonewolf_50]

I understand that the Security Council itself cannot change its membership but I think the General Assembly does have such authority. Anybody remember how PRC replaced Taiwan? I don't care what you think; you have demonstrated a lot of wishful, emotional thinking on this topic.
As they say in Missouri: Show Me!
I'll be here sipping my gin and tonic.
Anybody remember how PRC replaced Taiwan?
Anyone know who Henry Kissinger is?
Sorry, we need some aviation content: rumor has it that Henry Kissinger did Jill Saint John on Air Force One (https://www.whosdatedwho.com/dating/henry-kissinger-and-jill-st-john).

[fdr]

Your lack of sources to support your fantasy are noted. When you cite sources for that action, I'll be interested.
"Well," as Judge Smails said, "We Are Waiting (https://thumbs.gfycat.com/FelineJoyfulDromaeosaur.webp)!"

Oh, LW0.5, In fact there has been a proposal to clip their wings. UN to debate Security Council permanent member veto powerThe proposal requiring the five UNSC members to justify their use of veto comes in the wake of Russian invasion of Ukraine.

19 APRIL 2022.

Go find it yourself, I am offended by your attitude sir.

For your information, the UNSC seat was also only given to the USSR, and in the dissolution of the USSR, there was no legally binding acceptance that Russia would assume the seat in the UNSC, so Ukraine has as much right to being the permanent member as F-Troop has. The legal argument surrounding the questionable status of Russia as a member of either the UNSC or in fact the UNGA is quite good reading. I'll let you research taht yourself, that way you won't need to wake up in a bad mood and attack Nutloose or me.

[fdr]

I understand that the Security Council itself cannot change its membership but I think the General Assembly does have such authority. Anybody remember how PRC replaced Taiwan?

The Permanent member to the UNSC was USSR, and it doesnt exist. They did not follow the correct procedure as far as the legal arguments appear to go. LW 0.5 can find his own references, but here is a hint:Push to end Russia's status as permanent UNSC member gains steamTalk of stripping Russia of its status at the UN has escalated since the Ukraine invasion began.
3 MAR 2022
Washington is "investigating the prospects" of expelling Russia as one of the five permanent Security Council members, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told American lawmakers on Wednesday.

No decision has been made on whether to try to achieve such an outcome, which would likely require changes to the UN's charter.

Sherman's comments came after the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn Russia for last week's invasion of Ukraine (https://www.business-standard.com/topic/ukraine) and demand that Moscow withdraw its forces from the country immediately.

The rebuke was issued through a non-binding resolution after a failed vote last Friday by the Security Council, where Russia used its veto power as a permanent member to block the resolution, the report said.

Talk of stripping Russia of its status at the UN has escalated since the Ukraine (https://www.business-standard.com/topic/ukraine) invasion began.

Some US lawmakers have called for removing Russia from the Security Council, RT reported.

Ukraine's government has repeatedly urged the UN to reconsider Russia's status on the Security Council.


There are many ways to "skin the cat", and there is a reasonable basis to have a go at doing that. Russia was never made a permanent member by the UNGA, It assumed that it would be on the fall of the Soviet Union, and it was not correctly done. the legal argument goes that the USSR in it's collapse never nominated a replacement for it's seat to the UNGA, and the UNSC, and as it doesn't exist now, it cannot post-fact do so. Therefore Russia has no chartered right to be on the UNSC, in any form, let alone an PM, and let alone with veto authority. Details matter.

Now the litigation of that is up to the UN, and we are at a time and place where it is a reasonable time to have that discussion, after all, Russia is now shown to be a corrupt and dysfunctional enterprise, and it has already taken retaliation to many of the members of the UNGA, Their hold over Eritream and NOrth Korea notwithstanding....

[GlobalNav]

The Permanent member to the UNSC was USSR, and it doesnt exist. They did not follow the correct procedure as far as the legal arguments appear to go. LW 0.5 can find his own references, but here is a hint:Push to end Russia's status as permanent UNSC member gains steamTalk of stripping Russia of its status at the UN has escalated since the Ukraine invasion began.
3 MAR 2022
Washington is "investigating the prospects" of expelling Russia as one of the five permanent Security Council members, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told American lawmakers on Wednesday.

No decision has been made on whether to try to achieve such an outcome, which would likely require changes to the UN's charter.

Sherman's comments came after the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn Russia for last week's invasion of Ukraine (https://www.business-standard.com/topic/ukraine) and demand that Moscow withdraw its forces from the country immediately.

The rebuke was issued through a non-binding resolution after a failed vote last Friday by the Security Council, where Russia used its veto power as a permanent member to block the resolution, the report said.

Talk of stripping Russia of its status at the UN has escalated since the Ukraine (https://www.business-standard.com/topic/ukraine) invasion began.

Some US lawmakers have called for removing Russia from the Security Council, RT reported.

Ukraine's government has repeatedly urged the UN to reconsider Russia's status on the Security Council.


There are many ways to "skin the cat", and there is a reasonable basis to have a go at doing that. Russia was never made a permanent member by the UNGA, It assumed that it would be on the fall of the Soviet Union, and it was not correctly done. the legal argument goes that the USSR in it's collapse never nominated a replacement for it's seat to the UNGA, and the UNSC, and as it doesn't exist now, it cannot post-fact do so. Therefore Russia has no chartered right to be on the UNSC, in any form, let alone an PM, and let alone with veto authority. Details matter.

Now the litigation of that is up to the UN, and we are at a time and place where it is a reasonable time to have that discussion, after all, Russia is now shown to be a corrupt and dysfunctional enterprise, and it has already taken retaliation to many of the members of the UNGA, Their hold over Eritream and NOrth Korea notwithstanding....

Thank you for the thoughtful and well-sourced post.

[Lonewolf_50]

Go find it yourself, I am offended by your attitude sir.
Your willful ignorance on how politics really works is your problem, not mine.
Sherman's comments came after the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn Russia for last week's invasion of Ukraine (https://www.business-standard.com/topic/ukraine) and demand that Moscow withdraw its forces from the country immediately.
The UN General assembly has condemned a great many things over the years, and it amounts to a lot of hot air in most cases. When the UNSC, on the other hand, takes a decision sometimes things happen. (Back to the 1950 Korea example, at this point). I also note the sophistry provided in re the alleged distinction between Russia and the USSR. The argument from ignorance is noted, and not found worthy.

For Global Nav: If you find a load of political rhetoric to be 'well sourced' then your need to calibrate your standards a bit. Political rhetoric is, like UN General Assembly pronouncements, mostly wind.

[fdr]

Thank you for the thoughtful and well-sourced post.

The means that China replaced TWN is another matter, and the whole PRC-TWN issue needs to be cleared up once and for all, but that would seem to be a forlorn hope.

(Actually, China, PRC, has also the same issue as Russia on the UNSC, the entity that existed at that time does not exist, and the process to replace the seat has never been ratified. That is an incomplete business of the UN as well. Article 23(1) states who is a member and neither Russia or PRC is named, they did not exist at that time. The UN was involved in the Korean "Police action"/War, as ROC was still in existence, and in fact was relocated to Taiwan. Taiwan is still formally known as ROC.... )

Russia had every right to become a member of the UNGA, as indeed so does TWN, if the UN had any moral fortitude to follow the charter. By the same argument that PRC has with TWN, Ukraine can make the case, and should that Russia has no charter right to UNSC membership. Had the USSR followed Charter process, then they could have, equally, Ukraine could have, but they didn't, and Russia is an illegitimate member of the UNSC and has only held that status due to the limp response from the UN as a body. A simple suggestion is that any direct participant in a conflict should be required to abstain from any related resolutions. We require that in every other matter of jurisprudence or governance, yet the world's safety program, the UN couldn't get that right? Time to sort out a few basic facts, and while we are at it, ICAO and national NAA's need to be overhauled. It is insanity to have some 200-odd NAAs rewriting a standard that is provided from a governing body. That would at least stop the empire-building of some of our aviation regulators who spend time finding ways to be noncompliant with ICAO SARPS.

If Russia has no legitimate right to the seat, then Article 12 does not stop action.
If Russia is behind in its payments to the UN, then it has no voting rights. under Article 19.
Article 6 applies if USSR doesn't vote against it. Russia should not have a seat on the UNSC under Article 23.

Cats, skins, manner for disposition of

:}Chapter V: The Security CouncilCOMPOSITIONArticle 23

The Security Council shall consist of fifteen Members of the United Nations. The Republic of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America shall be permanent members of the Security Council. The General Assembly shall elect ten other Members of the United Nations to be non-permanent members of the Security Council, due regard being specially paid, in the first instance to the contribution of Members of the United Nations to the maintenance of international peace and security and to the other purposes of the Organization, and also to equitable geographical distribution.
The non-permanent members of the Security Council shall be elected for a term of two years. In the first election of the non-permanent members after the increase of the membership of the Security Council from eleven to fifteen, two of the four additional members shall be chosen for a term of one year. A retiring member shall not be eligible for immediate re-election.
Each member of the Security Council shall have one representative.



For LW 0.5, herewith find the reference to the Charter:
LW0.5 REFERENCE TO THE CHARTER (https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text)Chapter II: MembershipArticle 3The original Members of the United Nations shall be the states which, having participated in the United Nations Conference on International Organization at San Francisco, or having previously signed the Declaration by United Nations of 1 January 1942, sign the present Charter and ratify it in accordance with Article 110.Article 4

Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations.
The admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

Article 5A Member of the United Nations against which preventive or enforcement action has been taken by the Security Council may be suspended from the exercise of the rights and privileges of membership by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. The exercise of these rights and privileges may be restored by the Security Council.Article 6A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.
...Chapter IV: The General AssemblyCOMPOSITIONArticle 9

The General Assembly shall consist of all the Members of the United Nations.
Each Member shall have not more than five representatives in the General Assembly.

FUNCTIONS AND POWERSArticle 10The General Assembly may discuss any questions or any matters within the scope of the present Charter or relating to the powers and functions of any organs provided for in the present Charter, and, except as provided in Article 12, may make recommendations to the Members of the United Nations or to the Security Council or to both on any such questions or matters.Article 11

The General Assembly may consider the general principles of co-operation in the maintenance of international peace and security, including the principles governing disarmament and the regulation of armaments, and may make recommendations with regard to such principles to the Members or to the Security Council or to both.
The General Assembly may discuss any questions relating to the maintenance of international peace and security brought before it by any Member of the United Nations, or by the Security Council, or by a state which is not a Member of the United Nations in accordance with Article 35, paragraph 2, and, except as provided in Article 12, may make recommendations with regard to any such questions to the state or states concerned or to the Security Council or to both. Any such question on which action is necessary shall be referred to the Security Council by the General Assembly either before or after discussion.
The General Assembly may call the attention of the Security Council to situations which are likely to endanger international peace and security.
The powers of the General Assembly set forth in this Article shall not limit the general scope of Article 10.

Article 12

While the Security Council is exercising in respect of any dispute or situation the functions assigned to it in the present Charter, the General Assembly shall not make any recommendation with regard to that dispute or situation unless the Security Council so requests.
The Secretary-General, with the consent of the Security Council, shall notify the General Assembly at each session of any matters relative to the maintenance of international peace and security which are being dealt with by the Security Council and shall similarly notify the General Assembly, or the Members of the United Nations if the General Assembly is not in session, immediately the Security Council ceases to deal with such matters.

Article 13

The General Assembly shall initiate studies and make recommendations for the purpose of:

promoting international co-operation in the political field and encouraging the progressive development of international law and its codification;
promoting international co-operation in the economic, social, cultural, educational, and health fields, and assisting in the realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.

The further responsibilities, functions and powers of the General Assembly with respect to matters mentioned in paragraph 1 (b) above are set forth in Chapters IX and X.

Article 14Subject to the provisions of Article 12, the General Assembly may recommend measures for the peaceful adjustment of any situation, regardless of origin, which it deems likely to impair the general welfare or friendly relations among nations, including situations resulting from a violation of the provisions of the present Charter setting forth the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations.Article 15

The General Assembly shall receive and consider annual and special reports from the Security Council; these reports shall include an account of the measures that the Security Council has decided upon or taken to maintain international peace and security.
The General Assembly shall receive and consider reports from the other organs of the United Nations.

Article 16The General Assembly shall perform such functions with respect to the international trusteeship system as are assigned to it under Chapters XII and XIII, including the approval of the trusteeship agreements for areas not designated as strategic. VOTINGArticle 18

Each member of the General Assembly shall have one vote.
Decisions of the General Assembly on important questions shall be made by a two-thirds majority of the members present and voting. These questions shall include: recommendations with respect to the maintenance of international peace and security, the election of the non-permanent members of the Security Council, the election of the members of the Economic and Social Council, the election of members of the Trusteeship Council in accordance with paragraph 1 (c) of Article 86, the admission of new Members to the United Nations, the suspension of the rights and privileges of membership, the expulsion of Members, questions relating to the operation of the trusteeship system, and budgetary questions.
Decisions on other questions, including the determination of additional categories of questions to be decided by a two-thirds majority, shall be made by a majority of the members present and voting.

Article 19A Member of the United Nations which is in arrears in the payment of its financial contributions to the Organization shall have no vote in the General Assembly if the amount of its arrears equals or exceeds the amount of the contributions due from it for the preceding two full years. The General Assembly may, nevertheless, permit such a Member to vote if it is satisfied that the failure to pay is due to conditions beyond the control of the Member.

[fdr]

Your willful ignorance on how politics really works is your problem, not mine.

The UN General assembly has condemned a great many things over the years, and it amounts to a lot of hot air in most cases. When the UNSC, on the other hand, takes a decision sometimes things happen. (Back to the 1950 Korea example, at this point). I also note the sophistry provided in re the alleged distinction between Russia and the USSR. The argument from ignorance is noted, and not found worthy.

For Global Nav: If you find a load of political rhetoric to be 'well sourced' then your need to calibrate your standards a bit. Political rhetoric is, like UN General Assembly pronouncements, mostly wind.

Do read the Charter before making ad hominem attacks. Your apparent disregard of the agreement of 1942 and the Charter itself seems to come from blissful application of alternative facts, which is the ultimate position of a Sophist.

If you consider the USSR's seat was legitimately taken by Russia, then by all means provide the evidence that the USSR nominated Russia to be it's successor, and that the nomination was itself added to the Charter as an amendment, as required under the Charter. The Charter is readily available at

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text

On information and belief, the current Charter is that published above, and that gives multiple basis for removal of Russia from the UNSC, and for subsequent suspension from the UNGA.

Please provide the evidence of that, or delete your ad hominem posts on Nutloose and FDR

A determination by Judge Judy is not going to be acceptable. Show the evidence that Russia was formally nominated, and that Article 23 was so amended to show RUSSIA as the member.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1018x1172/screen_shot_2022_04_28_at_12_18_41_pm_dce54aa23740c8a76804cc d47ef27be08895a745.png

Just because you say something doesn't make it so.

[fdr]

Your lack of sources to support your fantasy are noted. When you cite sources for that action, I'll be interested.
"Well," as Judge Smails said, "We Are Waiting (https://thumbs.gfycat.com/FelineJoyfulDromaeosaur.webp)!"

As some background to the motion that has been reported to be drafted, note the European Journal of International Law commentary. Then read McLeod's commentary, and then look at the dates of the Alma-Ata Protocol. The details of the date when things happened there are pretty important to the matter, as is the fact that to this day, the Charter Article 23(1) has not been amended, and there is no legal right under the Charter as it stands for Russia to be sitting in the UNSC at all. Thats a point for litigation, and as indicated by McLeod it is the matter raised by Ukraine. (A draft motion for the UNSC and UNGA by another country has recently been mentioned, I can only recall that it was a surprise party).

It is an unusual situation to get to, but then Russia has made this an unusual matter. At the same time, ROC becomes the subsequent matter, as PRC is not an Article 23(1) member, ROC is, that is Taiwan. The fact that the UN has not taken action to date is that Russia's actions have not been sufficiently egregious, however, now they may be sufficiently unacceptable, threatening nuclear war to support a criminal enterprise of annexation of a sovereign country.

I am in fact looking for the document I read that covered the drafting of the challenge to Russia's credentials. The most striking takeaway of the document was the proposal did not come from a party that was expected, which at least means some countries have an interest in the application of the principles of the Charter. The action of the UNSC is the single greatest failure of the UN. All of the nice concepts fall to nothing as the belligerents are not automatically recused from action within the UNSC. Most UNSC PMs would be cautious about such a change, but it would act to make the system function. Adding suspensions to any related party pressuring another voting member could be included, to attempt to get towards equity.

https://www.ejiltalk.org/could-russia-be-suspended-from-the-united-nations/

March 1, 2022Could Russia be Suspended from the United Nations?Written by Rebecca Barber (https://www.ejiltalk.org/author/rebeccabarber/)
https://www.ejiltalk.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/unflag.jpg

The General Assembly is currently meeting in Emergency Special Session on Ukraine, and will likely pass a resolution condemning Russia’s aggression, demanding the withdrawal of troops, and urging a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Such a resolution will be an important step, but also begs the question: if these appeals for peace are not heeded, what could be the Assembly’s next step?

The possibility of the General Assembly recommending sanctions has been considered in a previous post (https://www.ejiltalk.org/what-can-the-un-general-assembly-do-about-russian-aggression-in-ukraine/comment-page-1/) on this forum. This post considers the possibility of the Assembly going further still, and suspending Russia from the UN.

The possibility of a member state being suspended from the UN is described by article 5 (https://legal.un.org/repertory/art5.shtml) of the UN Charter. That article states that: ‘a member of the UN against which preventive or enforcement action has been taken by the Security Council may be suspended from the exercise of the rights and privileges of membership by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.’ In case of any ambiguity in the text of this article (which there really isn’t), the UN Office of Legal Affairs has confirmed that the General Assembly may only exercise its power of suspension if: (a) preventive or enforcement action has been taken by the Security Council against that member; and (b) the Council has recommended the suspension (see here (https://legal.un.org/unjuridicalyearbook/volumes/1970/), at p. 170).

Article 5 does not provide a basis for Russia’s suspension from the UN, because the Security Council hasn’t taken preventive or enforcement action against Russia, and even if it had, Russia would presumably veto a resolution recommending its own suspension. It’s not possible to get around the veto issue by arguing that a Security Council resolution recommending suspension would be procedural in nature – and as such, not subject to the veto – because article 18(2) of the Charter (https://legal.un.org/repertory/art18.shtml) lists ‘the suspension of the rights and privileges of membership’ as an ‘important question’.

Article 5 of the Charter is not completely the end of the road on suspension, however.

There are two dimensions to a state’s participation in the UN: the actual membership of the state (the subject of article 5 of the Charter); and the representation of that state at the General Assembly’s sessions. Matters of representation are considered in the context of the General Assembly’s credentials process, which is the process by which the Assembly assesses the eligibility of individual delegates to represent their states at the Assembly’s annual sessions. The process is essentially procedural in nature. It is regulated not by the UN Charter but by the Assembly’s rules of procedure (https://www.un.org/en/ga/about/ropga/credent.shtml), which state that ‘[t]he credentials of representatives … shall be submitted to the Secretary General if possible not less than one week before the opening of the session’, and that they shall be ‘issued either by the Head of the State or Government or by the Minister for Foreign Affairs.’

While the credentials process is usually a procedural one, from time to time the process inevitably requires the General Assembly to make a judgment regarding the legitimacy of the government (or regime) that a delegate represents. Such is the case when two competing authorities claim at once to represent their state, as was the case last year in relation to Afghanistan (Taliban vs deposed government in exile) and Myanmar (junta vs National Unity Government). In such situations, the credentials process effectively gives the General Assembly the power to decide which authority should be regarded as the legitimate representative of the state – at least so far as the UN is concerned.

Russia, however, is not a case of competing authorities claiming at once to represent the same state, but one government seriously violating peremptory norms of international law as well as the principles of the UN. Can the credentials process feasibly be exploited to suspend a state in such circumstances, as a way of circumventing article 5? The answer is yes, because it has been done before.

The General Assembly has on two occasions used the credentials process to effectively suspend a state from the UN. The most recent was in relation to Cambodia in 1997, when the Assembly received credentials from two competing authorities, both claiming to represent Cambodia. The Assembly decided to defer its decision on credentials, explicitly on the understanding that Cambodia’s seat at the Assembly would remain temporarily unoccupied (see here (https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/247946?ln=en) and here (https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FRES%2F52%2F178&Language=E&DeviceType=Desktop)). The particular circumstance pertaining to that decision was that there was a process of national reconciliation underway, which the Assembly did not wish to influence (see discussion here (https://the-world-is-watching.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Myanmar-Legal-Opinion-Final-2.pdf)).

The much more pertinent example is South Africa in 1974. In the context of international condemnation of apartheid, in the early 1960s the General Assembly passed a resolution (http://www.worldlii.org/int/other/UNGA/1962/21.pdf) calling on the Security Council to consider expelling South Africa from the UN pursuant to article 6 of the UN Charter, however the proposal was not supported by the Council’s five permanent members. In the early 1970s the Assembly consistently declined to accept South Africa’s credentials (see here (https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/189828?ln=en), for eg), and in 1974, the General Assembly President ruled that this meant that South Africa was excluded from participating in the work of the UN. Specifically, the President said that: ‘on the basis of the consistency with which the General Assembly has regularly refused to accept the credentials of the delegation of South Africa, one may legitimately infer that the General Assembly would in the same way reject the credentials of any other delegation authorised by the Government of the Republic of South Africa to represent it, which is tantamount to saying in explicit terms that the General Assembly refuses to allow the delegation of South Africa to participate in its work’ (see Jhabvala (https://scholarlycommons.law.cwsl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1834&context=cwilj), p. 615). Thus, as Alison Duxbury explains (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/participation-of-states-in-international-organisations/6CAF8BC275E50EF59CEE063FD8464CFD), ‘in using the credentials process in this way, the General Assembly effectively sidestepped the article 5 requirement that both the major political organs of the UN must be involved in a suspension decision’.

The legality of the Assembly’s action in relation to South Africa is contested. A 1970 opinion (https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/820021?ln=en) of the UN Legal Counsel asserts that ‘the participation in meetings of the General Assembly is … one of the important rights and privileges of membership’, and that ‘suspension of this right through the rejection of credentials would not satisfy the [requirements of article 5] and would therefore be contrary to the Charter.’ On this view, with which several scholars agree (eg, Schermers and Blokker (https://brill.com/view/title/36421?language=en), p. 222), the Assembly’s exclusion of South Africa was clearly ultra vires. Other scholars disagree, however. Jhabvala (https://scholarlycommons.law.cwsl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1834&context=cwilj), for example, asserts that the suspension of South Africa was intra vires, if only because of the ‘legal gap’ and ‘political latitude’ that characterises the credentials rules and process; and even Schermers and Blokker concede that ‘there is general disagreement’ regarding whether the credentials process can be used to exclude a state from the UN – they suggest that ‘generally Western countries reject’ such a possibility, whereas ‘other countries are mostly in favour of it’. Other scholars take a middle ground, regarding the Assembly’s practice on South Africa as perhaps not quite illegal, but as ‘sui generis, not as establishing a practice that substitutes the General Assembly for the Security Council as the UN organ empowered to suspend or expel members’ (Halberstam (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2202350), p. 191).

Whatever view one takes on the question of legality, the fact is that the General Assembly has used the credentials process to exclude a state from the UN. On this point, it is pertinent to recall the well-established principle applicable to the interpretation of the constituent instruments of international organisations, that such organisations are – as a starting point at least – responsible for interpreting their own powers. In the case of the UN, this was made clear at the time of the drafting of the Charter. The question of which organ should be responsible for interpreting the Charter was assigned to a sub-committee, and the report of that committee – ultimately accepted – said that each organ of the UN was expected to ‘interpret such parts of the Charter as are applicable to its particular functions’ (see Goodrich (https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/intcon29&div=10&id=&page=), p. 251). Louis Sohn asserts (https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1439&context=gjicl) simply that ‘if the General Assembly thinks action is necessary, it can take it.’ In relation to South Africa in 1974, the Assembly did think that action was necessary, and it did take it, and there is no reason in international law that it could not do so in again in relation to Russia/Ukraine. The credentials of Russia’s current representative to the UN were accepted by the General Assembly last year, but under the Assembly’s rules of procedure (https://www.un.org/en/ga/about/ropga/credent.shtml) it is open to any member state to raise an objection to that representative, in which case he would remain seated provisionally, ‘until the Credentials Committee has reported and the General Assembly has given its decision’.

It’s unlikely to be the option pursued in the Assembly’s first resolution on Ukraine, but given the extent to which international law is being undermined, nothing should be off the table.



https://www.kcl.ac.uk/ukraine-invasion-should-russia-lose-its-seat-on-the-un-security-councilUkraine invasion: should Russia lose its seat on the UN Security Council?Andrew MacLeod Visiting Professor, Department of War Studies Kings College25 February 2022...Continuing statesBut why did Russia get the USSR’s seat following its dissolution? In 1991, the Alma-Ata Protocol (https://www.prlib.ru/en/history/619829) was signed by the majority of Soviet republics, declaring the end of the Soviet Union and agreeing that Russia would take over the USSR’s seat. Russia then wrote to the UN (http://www.ejil.org/pdfs/3/2/2045.pdf) requesting that the name USSR be amended to Russian Federation and that nothing else would change.

International lawyers have questioned the legality of this and have debated whether the dissolution of the USSR should have dissolved its seat at the Security Council. This is what Ukraine is now arguing. The whole matter rested on whether Russia was the “Successor State” or a “Continuing State” under international law. In 1991, Alexander Vladimirovich Yakovenko – a recent Russian ambassador to the UK who was at that time a mid-level bureaucrat in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow – wrote to argue that Russia should inherit the permanent seat.

He set out that a Successor State is a new country formed from the dissolution of an older one – and had no continuing rights or liabilities. All rights and liabilities would need to be renegotiated. A Continuing State, however, is the largest part of a country after a small part has broken away. It keeps the former rights and liabilities of the old country – including membership to international organisations and embassies. Yakovenko concluded Russia was the Continuing State.

In 1991, I worked as a young lawyer on a case before the High Court of Australia: Baltic Shipping v Dillon (https://www.australiancontractlaw.info/cases/database/baltic-shipping-v-dillon). A Soviet ship sank in New Zealand killing one crew member and causing harm to many Australian passengers. The Baltic Shipping Company was owned and insured by the Soviet government. But as the Soviet Union had ceased to exist, Baltic Shipping’s lawyers argued in court that the liability became uncertain because nobody knew who the real owners or insurers were. As the lawyers in the case, we then raised the question of Security Council membership. The Russian government quickly admitted liability for the sunken ship, not wanting to lose the Security Council seat.


LEGAL CONSEQUENCES FOR STATES OF THE CONTINUED PRESENCE OF SOUTH AFRICA IN NAMIBIA (SOUTH WEST AFRICA) NOTWITHSTANDING SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 276 (1970)

https://www.icj-cij.org/public/files/case-related/53/053-19710621-ADV-01-00-EN.pdf

"Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa), the ICJ dealt with South Africa’s argument that SC Resolution 284 (1970) (https://undocs.org/S/RES/284(1970)), in which the Security Council requested the Court’s opinion, was invalid as it was not adopted by an affirmative vote of all five permanent members (the UK and the USSR had abstained, as had Poland). Article 27(3) of the UN Charter explicitly requires that UNSC resolutions (other than procedural decisions) be adopted with ‘the concurring votes of the permanent members’. South Africa’s contention that this resolution could not have been adopted — as an abstention is not the same as a concurring vote — was in accordance with the literal text of the UN Charter".

Comment:
It goes on to say that the counterargument can be made of acceptance of practice, however, that is a matter of litigation, the Charter is clear; Russia is not a listed member of the UNSC under Article 23(1), and has never been ratified as the continuing member, and is thus illegitimate. The failure of the UNGA and UNSC to act accordingly has been due to coercion with the implied threat of a nuclear state, and that argument would then obviate the defense that Russia has been "accepted" as the legitimate continuing member. In common law, a coerced practice is considered void, and that seems to have been overlooked by the apologists to Russia maintaining a seat in the UNSC.

[jolihokistix]

Perhaps Russia should now be formally invited to submit an application for a seat on the Security Council, 'just to clear up any lingering doubts over legality regarding their temporary acceptance following the demise of the USSR'.

[Less Hair]

Whatever you do you considering the SC you would need China on your side doing it. Why would they want to loose some -now weakened- second voter on their side? Below the line: Unrealistic.
Still the General Assembly might get things moving somehow.

[fdr]

SITREP
The air war in Russia, and the impact to aircraft leasing, airlines, and aircrew, civil and military arise from the naked aggression of a nuclear bully, that has recently threatened nuclear war as a consequence.

The USSR imploded in 1991.
The constituent parts of the former USSR met and produced the Alma-Ata Protocol on December 21 1991. REF: https://www.prlib.ru/en/history/619829
The UN Charter Article 21(1) states who are the members of the UNSC. It has never been amended. REF:
In 1971 the ICJ wrote a court opinion Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa), the ICJ dealt with South Africa’s situation at that time. REF: https://www.icj-cij.org/public/files/case-related/53/053-19710621-ADV-01-00-EN.pdf
In the early 1970s the Assembly consistently declined to accept South Africa’s credentials. in 1974, the General Assembly President ruled that this meant that South Africa was excluded from participating in the work of the UN. Specifically, the President said that: ‘on the basis of the consistency with which the General Assembly has regularly refused to accept the credentials of the delegation of South Africa, one may legitimately infer that the General Assembly would in the same way reject the credentials of any other delegation authorised by the Government of the Republic of South Africa to represent it, which is tantamount to saying in explicit terms that the General Assembly refuses to allow the delegation of South Africa to participate in its work’ REF: https://www.ejiltalk.org/could-russia-be-suspended-from-the-united-nations/ ;
"‘in using the credentials process in this way, the General Assembly effectively sidestepped the article 5 requirement that both the major political organs of the UN must be involved in a suspension decision’." REF: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/participation-of-states-in-international-organisations/6CAF8BC275E50EF59CEE063FD8464CFD
Supporting analysis that the 1971 ICJ opinion was correct, And that the Assembly’s exclusion of South Africa was clearly ultra vires (acting or done beyond one's legal power or authority).. came to pass. REF: https://brill.com/view/title/36421?language=en.
Contending views exist as well such as THE CREDENTIALS APPROACH TO REPRESENTATION QUESTIONS IN THE U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY, FARROKH JHABVALA, Assistant Professor of International Relations, Florida International University, Miami, Florida. REF: https://scholarlycommons.law.cwsl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1834&context=cwilj
The question in law became that the Charter was not being followed, but the practice of non-compliance with the charter was an accepted variation. Russia has never been voted on to take the place of the USSR, which is a specific requirement of the charter related to joining of a nation, and thus continuation where the continuing party is not the original member.
Common law permits the voiding of a coerced contract. "Contract coercion occurs when a contract agreement is entered into under conditions involving harm or threats of harm. State and federal laws require contracts to be entered into “knowingly” and “willingly” by all parties. Thus, if a party signs a contract due to coercion, the contract generally will not be considered legally enforceable. The rule regarding coercion applies both to the entire contract as well as individual terms in the contract. That is, the parties must willingly agree to the contract as a whole, as well as the various terms, definitions, and requirements laid out individually in the agreement".
Is a country that has made explicit threats of nuclear war practicing "coercion"? If so, then any contract that they are associated with is affected. If conditions of coercion are found, the effect on the contract is usually that the entire contract is rescinded or cancelled. Contract rescission (https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/contract-rescission-lawyers.html) has the effect of canceling the agreement in its entirety. This will release both parties from their obligation to perform any contract duties as contained in the agreement.

So -

Is Russia a legitimate member of the UNSC under Article 23(1)?

The basis of their approaching the UN as the pseudo continuing member was the agreement of Alma-Ata, 21 Dec 1991. They have acted to repudiate that Declaration, Art.1 on 14 different matters and on multiple occasions.

Is Russia attempting coercion to any member of the UN Charter? Under Article 5, such on one country is considered to affect all Charter members...

​​​​​​​Russia continues to breach the Alma-Ata Declaration from which they gained the UNSC seat.

Does coercion/Duress finally permit the removal of Russia from the Art.23(1) UNSC seat?

​​​​​​​If Russia's seat is predicated on common law, as they were a state following a dissolution, not being the continuation state, then common-law contract effects of intimidation, duress, fraud in the inducement, etc may apply.

While we are at it... What about the Republic of China?

​​​​​​​ROC was removed from its seat through denial of it's credentials. PRC took the seat. PRC is acting in a manner that is inconsistent with Art.2 and Art.4. A caution would be interesting, or an Art.108 to be prepared to get adherence with their obligations.



​​​​​​​DISCUSSION

a UNSC Member, who happens to have contested status since 1992 has threatened nuclear war on a substantial number of UN countries.

Can a Member on the UNSC be removed? Yes.
Can the UN Charter be Amended? Yes

The ICJ 1971 decision is binding on all Member states, (Art.108). It made a determination on South Africa's suspension. Russia has stated it is a continuation state, however, that was subject to a UNGA vote which has never been conducted. The argument for retaining the seat is that they have been there for 31 years without a vote, so under common law, there is an assumption of acceptance of the contract, the Charter provisions of Art.23. That has never been tested in the Russia case but was objected to in 1992 by Ukraine, and no further action has been taken as yet. Today, we have an aggressor nation, who acts in breach of Art.4, purely because they are protected by the provisions of Art.5. Russia holds the seat by common law, not by the Art.108 procedure of amendment of the Charter, which was never concluded. Russia is not a signatory to the Vienna Convention on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties, of August 23 1978 which sets forth the basis for succession rights of a signatory. Russia contends instead it is the continuation of the USSR, however, it has never concluded the amendment to the Charter, a vote has never been conducted, Under common law, a contract is subject to recission when Duress/Coercion/Undue Influence, or Anticipatory Repudiation occurs, amongst many other things.

Is that significant?

On 8 Dec 1991 in Belarus, the 3 main states of the USSR met and determined to dissolve the USSR, this being known as the Belovezha Accords., that eventually resulted in an agreement ratified by the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR on 12 Dec 91. It stated: "the USSR, as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality, is ceasing its existence"
On 21 December 1991 the Alma-Ata Protocols were signed by all but 1 of the former USSR states, Georgia abstaining. At that time there were 12 remaining USSR States, 3, the baltic states had previously succeeded from the USSR under Art.72 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution that permitted free exit of any state. On 25 Dec 91, Gorbachev resigned, and Yeltsin became the President of Russia.
On the same day, On 25 December 1991, Russian President Yeltsin informed UN SG that the Soviet Union had been dissolved and that Russia would, as its successor state, continue the Soviet Union's membership in the United Nations.


Two problems arise over how the USSR dissolution was handled by the USSR and the 12 remaining states.
1. There was a dissolution of the member state, by the terms of the Belovezha Accord and the later Alma-Ata Protocols. There was no continuing state.
2. The Declaration of Alma-Ata gave a code of conduct for all signatories, a basis for the assumption of Russia to the UN under Art.23, contrary to the need for Russia to be a continuing state, it being a dissolution voiding all prior treaties.


The Council of Heads of State is the supreme body, on which all the member-states of the Commonwealth are represented at the level of head of state, for discussion of fundamental issues connected with coordinating the activity of the Commonwealth states in the sphere of their common interests.

The Council of Heads of State is empowered to discuss issues provided for by the Minsk Agreement on the creation of a Commonwealth of Independent States and other documents for the development of the said Agreement, including the problems of legal succession, which have arisen as a result of ending the existence of the USSR and the abolition of Union structures.

The activities of the Council of Heads of State and of the Council of Heads of Government are pursued on the basis of mutual recognition of and respect for the state sovereignty and sovereign equality of the member-states of the Agreement, their inalienable right to self-determination, the principles of equality and non-interference in internal affairs, the renunciation of the use of force and the threat of force, territorial integrity and the inviolability of existing borders, and the peaceful settlement of disputes, respect for human rights and liberties, including the rights of national minorities, conscientious fulfillment of obligations and other commonly accepted principles and norms of international law.


The basis of the tacit agreement for Russia to take the seat at the UN arose from the Alma-Ata Declaration of 21 Dec 91, and Russia has thoroughly breached material matters to the contract. Ukraine has objected to Russia's credentials, but they have never gone back to the basics of the 91 Agreement, which Russia has repudiated by their actions on multiple occasions, and with multiple signatories.

Breaches of the Alma-Ata Declaration by Russia since 25 Dec 1991 -

Respect for the state sovereignty and
sovereign equality of the member-states of the Agreement,
their inalienable right to self-determination,
the principles of equality and
non-interference in internal affairs, the
renunciation of the use of force and
the threat of force,
territorial integrity and
the inviolability of existing borders, and
the peaceful settlement of disputes,
respect for human rights and liberties, including
the rights of national minorities,
conscientious fulfillment of obligations and
other commonly accepted principles and norms of international law.


Through the repudiation by Russia of the material terms of the Declaration, Ukraine can argue the status of Russia as the agreed to "continuation" is invalidated.
The break up of the USSR was stated to be a dissolution, and therefore Art.23 does not apply to Russia, common law inferences notwithstanding. Refer ICJ decision, 1971,
If Russia's seat is based on common law, then the repudiation of the contract that permitted that would affect all matters that subsequently arose, and Russia can arguably be removed from it's seat.
Russia's breach of international law, and of the Alma-Ata Declaration, by which it gained it's Art.23 seat, notwithstanding it was never the continuance of the USSR, is able to be put into an amendment to the UN Charter, under Art.108.
Russia's recidivist history of human rights abuses and disregard of international law by itself is open to Art.108 amendment to remove Russia from being an Art.23 Permanent member.
On removal of Russia as an Art.23 "continuance of the USSR, the UNGA can vote for Art.5 or Art.6 sanctions.


There are a number of novel arguments there that Ukraine has not used previously, but simply, the USSR dissolved.

Russia was never a continuation which was required to be the case to assume a seat without a UNGA vote. No vote ever occurred. Remove them.
Russia assumed the seat on the back of the Alma-Ata Protocols of 21 Dec 1991. Art.1 of the protocols, at least 14 parts of that article have been breached by Russia which is arguably a repudiation of the contract by which they gained their seat on the UNSC. That is an immediate, evidentiary argument, there is no contest on that, and the ICJ can rule rapidly on that and remove Russia, from Art.23 UNSC membership, and then the UNSC can recommend Art.5 suspension or Art.6 expulsion. That is the fastest way to move, and it has never been argued. Ukraine moaned about the UNSC issues on other justifications, but they never went back to a repudiation of the contract that was entered by Russia that gave them the right, it is also arguably one of the greatest contractual frauds, and fraud in the inducement since Germany-USSR NAP of 1939.
If Russia argues they have their seat by common law, then the ICJ decision of 1971 voids that.
If the ICJ ruling which is binding, is set aside due to common law observance of Russia as a member in contravention of the continuation and tacit acceptance of their taking the seat, then under common law, Ukraine and all other signatories can argue duress, as the nuclear status of Russia was the reason that they were left unopposed.



Interesting reading:
Williams Paul R., The Treaty Obligations of the Successor States of the Former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia: Do They Continue in Force ?, 23 Denv. J. Int'l L. & Pol'y 1 (1994). https://digitalcommons.du.edu/cgi/vi...&context=djilp (https://digitalcommons.du.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1686&context=djilp)

In wake of Ukraine invasion, diplomats consider if Russia can be removed as one of five permanent security council members

(The Guardian, 24Feb 2022)

An effort is under way to isolate Vladimir Putin diplomatically by challenging Russia’s right to a permanent seat of the UN security council on the grounds that Russia (https://www.theguardian.com/world/russia) took the seat from the defunct Soviet Union in 1991 without proper authorisation.

Diplomats are also looking to see if there is a basis for removing Russia from the presidency of the council.

The presidency rotates monthly between the 15 members of the security council, allowing the office holder to shape its monthly agenda and to chair its meetings.

The Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzias was chairing an emergency meeting (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/24/moment-that-putin-thundered-to-war-drowning-out-last-entreaties-for-peace) of the security council in New York on Wednesday night as Putin announced his assault on Ukraine. Nebenzias started reading out a text sent to his phone by the Kremlin justifying the attack. He maintained the fiction that an invasion was not under way but instead a special military operation had begun in the Donbas.

Most council members condemned Russia, one of the five permanent security council members, with the UN secretary general António Guterres taking the rare step of accusing Russia of being in breach of the UN charter.

A draft security council motion, condemning Russia and calling for its unconditional withdrawal, is being negotiated behind the scenes in New York and will probably be debated on Friday, but Russia as a permanent member will use its veto.

The Ukrainian ambassador to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, told Wednesday night’s meeting that article 4 of the UN charter says the UN is open only to peace-loving states that accept the terms of the charter. He said Russia’s actions showed it could not comply with those terms.

But he also asked Guterres to distribute to the security council the legal memos written by UN legal counsel dated 19 December 1991 that the Russian Federation be permitted to join the security council as the successor to the Soviet Union. Ukraine (https://www.theguardian.com/world/ukraine) claims the constituent republics of the USSR declared in 1991 that the Soviet Union ceased to exist, and with it should have gone the legal right of any of those entities, including Russia, to sit on the council.

No decision to permit Russia to the security council was ever put to the General Assembly. The UN charter was never amended after the USSR broke up. It still references the Soviet Union, and not Russia, as one of the permanent members of the UN security council.

By contrast in 1991 China’s entry into the UN was subject to a resolution. A member of the United Nations (https://www.theguardian.com/world/unitednations) which has persistently violated the principles contained in the present charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the security council.

The Russians claim its actions were taken in line with clause 51 of the charter citing self-defence.

The tension between Ukraine and Russia at the Wednesday meeting boiled over at the UN when Kyslytsya at the close of the session looked at his Russian counterpart and said “there is no purgatory for war criminals”, adding “they go straight to hell, Ambassador.”

Guterres in a brief televised statement on Thursday said the “Russian military operation is wrong, is against the charter and unacceptable”. He again appealed to Putin to stop the operation and bring the troops back to Russia.

The Russian diplomatic delegation is working hard to maintain the protection of China, which has been reluctant to abandon Russia (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/22/ukraine-crisis-poses-dilemma-for-china-but-also-opportunity), and would never support a motion for expulsion.

But US officials said, “Russia’s aggressive actions here carry risks for China along with everyone else. It’s not in China’s interest to endorse a devastating conflict in Europe (https://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news) and defy the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity it claims to hold dear.”

[fdr]

Whatever you do you considering the SC you would need China on your side doing it. Why would they want to loose some -now weakened- second voter on their side? Below the line: Unrealistic.
Still the General Assembly might get things moving somehow.

SUMMARY OF FACTS:

1. Russia is not the UN Charter Article 23(1) member. Never has been, USSR is.
2. Common law principles are the only ones that may permit Russia to argue a case of continuation.
3. Under common law, coercion in relation to a contract is a basis for contract rescission, that is an immediate denial of the credentials of Russia in the UNSC and the UNGA.

The members of the UNSC are specified in Article 23(1) of the UN Charter.

PRC is not a member under Article 23(1), the Republic of China is.


POST on military aviation:The airwar, Russia and the UN Charter Article 23(1)I have just made a new thread that I hope the MODS will permit to be posted. It lays out for those here, the media, and hopefully those that sit in the UN and cogitate their navels a basis to remove Russia from having a vote in the UNSC through the credentials process. The stark fact is that the common law practice of the UN has been permitted to be applied as an alleviation of the threat that Russia posed, and that position either does or does not stump the explicit requirement for a vote for membership of an applicant that was never taken. As the only basis of membership can be argued and was in 971 in respect to South Africa having credentials denied, then if common law applies, so does the common law matter of coercion, duress and undue influence equally apply but have never been considered.

We have a purported UN Charter nation that doesn't abide by any part of the charter, and yet seeks protection from exclusion by the very charter they use for wiping their collective backsides. (given the roughness of the kopek, I can understand that the fine paper of the Charter would be a better sanitary aid than the Russian economy). The only defense they have against the express breach of the charter Article 23(1) is common law, so let's have common law also apply to their coercion, undue influence, intimidation, Unconscionability... etc.

The beauty of a denial of credentials is that it appears to circumvent the UNSC completely, so the world actually gets to have a voice. Not just Russia, who have shown by their actions that not only are they unfit to be on the UNSC, but they are also unfit to be members of the UN at all.

Thsi does impact PRC, for exactly the same reasons, and I would think that the PRC need to come to an accommodation over the SCS, and Taiwan who is the legitimate UNSC member, to rejoin the community of nations.

This post is not aimed solely at PPRuNers, it is to the media, and the wider community including the UN itself, as a manner to remove the current threat of nuclear war that is cavalierly threatened by the Russian government officials and their spokespersons.

The concept of a winnable nuclear was is nonsense. Turning the only known marble in the known universe that has supposedly intelligent life, to a wasteland uninhabitable for 20,000 years seems to be irrational. Simulations of nuclear wars are only that, simulations, and they always end up with the massive loss of life, as in 20-80% of civilization on average, and can easily achieve 100% loss. I spent my youth tracking nuclear ballistic submarines, they concentrate your views on matters of war and the insanity that is spouted by the belligerent at this time.

I invite cogent comments on justifications to permit the voiding of the credentials of Russia in the UNGA and UNSC. If there is general annoyance with that as it appears idealistic, remember before you hit send that the UN has previously denied credentiuals. They did it to Cambodia, so contrarians, feel free to either PM me or you can email me directly for a discussion, but the facts are the facts.

[Ripton]

PRC is not a member under Article 23(1), the Republic of China is.



Wasn't the ROC / PRC thing resolved with Resolution 2758?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Resolution-2758.png
Whatever you do you considering the SC you would need China on your side doing it. Why would they want to loose some -now weakened- second voter on their side? Below the line: Unrealistic.
Still the General Assembly might get things moving somehow.

Given that China has the veto and can use it when it please, do they ned a second voter on their side or would they perhaps prefer to be able to name their price when exercising the veto on Russia's behalf?

[fdr]

Whatever you do you considering the SC you would need China on your side doing it. Why would they want to loose some -now weakened- second voter on their side? Below the line: Unrealistic.
Still the General Assembly might get things moving somehow.

Yes and no;

The UNSC seat was given to Republic of China. That happens to be Taiwan. It was removed later, but that is quite contestable. It is not unreasonable to have an amendment that precludes a belligerent to having a vote in the UNSC, it is such a blindingly obvious process failure that it can only be assumed that the Charter was written by someone suffering from shell shock. If it was a commercial contract, that would make the contract void as being an unenforceable implied (and explicit) term of the contract.

Veto power makes the system dysfunctional, and that affects the states with that power as well.

Russia needs to be booted out, and to reapply for membership of the UNGA. They have more than 20 years of abuse of process to make up for, and genocide to make restitution for.

China can reasonable argue to retain a seat at the table, by renouncing threats and intimidation of Taiwan, and by recognising Taiwan. If they do not wish to do that, then they can join Russia outside of the UN, that seems fair. That immediately elevates Taiwan as the ROC back to their seat on the UNSC. Whether they should be there, is an open matter.

Russia made undertakings of a common law nature to be permitted to sit on the UNSC, and those included non aggression and respect of the sovreignity of Ukraine and other countries borders. They breached that contract by their actions in 2014, and again in 2022. Under common law, which is the only basis that they sit in the UN at all, they are at risk of smarter people than me joining the dots and throwing them out. IIRC, when their status is questioned, they are suspended pending the outcome of any determination, I seem to recall reading words to that effect, but that could be incorrect, If correct, then this is an immediate impact to their position, as long as it takes for moribund public servants together off their backsides and act to save people from an active genocide perpetrated by a criminal state.

[fdr]

Wasn't the ROC / PRC thing resolved with Resolution 2758?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Resolution-2758.png


Given that China has the veto and can use it when it please, do they ned a second voter on their side or would they perhaps prefer to be able to name their price when exercising the veto on Russia's behalf?


Actually, the ICJ 1971 opinion [1] found that in the same case of South Africa, the UN acted incorrectly. For whatever reason, Resolution 2758 has not been challenged as being unlawful by ROC/Taiwan, but the weight of law is on their side. There is no common law basis for their position by the action of the grossly erroneous UNR2758 of 1971. That is a matter for the ICJ once again.


[1] REPORTS OF JUDGMENTS, ADVISORY OPINIONS AND ORDERS LEGAL CONSEQUENCES FOR STATES OF THE CONTINUED PRESENCE OF SOUTH AFRICA IN NAMIBIA (SOUTH WEST AFRICA) NOTWITHSTANDING SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 276 (1970) ADVISORY OPINION OF 21 JUNE 1971

https://www.icj-cij.org/public/files/case-related/53/053-19710621-ADV-01-00-EN.pdf

[Ripton]

Actually, the ICJ 1971 opinion [1] found that in the same case of South Africa, the UN acted incorrectly. For whatever reason, Resolution 2758 has not been challenged as being unlawful by ROC/Taiwan, but the weight of law is on their side. There is no common law basis for their position by the action of the grossly erroneous UNR2758 of 1971. That is a matter for the ICJ once again.


[1] REPORTS OF JUDGMENTS, ADVISORY OPINIONS AND ORDERS LEGAL CONSEQUENCES FOR STATES OF THE CONTINUED PRESENCE OF SOUTH AFRICA IN NAMIBIA (SOUTH WEST AFRICA) NOTWITHSTANDING SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 276 (1970) ADVISORY OPINION OF 21 JUNE 1971

https://www.icj-cij.org/public/files/case-related/53/053-19710621-ADV-01-00-EN.pdf

Interesting. Whilst there might be a way, is there a will to reopen a 50 year old matter given the the PRC has not, yet, behaved same way as Russia with regards to its neighbours?

[ORAC]

It is not unreasonable to have an amendment that precludes a belligerent to having a vote in the UNSC, it is such a blindingly obvious process failure that it can only be assumed that the Charter was written by someone suffering from shell shock. If it was a commercial contract, that would make the contract void as being an unenforceable implied (and explicit) term of the contract.

Veto power makes the system dysfunctional, and that affects the states with that power as well.

Baked in from the start - it was the only basis upon which Russia agreed to join.

If you wonder why they didn’t go ahead without them, the whole point of the UN was to replace the League of Nations which was accepted as disfunctional - because the USA had refused to ever join because they wouldn’t have had a veto.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/existing-legal-limits-to-security-council-veto-power-in-the-face-of-atrocity-crimes/origins-and-history-of-the-veto-and-its-use/E56893EC44C5C501679E0D0C53B836F2

.…In the early negotiations of what would become the UN Charter, the US, UK, USSR, and China agreed they would have veto in the Security Council on substantive votes. What emerged as a principle point of contention in their negotiations – primarily conducted by the US, USSR, and the. UK – was whether this should extend to voting (and hence veto use) as to situations to which they themselves were a party.

The Soviet Union refused to agree to any plan in which they might not have veto power even as to matters involving themselves. However, the US and the UK initially had qualms about such an approach. Ultimately, as detailed below, the US and the UK acquiesced to the Soviet Union’s position during negotiations at the Yalta Conference, held February 4–11, 1945…..

[Asturias56]

"Baked in from the start - it was the only basis upon which Russia agreed to join."

Don't think the Brits or the USA would have signed up without a veto either TBH

[Lonewolf_50]

Oh, LW0.5, You complain about ad hominem, and then you resort to childish crap like that. Hard to take you seriously.

You then embark on a wall of text that, when one examines it, shows how there wasn't even agreement on whether the suspension of South Africa was valid in the legal sense - and while it's an interesting case to consider, as they are/were not a member of the Security council like the big 5 are (nor was Cambodia) it's irrelevant to the case at hand.

In SA's case, when the actual leverage of the various political forms of suasion are taken into consideration - various trade sanctions, exercises of political Power by numerous Powerful nations that had the Power to make a difference - and about 20 years of that pain was inflicted on the apartheid regime, then change happened. How much the rhetoric in the UNGA contributed to that is debatable, but I do think it's fair that it made at least some contribution in setting the political stage.

FWIW: you will find that Iraq was not suspended from the UN during their 8 year war with Iran wherein they were the aggressor; simply being a belligerent, or an aggressor, is not going to cost you your seat at the UN and neither apparently, is using chemical weapons - which they did. (A bit of aviation content here: Iran-Iraq war was the first one where two nations used ballistic missiles against one another, albeit with conventional warheads)
Closer to my point on your bombast, though, Iraq is not a permanent SC member (and thus like most members of lesser status) and it still wasn't deprived of their seat.

You will also find that China's invasion of neighbor Viet Nam in 1979 didn't put their seat at risk. (That had a limited objective, and China did withdraw after a few months (which I doubt Russia intends to do vis a vis Ukraine) and the two did reaffirm their mutual borders some years later).
Russia's invasion of Ukraine is just over two months old; Iraq and Iran were at war for 8 years.

ORAC has nailed it: baked in from the start in the hopes that the UN would be more effective than the League of Nations. And it has been, warts and all. (Asturias56's point on the UK and US position squares with my reading on the UN's origins).

The Powers who defeated the Axis in WW II established their club.
Other nations wanted to join that club. No, the people who wrote the charter were neither drunk nor fools, they were canny and politically experienced, and they were in a position of Power to do something. They attempted to do something that had failed before and make it work. And what do you know, they succeeded since the UN still exists regardless of its various shortcomings.
(Interesting tidbit in its evolution: at various points starting in about 1942, the Allies referred to their collective efforts as the efforts of the United Nations (the document I have in my mind listed about 40 nations, including some of the ones in South America - it's been about 30 years since I did the research on that while writing a monograph on why, and when, sanctions do and don't work).

The fact there are advocates for making an attempt to go after Russia's seat at the UN (and at the SC) is certainly of interest.
As noted above being deprived of a seat at the UN is a serious matter - which point was made in one of your walls of text - and digging out two exceptions, neither of which was an open and shut case, means that it's not only unlikely (since once again the Security Council gets involved, and guess who is there?) but that the process is laborious at best and controversial at best.

Beyond that, another poster (actually two, Less Hair and Ripton) pointed out that China may not find it in their interest for Russia to be removed from their SC seat. Why would they support that? I am pretty sure that they have reservations about having India take a permanent seat (even though India being a permanent member is a position I've seen batted around for years).

In summary: unless something substantially changes (and I suspect that Russia using nukes would be such a substantial change) you can can wish in one hand and crap in the other and then see which one fills up first.

As an addendum: (recent article from NPR (https://www.npr.org/2022/04/27/1094971703/u-n-takes-step-to-put-veto-users-under-global-spotlight#:~:text=More%20than%20200%20different%20Security,c ountries%2C%20according%20to%20U.N.%20records.)) The reform of the Security Council, which is charged under the U.N. Charter with ensuring international peace and security, has been debated for more than 40 years. Your long winded bombast is neither original nor novel. There is widespread support for revamping the council to reflect current global realities rather than the international power structure after World War II in 1945 when the United Nations was created. But rivalries between countries and regions have blocked all attempts to reach agreement on the size, composition and powers of an expanded council. Because that's the dirty truth on how politics works. And if you mess with the Security Council you may wreck it and the UN then goes the way of the League of Nations. Not only that, none of the permanent members has volunteered to step down.
Can you figure out why?
More than 200 different Security Council proposals have been vetoed, some by multiple countries, according to U.N. records. The subjects have ranged from the Korean War and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to climate change, reporting on weapons stockpiles, and governance of a part of the Indian Ocean nation Comoros. The former Soviet Union and its successor Russia have cast the most vetoes by far, followed by the United States. Far fewer have been cast by Britain, China and France. But they reserve the right; it's a form of Power.
France didn't co-sponsor the resolution and its deputy ambassador, Nathalie Broadhurst, said it does not believe the General Assembly can become the judge of the Security Council. Once again, how politics works.

It has 31 been years since USSR's seat went to Russia. They are going to keep their seat until something extraordinary transpires to change that simple fact on the ground.

[Ripton]

Beyond that, another poster (actually two, Less Hair and Ripton) pointed out that China may not find it in their interest for Russia to be removed from their SC seat. Why would they support that? .

I think you may have misunderstood my post, rather than point out that it might not be in China's interest for Russia to be removed I asked whether it might actually be in their interest as, for a price, they would be able to be able to exercise their veto on Russia's behalf.

Who wouldn't want to hold that sort of power over their broadly aligned unruly neighbour. Surely its been part of their arsenal of methods to keep the Kims from doing anything too silly.

[Lonewolf_50]

I think you may have misunderstood my post, rather than point out that it might not be in China's interest for Russia to be removed I asked whether it might actually be in their interest as, for a price, they would be able to be able to exercise their veto on Russia's behalf.

Who wouldn't want to hold that sort of power over their broadly aligned unruly neighbour. Surely its been part of their arsenal of methods to keep the Kims from doing anything too silly. I did indeed miss that distinction, thanks for spelling that out a bit. :ok:
If the Chinese want more leverage over Russia, that's a way to get it but that does leave "are they really keen on India filling that gap?" as an open question (while I suspect the answer is no, it might not be).

@NutLoose: the M-113 APC is a vehicle that packages infantry into large groups for destruction. :} (I am paraphrasing a "laws of combat" adage I once read in the Marine Corps Gazette, but I'm having trouble finding the exact quote)

[fdr]

It has 31 been years since USSR's seat went to Russia. They are going to keep their seat until something extraordinary transpires to change that simple fact on the ground.

Something extraordinary did happen, a UNSC Member, who happens to have contested status since 1992 has threatened nuclear war on a substantial number of UN countries. Yours included.

Can a Member on the UNSC be removed? Yes.
Can the UN Charter be Amended? Yes

The ICJ 1971 decision is binding on all Member states, (Art.108). It made a determination on South Africa's suspension. Russia has stated it is a continuation state, however, that was subject to a UNGA vote which has never been conducted. The argument for retaining the seat is that as Lonewolf has pointed out they have been there for 31 years without a vote, so under common law, there is an assumption of acceptance of the contract, the Charter provisions of Art.23. That has never been tested in the Russia case but was objected to in 1992 by Ukraine, and no further action has been taken as yet. Today, we have an aggressor nation, who acts in breach of Art.4, purely because they are protected by the provisions of Art.5. Russia holds the seat by common law, not by the Art.108 procedure of amendment of the Charter, which was never concluded. Russia is not a signatory to the Vienna Convention on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties, of August 23 1978 which sets forth the basis for succession rights of a signatory. Russia contends instead it is the continuation of the USSR, however, it has never concluded the amendment to the Charter, a vote has never been conducted, Under common law, a contract is subject to recission when Duress/Coercion/Undue Influence, or Anticipatory Repudiation occurs, amongst many other things.

Is that significant?

On 8 Dec 1991 in Belarus, the 3 main states of the USSR met and determined to dissolve the USSR, this being known as the Belovezha Accords., that eventually resulted in an agreement ratified by the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR on 12 Dec 91. It stated: "the USSR, as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality, is ceasing its existence"
On 21 December 1991 the Alma-Ata Protocols were signed by all but 1 of the former USSR states, Georgia abstaining. At that time there were 12 remaining USSR States, 3, the baltic states had previously succeeded from the USSR under Art.72 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution that permitted free exit of any state. On 25 Dec 91, Gorbachev resigned, and Yeltsin became the President of Russia.
On the same day, On 25 December 1991, Russian President Yeltsin informed UN SG that the Soviet Union had been dissolved and that Russia would, as its successor state, continue the Soviet Union's membership in the United Nations.


Two problems arise over how the USSR dissolution was handled by the USSR and the 12 remaining states.
1. There was a dissolution of the member state, by the terms of the Belovezha Accord and the later Alma-Ata Protocols. There was no continuing state.
2. The Declaration of Alma-Ata gave a code of conduct for all signatories, a basis for the assumption of Russia to the UN under Art.23, contrary to the need for Russia to be a continuing state, it being a dissolution voiding all prior treaties.
The Council of Heads of State is the supreme body, on which all the member-states of the Commonwealth are represented at the level of head of state, for discussion of fundamental issues connected with coordinating the activity of the Commonwealth states in the sphere of their common interests.

The Council of Heads of State is empowered to discuss issues provided for by the Minsk Agreement on the creation of a Commonwealth of Independent States and other documents for the development of the said Agreement, including the problems of legal succession, which have arisen as a result of ending the existence of the USSR and the abolition of Union structures.

The activities of the Council of Heads of State and of the Council of Heads of Government are pursued on the basis of mutual recognition of and respect for the state sovereignty and sovereign equality of the member-states of the Agreement, their inalienable right to self-determination, the principles of equality and non-interference in internal affairs, the renunciation of the use of force and the threat of force, territorial integrity and the inviolability of existing borders, and the peaceful settlement of disputes, respect for human rights and liberties, including the rights of national minorities, conscientious fulfillment of obligations and other commonly accepted principles and norms of international law.






The basis of the tacit agreement for Russia to take the seat at the UN arose from the Alma-Ata Declaration of 21 Dec 91, and Russia has thoroughly breached material matters to the contract. Ukraine has objected to Russia's credentials, but they have never gone back to the basics of the 91 Agreement, which Russia has repudiated by their actions on multiple occasions, and with multiple signatories.

Breaches of the Alma-Ata Declaration by Russia since 25 Dec 1991 -

Respect for the state sovereignty and
sovereign equality of the member-states of the Agreement,
their inalienable right to self-determination,
the principles of equality and
non-interference in internal affairs, the
renunciation of the use of force and
the threat of force,
territorial integrity and
the inviolability of existing borders, and
the peaceful settlement of disputes,
respect for human rights and liberties, including
the rights of national minorities,
conscientious fulfillment of obligations and
other commonly accepted principles and norms of international law.


Through the repudiation by Russia of the material terms of the Declaration, Ukraine can argue the status of Russia as the agreed to "continuation" is invalidated.
The break up of the USSR was stated to be a dissolution, and therefore Art.23 does not apply to Russia, common law inferences notwithstanding. Refer ICJ decision, 1971,
If Russia's seat is based on common law, then the repudiation of the contract that permitted that would affect all matters that subsequently arose, and Russia can arguably be removed from it's seat.
Russia's breach of international law, and of the Alma-Ata Declaration, by which it gained it's Art.23 seat, notwithstanding it was never the continuance of the USSR, is able to be put into an amendment to the UN Charter, under Art.108.
Russia's recidivist history of human rights abuses and disregard of international law by itself is open to Art.108 amendment to remove Russia from being an Art.23 Permanent member.
On removal of Russia as an Art.23 "continuance of the USSR, the UNGA can vote for Art.5 or Art.6 sanctions.

Interesting reading:
Williams Paul R., The Treaty Obligations of the Successor States of the Former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia: Do They Continue in Force ?, 23 Denv. J. Int'l L. & Pol'y 1 (1994). https://digitalcommons.du.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1686&context=djilp

In wake of Ukraine invasion, diplomats consider if Russia can be removed as one of five permanent security council members

(The Guardian, 24Feb 2022)

An effort is under way to isolate Vladimir Putin diplomatically by challenging Russia’s right to a permanent seat of the UN security council on the grounds that Russia (https://www.theguardian.com/world/russia) took the seat from the defunct Soviet Union in 1991 without proper authorisation.

Diplomats are also looking to see if there is a basis for removing Russia from the presidency of the council.

The presidency rotates monthly between the 15 members of the security council, allowing the office holder to shape its monthly agenda and to chair its meetings.

The Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzias was chairing an emergency meeting (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/24/moment-that-putin-thundered-to-war-drowning-out-last-entreaties-for-peace) of the security council in New York on Wednesday night as Putin announced his assault on Ukraine. Nebenzias started reading out a text sent to his phone by the Kremlin justifying the attack. He maintained the fiction that an invasion was not under way but instead a special military operation had begun in the Donbas.

Most council members condemned Russia, one of the five permanent security council members, with the UN secretary general António Guterres taking the rare step of accusing Russia of being in breach of the UN charter.

A draft security council motion, condemning Russia and calling for its unconditional withdrawal, is being negotiated behind the scenes in New York and will probably be debated on Friday, but Russia as a permanent member will use its veto.

The Ukrainian ambassador to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, told Wednesday night’s meeting that article 4 of the UN charter says the UN is open only to peace-loving states that accept the terms of the charter. He said Russia’s actions showed it could not comply with those terms.

But he also asked Guterres to distribute to the security council the legal memos written by UN legal counsel dated 19 December 1991 that the Russian Federation be permitted to join the security council as the successor to the Soviet Union. Ukraine (https://www.theguardian.com/world/ukraine) claims the constituent republics of the USSR declared in 1991 that the Soviet Union ceased to exist, and with it should have gone the legal right of any of those entities, including Russia, to sit on the council.

No decision to permit Russia to the security council was ever put to the General Assembly. The UN charter was never amended after the USSR broke up. It still references the Soviet Union, and not Russia, as one of the permanent members of the UN security council.

By contrast in 1991 China’s entry into the UN was subject to a resolution. A member of the United Nations (https://www.theguardian.com/world/unitednations) which has persistently violated the principles contained in the present charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the security council.

The Russians claim its actions were taken in line with clause 51 of the charter citing self-defence.

The tension between Ukraine and Russia at the Wednesday meeting boiled over at the UN when Kyslytsya at the close of the session looked at his Russian counterpart and said “there is no purgatory for war criminals”, adding “they go straight to hell, Ambassador.”

Guterres in a brief televised statement on Thursday said the “Russian military operation is wrong, is against the charter and unacceptable”. He again appealed to Putin to stop the operation and bring the troops back to Russia.

The Russian diplomatic delegation is working hard to maintain the protection of China, which has been reluctant to abandon Russia (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/22/ukraine-crisis-poses-dilemma-for-china-but-also-opportunity), and would never support a motion for expulsion.

But US officials said, “Russia’s aggressive actions here carry risks for China along with everyone else. It’s not in China’s interest to endorse a devastating conflict in Europe (https://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news) and defy the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity it claims to hold dear.”

[Ripton]

I'm not going to get into the debate over removing Russia from the UNSC but Putin certainly doesn't seem to be trying make friends at the UN. From the Telegraph:

Russia launched missile strikes on Kyiv while Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary General, was visiting the city.

Two explosions were heard as the official was visiting in the first bombardment of the capital since mid-April, the president's office said.

"Missile strikes in the downtown of Kyiv during the official visit of @antonioguterres," tweeted the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The Ukrainian Defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, condemned the strikes.

He said: "While the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is visiting Kyiv, a permanent member of the UN Security Council - Russia - is launching missile strikes on the city. This is an attack on the security of the Secretary General and on world security!".

[Lonewolf_50]

Something extraordinary did happen, a UNSC Member, who happens to have contested status since 1992 has threatened nuclear war on a substantial number of UN countries. Yours included. I lived through and served in the cold war. My ASW warfare specialty was in part concerned with keeping an eye on and hoping to neutralize (or sink) submarines filled with nuclear weapons. The ever present threat of nuclear war was a daily concern as I grew up and grew into adulthood.

Not sure what is behind your shrill overreaction here. It's a threat, yes, and I not pleased that it was made.
(I doubt many people are, to include some important people in Moscow who are not the president).
Nothing extraordinary in governments making threats and talking big.
Hell, Mr Kim in North Korea has been doing that on and off for years.

[fdr]

Perhaps Russia should now be formally invited to submit an application for a seat on the Security Council, 'just to clear up any lingering doubts over legality regarding their temporary acceptance following the demise of the USSR'.

That is indeed the action that should be taken, following a Chapter XIV Art.92 ICJ determination based on the 1971 rulings by the ICJ, and considering the breaches of the basis that Russia was given the seat without following Charter procedures. Alternatively, an Art.108 amendment by the UNGA can remove USSR (Russia) from the Art.23(1) status. There are specific reasons why that would be reasonable, and not affect the other PM's of the UNSC, the justification is whether the direct breaches by Russia of the Declaration of Alma-Ata, Art.1 under which they were given the already questioned (1992, 1995) status of a continuing state, as the USSR was specifically dissolved, they are therefore not a continuing body, the USSR seat ceased to exist legally on 25 Dec 91.

LW50 considers this beyond the ability of real-world politics. Maybe so. But getting the attention of the minions is a means to stop the madness that he is spouting, which in itself is sufficient to do an ARt.108 amendment to remove Russia, they have zero interest in the Art.1, Art.2 and Art.4 basis of membership in the UN.

If LW50 is right, and I hope he is not, then there is not much to stop F-Troop from driving their folly over the cliff, and taking a few billion inhabitants with them, on a best-case scenario.

So decide what your position is, and go dig a hole in the ground, or get your govt to act on removing Russia from the UN. Just the action of starting that discussion for real at least puts a position in front of F-Troop.

Russia goes to tactical nukes on the assumption that there is no resolve to respond. It is time to make that a major issue. The lunacy of commencing this war of choice in late February as the chicken entrails all lined up suggests that UN deliberation and response before May Day is "desirable".

That's 10 days away.

[fdr]

I lived through and served in the cold war. My ASW warfare specialty was in part concerned with keeping an eye on and hoping to neutralize (or sink) submarines filled with nuclear weapons. The ever present threat of nuclear war was a daily concern as I grew up and grew into adulthood.
Not sure what is behind your shrill overreaction here. It's a threat, yes, and I not pleased that it was made. (I doubt many people are, to include some important people in Moscow who are not the president). Nothing extraordinary in governments making threats and talking big. Hell, Mr Kim in North Korea has been doing that on and off for years.

Then we were doing the same thing and probably doing it in the same types of aircraft.

Mr Kim isn't in a hot "special military operation" where his tanks are cooking off like frying pans, and where a considerable of his troops are declining to join in the party after the reception in the North of the country they were supposed to be liberating the natives didn't include throwing flowers at the incoming troops, it was Molotov cocktails, NLAWS, and 7.62's instead. F-Troop is slow on the uptake that the people in Ukraine didn't take kindly to being murdered and raped by uninvited F-Troops hordes.

You and I have never, since October 62 had a threatened risk that is as clear and present as it is today, with a despot who is isolated from his own cabinet by a 40' table sits brooding over the brilliance of attacking in February, and of attacking at all.

The UN is a worthless waste of money, usually. If it is going to earn it's keep, then this is one of those times that it can achieve what it was put together to do. If they don't and we all get through this, you included, without catastrophe, then they show they are irrelevant and utterly toothless. They are in fact worse than irrelevant if they do not follow their charter which is pretty bloody simple in scope. Getting the UN to do their job is at least an affirmative action to stopping F-Troop from acting unwisely. The UN has multiple means to remove Russia from the UNSC, either Art.108 of Art.92 and then by Art.5 & Art.6. [1] [2]

Shrill? maybe, but the last time the world got close to being turned into a brickette was on 26 September 1983. We were one rational person, Lt Col Stanislav Petrov [4] away from a mess, when the rational actor had to refuse to launch a massive counter-strike against a computer error.

The thousands of hours I sat overhead Deltas, Yankees, Victors and Alphas, etc, didn't have any of the immediacies of threat that exists today. NK is nowhere near the same level of danger, nor is Pakistan & India, Iran-Israel, or anywhere else on this planet.

Russia is a train wreck, and apparently, the lad in charge has anger management issues along with a distorted view on the history of his own country. Adult supervision is desirable.

There was expediency in putting Russia into the UNSC, which Williams [3] noted, also considering the Alma-Ata Protocol (Declaration) [5] as being the basis of the USA's push to accept Russia at that time. Their seat can be contested.

References:

[1] Charter of the United Nations, 26 June 1945, https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text

[2] THE MEANING OF "STATES" IN THE MEMBERSHIP PROVISIONS OF THE UNITED NATIONS CHARTER, Chen, F.T., (2001) IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv. Vol 12.1,

[3] Williams Paul R., The Treaty Obligations of the Successor States of the Former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia: Do They Continue in Force, 23 Denv. J. Int'l L. & Pol'y 1 (1994).

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident

[5] "THE ALMA-ATA DECLARATION" (https://web.archive.org/web/20010122033300/http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/belarus/by_appnc.html). Federal Research Division / Country Studies / Area Handbook Series / Belarus / Appendix C. Library of Congress. Archived from the original (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/belarus/by_appnc.html) on 2001-01-22.

[Asturias56]

"Their seat can be contested."

How? What is the mechanism??

[fdr]

"Their seat can be contested."

How? What is the mechanism??

Art 92 response to member state > Art.23(1) enforcement of status of USSR, not Russia, based on the dissolution not continuation of the USSR.
Art 92 response to member state > Art.23(1) enforcement of status of USSR, not Russia, based on the repudiation of the Alma-Ata Declaration Art.(1) by Russia, in dishonoring the terms of the agreement they made with the CIS states on the dissolution of the USSR. (breach, fraud in inducement, material breach of terms). That has been done on what, 5 former states of the CIS since the signing? That is habitual.
Art.108 response to a member state objection > Amendment of Art23(1) > Art.(5) or (6) action by UNGA following a recommendation by UNSC (has issues by veto unless China is given way out)

None of these occur without a principled stand, but the mechanisms exist to set aside or amend. Set aside does not give any country a veto right, so that would be my first pick. That would lead to a removal of RUS from the UNSC, but the remaining UNSC would still be required to vote without veto on the removal or suspension from the UNGA. A UNGA resolution. to amend Art.23(1) or any part of the charter can be made if a 2/3rds majority is affirmative, and that could include any specific matter, directed in general or at RUS directly. There is no veto to the amendment process by the UNSC.


FLOWCHART OF PROCESS (https://lucid.app/documents/view/b72c981a-c886-410c-abcf-8ff61b073cdf)



https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1650x1298/russia_unsc_296e5a5697bcd216de418d557e96b0d40db5012f.png


[1] Charter of the United Nations, 26 June 1945, https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text

[2] THE MEANING OF "STATES" IN THE MEMBERSHIP PROVISIONS OF THE UNITED NATIONS CHARTER, Chen, F.T., (2001) IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv. Vol 12.1,

[3] Williams Paul R., The Treaty Obligations of the Successor States of the Former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia: Do They Continue in Force, 23 Denv. J. Int'l L. & Pol'y 1 (1994).

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_S...alarm_incident (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident)

[5] "THE ALMA-ATA DECLARATION" (https://web.archive.org/web/20010122033300/http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/belarus/by_appnc.html). Federal Research Division / Country Studies / Area Handbook Series / Belarus / Appendix C. Library of Congress. Archived from the original (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/belarus/by_appnc.html) on 2001-01-22.

[Lonewolf_50]

There was expediency in putting Russia into the UNSC, which Williams [3] noted, also considering the Alma-Ata Protocol (Declaration) [5] as being the basis of the USA's push to accept Russia at that time. Their seat can be contested. The US, France, UK, and China are all aware that if the Russian seat can be contested, so can theirs. (See my previous remark on the 40 years of "reform" efforts that have gone basically nowhere).
From a practical political perspective, the American endorsement of Russia as a UNSC member matters more than your emotionally based opinion because of that P word that I keep mentioning: Power.

[fdr]

The US, France, UK, and China are all aware that if the Russian seat can be contested, so can theirs. (See my previous remark on the 40 years of "reform" efforts that have gone basically nowhere).
From a practical political perspective, the American endorsement of Russia as a UNSC member matters more than your emotionally-based opinion because of that P word that I keep mentioning: Power.

The mechanism exists, and that mechanism is a legal process, not an emotional one. As to power, that, and self-interest are the reason the house of cards exists as it does today. That doesn't mean that it cannot act, it just means that it needs to achieve sufficient imperative to overcome the inertia of the system that is usually moribund. It is not difficult to term an amendment such that it is not objectionable to the permanent members. There is an obligation for signatories to comply with the articles, There is a means to amend that. An amendment under §108 doesn't have any veto option from any UNSC member, it is a UNGA body matter, and yes, 2/3rd is a high bar even then, so the amendment would need to be acknowledging the PM status of the remaining UNSC members.


Seems that the UN itself has been thinking along the same lines as my comments:

Unless they agree to their own expulsion or suspension, permanent Council members can only be removed through an amendment of the UN Charter (https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter), as set out in Chapter XVIII (https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-18). [Art.108]

https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/04/1115592
Can the Security Council stop a war?Well, first let us review its mission.

The functions and powers of the Security Council (https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/) are set out in the UN Charter (https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter), the Organization's founding document. It was signed on 26 June 1945, in San Francisco, at the conclusion of the United Nations Conference on International Organization (https://www.un.org/en/about-us/history-of-the-un/san-francisco-conference)s and came into force on 24 October 1945.

The Security Council, made up of 15 members (https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/content/repertoire/research-tools/scmd) – five permanent seats belong to China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States, with 10 non-permanent seats that rotate by election among other UN member countries – is the body that was granted the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. It takes the lead in determining the existence of a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or an act of aggression.

What you might not know is that before 1965, the Security Council was composed of 11 members, six of which were non-permanent. The expansion to 15 members occurred after the amendment of Article 23(1) of the Charter through the adoption of a UN General Assembly (https://www.un.org/en/ga/) resolution (A/RES/1991(XVIII (https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/186/66/PDF/NR018666.pdf?OpenElement))).

Although there are still some 60 (https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/content/countries-never-elected-members-security-council) UN Member States that have never sat on the Security Council, all members of the UN, however, agree under Article 25 of the Charter, to accept and carry out decisions adopted by the Council (https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-5). In other words, actions taken by the Council are binding on all UN member countries.

When dealing with crises, the Council, guided by the UN Charter (https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter), the Security Council can take several steps.

Acting under Chapter VI (https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-6) of the Charter, the Council can call upon parties to a dispute to settle it by peaceful means and recommend methods of adjustment or terms of settlement. It can also recommend the referral of disputes to the International Court of Justice (https://www.icj-cij.org/en) (ICJ (https://www.icj-cij.org/en)), which is widely known as the ‘World Court’ and is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, seated at The Hague in the Netherlands.

In some cases, the Security Council may act under Chapter VII (https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-7) of the Charter and resort to imposing sanctions (https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/sanctions/information) or can even authorize, as a last resort, when peaceful means of settling a dispute are exhausted, the use of force, by Member States, coalitions of Member States or UN-authorized peace operations to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Importantly, the action required to carry out the decisions of the Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security shall be taken by all the Members of the United Nations or by some of them, as the Security Council may determine pursuant to Chapter VII.

The first time (https://undocs.org/en/S/RES/84(1950)) the Council authorized the use of force was in 1950 under what was referred to as a military enforcement action, to secure the withdrawal of North Korean forces from the Republic of Korea.


https://global.unitednations.entermediadb.net/assets/mediadb/services/module/asset/downloads/preset/Libraries/Production+Library/UN7924466_2022227_LF_2416_.jpg/image1170x530cropped.jpg
UN Photo/Loey Felipe
The UN Security Council meets on the situation in Ukraine, 27 February 2022.What is the ‘veto power’ and how can it be used?The voting procedure in the Security Council is guided by Article 27 (https://legal.un.org/repertory/art27.shtml) of the UN Charter (https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter) which establishes that each member of the Council has one vote.

When deciding on “procedural matters”, nine members need to vote in favour for a decision to be adopted. On all other matters an affirmative vote of nine members “including the concurring votes of the permanent members” is necessary.

In other words, a negative vote by any of the permanent five (China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom or the United States) can prevent the adoption by the Council of any draft resolution relating to substantive matters.

Since 1946, all five permanent members – widely referred to as the ‘P5’ – have exercised the right of veto (https://psdata.un.org/dataset/DPPA-SCVETOES) at one time or another on a variety of issues. To date, approximately 49 per cent of the vetoes had been cast by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and thereafter the Russian Federation (the membership of the USSR in the United Nations, including in the Security Council, was continued by the Russian Federation), 29 per cent by the United States, 10 per cent by the United Kingdom, and six per cent each by China and France.

Find more information here (https://psdata.un.org/dataset/DPPA-SCVETOES) about vetoes in the Security Councils since 1946.
https://global.unitednations.entermediadb.net/assets/mediadb/services/module/asset/downloads/preset/Collections/UNHCR/Embargoed+2/18-03-2022_UNICEF_Ukraine-06.jpg/image1170x530cropped.jpg
© UNICEF/Tom Remp
Families arrive in Berdyszcze, Poland, after crossing the border from Ukraine, fleeing escalating conflict.Can the General Assembly step in when the Security Council is unable to take a decision on stopping a war?According to the General Assembly’s 1950 resolution 377A (V) (https://undocs.org/en/A/RES/377(V)), widely known as ‘Uniting for Peace’, if the Security Council is unable to act because of the lack of unanimity among its five veto-wielding permanent members, the Assembly has the power to make recommendations to the wider UN membership for collective measures to maintain or restore international peace and security.

For instance. most frequently, the Security Council determines when and where a UN peace operation (https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/department-of-peace-operations) should be deployed, but historically, when the Council has been unable to take a decision, the General Assembly has done so. For example, in 1956, the General Assembly established the First UN Emergency Force (UNEF I) (https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/past/unef1backgr1.html) in the Middle East.

In addition, the General Assembly may meet in Emergency Special Session (https://www.un.org/en/ga/sessions/emergency.shtml) if requested by nine members of the Security Council or by a majority of the Members of the Assembly.

To date, the General Assembly has held 11 Emergency Special Sessions (8 of which have been requested by the Security Council).

Most recently, on 27 February 2022, the Security Council, taking into account that the lack of unanimity of its permanent members had prevented it from exercising its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, decided to call (https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/02/1112842) an Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly in its resolution 2623 (2022) (https://undocs.org/S/RES/2623(2022)).

As a result, on 1 March 2022, the General Assembly, meeting in emergency session (https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/02/1112912), adopted a resolution (https://undocs.org/A/RES/ES-11/1) by which it deplored “the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine in violation of Article 2 (4) of the Charter and demanded that the Russian Federation immediately cease its use of force against Ukraine and completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.

However, unlike Security Council resolutions, General Assembly resolutions are non-binding, meaning that countries are not obligated to implement them.
https://global.unitednations.entermediadb.net/assets/mediadb/services/module/asset/downloads/preset/Libraries/Production+Library/01-03-2021_UNGA_Ukraine_SG_VOTE.jpeg/image1170x530cropped.jpg
UN Photo/Loey Felipe
UN General Assembly adopts resolution deploring the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine in violation of the UN Charter.Can a country’s membership in the UN be revoked?Article 6 of the Charter (https://legal.un.org/repertory/art6.shtml) reads as follows:

A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

This has never happened in the history of the United Nations.

Article 5 (https://legal.un.org/repertory/art5.shtml) provides for the suspension of a Member State:

A Member of the United Nations against which preventive or enforcement action has been taken by the Security Council may be suspended from the exercise of the rights and privileges of membership by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. The exercise of these rights and privileges may be restored by the Security Council.

The suspension or expulsion of a Member State from the Organization is effected by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Council. Such a recommendation requires the concurring vote of the Security Council’s permanent members.

Unless they agree to their own expulsion or suspension, permanent Council members can only be removed through an amendment of the UN Charter (https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter), as set out in Chapter XVIII (https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-18).

The UN has, however, taken steps against certain countries to end major injustices. One example is the case of South Africa and the world body’s contribution to the global struggle against apartheid (https://www.un.org/en/events/mandeladay/un_against_apartheid.shtml), by drawing world attention to the inhumanity of the system, legitimizing popular resistance, promoting anti-apartheid actions by governmental and non-governmental organizations, instituting an arms embargo, and supporting an oil embargo and boycotts of apartheid in many fields.

Along the road to ending apartheid, the Security Council, in 1963, instituted a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa, and the General Assembly refused to accept the country’s credentials from 1970 to 1974. Following this ban, South Africa did not participate in further proceedings of the Assembly until the end of apartheid in 1994.
https://global.unitednations.entermediadb.net/assets/mediadb/services/module/asset/downloads/preset/Libraries/Production+Library/28-03-2022-UN-Photo-UN7928426-Guterres.jpg/image1170x530cropped.jpg
UN Photo/Mark Garten
Secretary-General António Guterres briefs reporters on the war in Ukraine.What are the Secretary-General’s ‘good offices’?The role of the Secretary-General (https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/the-role-of-the-secretary-general) as an important peace-making actor has evolved through extensive practice. The range of activities carried out by the Secretary-General has included good offices, mediation, facilitation, dialogue processes and even arbitration.

One of the most vital roles played by the Secretary-General is the use of his (thus far in the Organization’s 75-year history, all nine Secretaries-General (https://archives.un.org/content/secretaries-general)have been men) ‘good offices’ – steps taken publicly and in private, drawing upon their independence, impartiality and integrity, and the power of quiet diplomacy, to prevent international disputes from arising, escalating or spreading.

In practice, this means a UN chief can use his authority, legitimacy and the diplomatic expertise of his senior team to meet with Heads of State and other officials and negotiate an end to disputes between parties in conflict

At the end of March, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/biography) invoked the use of his good offices (https://www.un.org/sg/en/node/262661) and asked Under Secretary-General Martin Griffiths (https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/profiles/martin-griffiths-0), the UN emergency relief coordinator, to explore the possibility of a humanitarian cease-fire with Russia and Ukraine, and other countries seeking to find a peaceful solution to the war.

[Asturias56]

Thanks - seems legally possible but practically impossible. You'd never get a 2/3 majority in the General Assembly for a start - too many people have their own nasty little wars and secrets.

[fdr]

Thanks - seems legally possible but practically impossible. You'd never get a 2/3 majority in the General Assembly for a start - too many people have their own nasty little wars and secrets.

Quite so, but strange things happen.
We didn't expect China to stiff-arm Russia. Didn't expect Eritrea to support Russia. Didn't expect 2/3rds majority in the last vote.

The resolution received a two-thirds majority of those voting, minus abstentions, in the 193-member Assembly, with 93 nations voting in favour and 24 against. Fifty-eight abstained from the process.
Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Vietnam, were among those who voted against.

Those abstaining, included India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Pakistan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Cambodia.

Enough outrage existed to get the necessary majority. When that vote was taken, Russia had not threatened everyone with a global war... so the 58 abstentions may also play out differently now they are collectively threatened by being on the same planet as F=Troop.

Bucha and all of the rest of the genocidal actions by Russia come with a cost. The trick would be wording it so it doesn't rock the boat. Without trying to curb Russia meaningfully, outside on non-binding resolutions, then the UN will be about as seaworthy as the Moskva, and about as useful. The UN is running out of time to make the UNSC actually function, the wordsithing would be tortuous but could be done to get rid of Russia. I'd send xmas cards to the UNSG instead of just emails then. It's not often that the bad actors target the UNSG when he is out fact finding, he probably is miffed over that.

Have your say direct to the dudes:
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

[Asturias56]

Well if they are going to be thrown out they'll walk first - and then we're into League of Nations 1935 territory - still there but pretty useless

The UN does somethings well and quite a few badly but they were never intended to get in the way of the larger powers.

[fdr]

Yes, and no; the devil isn't even in the details,
LW-50, just PM me with your objections...


IMHOA U.N. Security Council Permanent Member’s De Facto Immunity From Article 6 Expulsion: Russia’s Fact or Fiction?By Dan Maurer (https://www.lawfareblog.com/contributors/dmaurer)
Friday, April 15, 2022, 12:38 PM



Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s speech (https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/05/world/zelensky-ukraine-united-nations-speech-intl/index.html) to the United Nations on April 5 was the besieged nation’s latest call to the international community for unified aid from the nations that have already vigorously condemned Russia’s so-called special military operation. Zelenskyy questioned the legitimacy and value of the Security Council itself in the face of the most severe, systematic war crimes since World War II: “Where is the security that the Security Council needs to guarantee? It is not there, though there is a Security Council,” clearly pointing out the dilemma: Russia itself sits on this council as a permanent member, exercising its veto authority, effectively making this body impotent. The impotence is even more jarring in the face of the most significant international armed conflict in generations.

The conventional wisdom says that Russia cannot be expelled from the U.N., let alone kicked off its seat on the Security Council, because it is a permanent member of that council. In the weeks since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, much has been said and written on its legal implications. From an international law perspective (https://www.diggingaholepodcast.com/episodes/ukraine), this failure in diplomacy and deterrence is a case study for students and observers of just war theory (https://www.ejiltalk.org/putins-war-against-ukraine-mocking-international-law/), economic warfare (https://www.npr.org/2022/03/01/1083804497/economic-warfare-vs-fortress-russia), “lawfare (https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillgoldenziel/2022/02/20/ukraine-weaponizes-corporations-to-surround-russia-using-lawfare/?sh=2d20fe437e53),” treaty obligations (https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-no-fly-zone-kuleba/31735568.html), jus in bello principles of the law of armed conflict (https://sites.duke.edu/lawfire/2022/02/27/the-ukraine-crisis-and-the-international-law-of-armed-conflict-loac-some-q-a/), and the effect of modern technology on the proliferation of propaganda and misinformation (https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/24/social-media-platforms-russia-ukraine-disinformation-00011559) as well as on the documentation of unlawful use of force (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/02/researchers-gather-evidence-of-possible-russian-war-crimes-in-ukraine) in real time. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attack has been so explicitly worthy of public condemnation and political sanction that reasonable people might expect that one simple and predictable consequence would be to expel Russia from the U.N., the important international organization devoted to protecting “peace, justice, respect, human rights, tolerance and solidarity (https://www.un.org/en/about-us)” across the globe. But the resounding, though reluctant, retort has been to say that such expulsion is legally impossible. In syllogistic form, the argument says:

The General Assembly may expel a member from the United Nations.
But a Security Council vote to expel a member of the United Nations is required before the General Assembly can vote on it.
That preliminary council vote requires the unanimous consent of its permanent members.
Russia is a permanent member.
Russia will exercise its veto to prevent the General Assembly from having the opportunity to vote on its own expulsion.

This post questions the key premise: premise number 2. Rather than swiftly dismissing (https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2022/03/its-effectively-impossible-kick-russia-out-un-there-are-other-options/362673/) the ability of the U.N. to expel Russia, a close reading of the U.N. Charter’s text and a mostly forgotten decades-old discussion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) may reasonably suggest that the General Assembly does have that legal authority, regardless of any vote taken or not taken by the Security Council.

Can we? and Should we? are, of course, different questions. This post concerns only the narrower subject of interpreting the expulsion provision of the U.N. Charter; it also avoids the distinct legal and policy matter of whether the Russian Federation is, lawfully, a member of the Security Council at all when the charter itself assigned the responsibility to the U.S.S.R. and was never amended to reflect its dissolution. This interesting argument is raised and debated elsewhere (https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-russia-un-security-council-ukraine-20220228-5ftidozwlbdx5k2ex6qera5skm-story.html). Nor will this post argue whether Putin and his military commanders are committing war crimes (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60597751)—also a critically important discussion (https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2022/03/01/has-vladimir-putin-committed-war-crimes-in-ukraine) occurring elsewhere (https://www.lawfareblog.com/congress-needs-amend-war-crimes-act-1996). The single question here is this: Assuming legitimate cause for expulsion can be demonstrated, can the Russian Federation be legally removed from the General Assembly? The conventional wisdom says no. This post offers a basis for saying yes.

The Terms of a Social Contract of Article 4

Consider the U.N. Charter’s membership admissions rule. According to Article 4 (https://legal.un.org/repertory/art4.shtml):

Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations.
The admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

Foremost, Article 4 is like a social contract. Article 4(1) establishes that membership is conditional, and that condition is the acceptance of all the charter’s obligations, and willingness to carry out those obligations. Russia’s illegal invasion (https://www.lawfareblog.com/international-law-and-russian-invasion-ukraine) of Ukraine, a continuation of Putin’s unlawful militant (https://lieber.westpoint.edu/russia-special-military-operation-claimed-right-self-defense/) action beginning with his government’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, should force the world community to consider what consequences follow in the face of a broken social contract. Putin’s order, and the Russian military’s subsequent breaches (https://time.com/6153295/russia-ukraine-war-crimes/) of international humanitarian law, by tacitly condoning or expressly ordering attacks on noncombatants and civilian property, is an unambiguous illustration of the very state conduct prohibited by the U.N. Charter (https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text) and the Geneva Conventions (https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/Treaty.xsp?documentId=AE2D398352C5B028C12563CD002D6B5C&action=openDocument). If the rule of law is to mean anything, then Putin’s attack on Ukraine deserves the global condemnation he has received (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/27/putin-loses-information-war-on-ukraine-turns-russia-into-pariah/) and the punitive social (https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/02/social-media-goes-to-war-00012993) and economic (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/russia-sanctions-are-big-deal-experts-say-effects-take-years-rcna17380) consequences he and his country feel. But there is something to be said for also denying such bad actors a place on the international stage as punishment for their abusive behavior, as a general deterrent, and as an expressive signal to other members of the international community that certain conduct crosses a red line of dignity and respect—one that separates members from nonmembers.

So, in addition to the tangible consequences of government-imposed sanctions, private commercial pressure (https://www.npr.org/2022/03/01/1083659975/oil-majors-pull-out-of-once-promising-russia), and a nonbinding resolution (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/3/unga-resolution-against-ukraine-invasion-full-text) from 141 countries in the U.N., the question of whether the Russian Federation also deserves to keep a seat among other states on the Security Council, or even as a member of the General Assembly, has been raised (https://www.cramer.senate.gov/news/press-releases/sen-cramer-colleagues-call-for-russia-to-be-expelled-from-un-security-council). It is severely problematic for a nuclear nation endangering global peace by attacking a sovereign neighbor under demonstrably false pretenses to be a permanent member of the committee charged with “the maintenance of international peace and security” (Article 24 of the U.N. Charter (https://legal.un.org/repertory/art24.shtml)). It is even more abhorrent and is a strike to the dignity of the organization and its members when that offending state commits the very acts it is expected to prevent and punish. Such a view was recently adopted by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said it was “reasonable” to question Russia’s continued membership on the Security Council following news of the apparent war crimes committed in the Ukrainian city of Bucha (https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-war-crimes-7791e247ce7087dddf64a2bbdcc5b888).

The Expulsion Provision of Article 6

Can the Russian Federation be unilaterally removed from its position on the Security Council, demoting it to a two-year term member or even excluding it from the council altogether? The answer is a pretty clear “no, not directly.” Nothing in the U.N. Charter expressly confers on the General Assembly, or other members of the Security Council, the authority to strip “permanent member” status or expel one such member even for good cause, like grossly “egregious (https://lieber.westpoint.edu/russia-special-military-operation-claimed-right-self-defense/)” and repeated violations of the law of armed conflict and the U.N. Charter.

The obvious mechanism would be to amend the U.N. Charter to pointedly strike Russia from its permanent council seat or its membership in the General Assembly. This path, however, is merely a tempting mirage. While an amendment (according to Article 108 (https://legal.un.org/repertory/art108_109.shtml)) requires only two-thirds of the organization’s members to ratify it, the amendment still requires unanimous consent of the permanent members of the Security Council. In effect, Russia has the bizarre power to act like a criminal defendant who, with farcical impunity, single-handedly vetoes his own indictment or refuses to submit to the sentence the jury hands down upon convicting him.

Aside from amending the U.N. Charter itself, can Russia be removed, through regular expulsion mechanisms, from the General Assembly? The conventional wisdom says no (https://www.justsecurity.org/80395/united-nations-response-options-to-russias-aggression-opportunities-and-rabbit-holes/) (moreover, no member state has ever been removed under Article 6 (https://www.unov.org/unov/en/faq.html#:~:text=%22A%20Member%20of%20the%20United,This%20ha s%20never%20happened.), despite numerous resolutions (https://legal.un.org/repertory/art6.shtml) to expel offending nations raised by member nations over the decades). But upon closer inspection of the succinct Article 6 (https://legal.un.org/repertory/art6.shtml), the answer is not so definitive:
A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.
The reason for the expulsion is straightforward: persistent violation of the charter’s principles. It is an ironic historical fact that it was the Soviet Union, in discussion and negotiation over what would become the U.N. Charter, that first “insisted” on a mechanism for expelling members, arguing it was “essential as a disciplinary measure (https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1339157.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Aa946747017d392303e06b254eb5 42556&ab_segments=&origin=).”

But the key phrase for this present purpose is what appears to be a contingent trigger for that expulsion: “upon recommendation of the Security Council.” In the usual rendering of this article, the Security Council’s recommendation necessarily precedes the General Assembly’s vote for expulsion, and that vote can begin only if the council voted in favor of expulsion. The discussions of the parties during the Dumbarton Oaks Conference (https://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1944/441007a.html), which would become the basis for the charter’s text, do not suggest otherwise. Under this interpretation, Russia can veto any such council recommendation, effectively preventing its removal (https://theconversation.com/ukraine-invasion-should-russia-lose-its-seat-on-the-un-security-council-177870#:~:text=The%20word%20%E2%80%9Cpermanent%E2%80%9D%20wa s%20to,This%20has%20never%20been%20done.) from the U.N., essentially serving as a judge in its own case who dismisses the charges before trial. However, later commentators (https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=5Gl-KanTCK8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=related:jQ6lmIx7WqIJ:scholar.google.com/&ots=p6UXFhD9rC&sig=bHeUiVG8r2aMHFTSvbeRExleZwU#v=onepage&q=%22article%206%22&f=false) have sensibly emphasized—even assuming a Security Council vote was a required preliminary step—that the General Assembly’s discretion to expel a member was not controlled by the outcome of that earlier vote.

The Security Council Offers Advice or Grants Permission? Two Theories of Expulsion

In 1961, the General Assembly debated whether or not the cost of operations it had authorized in the Congo and the Middle East were to be paid by apportioning that cost across the member states of the U.N. The General Assembly asked the ICJ for a formal advisory opinion interpreting the charter’s text. In its July 1962 opinion (https://www.icj-cij.org/public/files/case-related/49/049-19620720-ADV-01-00-EN.pdf) answering this question, the court affirmed that the phrase in Article 17 “expenses of the Organization” and its requirement for defraying the cost of doing business across the member states did apply to the General Assembly’s expenditures for those specific operations. In drawing this conclusion, the court discussed a much larger concept: the General Assembly’s relationship with the Security Council. Notably, the court described the Security Council as having “primary” responsibility, not “exclusive” responsibility, for the maintenance of international peace:
The Charter makes it abundantly clear ... that the General Assembly is also to be concerned with international peace and security. Article 14 authorizes the General Assembly to “recommend measures for the peaceful adjustment of any situation, regardless of origin, which it deems likely to impair the general welfare or friendly relations among nations, including situations resulting from a violation of the provisions of the present Charter setting forth the purposes and principles of the United Nations.” The word “measures” implies some kind of action, and the only limitation which Article 14 imposes on the General Assembly is the restriction found in Article 12, namely, that the Assembly should not [emphasis added by the author] recommend measures while the Security Council is dealing with the same matter unless the Council requests it to do so. Thus while it is the Security Council which, exclusively, may order [emphasis added] coercive action, the functions and powers conferred by the Charter on the General Assembly are not confined to discussion, consideration, [or] the initiation of studies and the making of recommendations; they are not merely hortatory.
Concerning the legal authority for Russia’s potential expulsion, it should be noted carefully what the court said next:
In connection with the suspension of rights and privileges of membership and expulsion from membership under Articles 5 and 6, it is the Security Council which has only the power to recommend and it is the General Assembly which decides and whose decision determines status; but there is a close collaboration between the two organs.
I will emphasize the point: “[T]he Security Council ... has only the power to recommend ...[.] t is the General Assembly which decides and whose decision determines status.”

It is difficult to square the conventional and widespread assumption about Russia’s de facto immunity with this ICJ opinion. Article 6 must be read as meaning something more than just an occasion for the General Assembly to vote on a nation’s expulsion only when the Security Council has first raised it, debated it and recommended it. It does not read—and this ICJ opinion makes the point clear—that the General Assembly may only vote on expulsion after a preceding vote by the Council, and one that positively recommended that punitive action.

Indeed, if the power and responsibility for global security rest with both bodies of the U.N.—each with independent and overlapping roles—then it would defy logic and the intention of the U.N. Charter to permit a small group of nations to function as the gatekeeper of all expulsion or suspension actions regardless of which nation is at risk for such a sanction or why it has come within the organization’s cross-hairs. It would further defy the charter’s clear intentions to afford one nation within that already exclusive club a perpetual shelter that remains secure even if that nation is the one violating international law and the foundational principles (see Article 2 (https://legal.un.org/repertory/art2.shtml)) and purposes (Article 1 (https://legal.un.org/repertory/art1.shtml)) of the charter.

[fdr]

IMHOA U.N. Security Council Permanent Member’s De Facto Immunity From Article 6 Expulsion: Russia’s Fact or Fiction?By Dan Maurer (https://www.lawfareblog.com/contributors/dmaurer)
Friday, April 15, 2022, 12:38 PM....
....of the charter.


A Structural Interpretation of the U.N. Charter

This reasonable reinterpretation of Article 6 is strengthened by reading the expulsion rule in light of the charter’s related provisions. There are at least four places in the document to consider. To begin, there is clear enough evidence that the parties well understood and appreciated the potential scenario of a Security Council member having a conflict of interest in a matter it was responsible for resolving: Article 27(3) (https://legal.un.org/repertory/art27.shtml) expressly requires that such a member abstains from voting on the investigation and pacific settlement of disputes in which it is a party. There is no exception available for a permanent member. Not dispositive of the expulsion question, but suggestive.

Next, recall the charter’s membership admissions rule in Article 4 (https://legal.un.org/repertory/art4.shtml) quoted above. It complements the warning in Article 6 that “persistent violations” of the charter justify expulsion from the organization. Note that Article 4’s set of qualifications for admission to the U.N. and Article 6’s permission to expel a member for persistent violations of the charter have something in common. They both speak of the Security Council’s recommendation. More conspicuously, they both lack something in common—neither article says explicitly whether a recommendation by the Security Council must be made before a vote to admit or remove a member.

This plain reading of the text faces at least one obstacle. In 1950, the ICJ rendered an advisory opinion (https://www.icj-cij.org/public/files/case-related/9/009-19500303-ADV-01-00-EN.pdf) directly addressing the meaning of Article 4. The ICJ unequivocally determined that it limited the General Assembly’s admission discretion: that decision could only follow on the heels of a Security Council affirmative vote, which thus implied that no permanent member had exercised its veto power:
The text under consideration means that the General Assembly can only decide to admit upon the recommendation of the Security Council; it determines the respective roles of the two organs whose combined action is required before admission can be effected: in other words, the recommendation of the Security Council is the condition precedent to the decision of the Assembly by which the admission is effected.
To the court, this was the “natural and ordinary meaning” of the words. Nevertheless, the ICJ was not unanimous in its opinion: The dissent (https://www.icj-cij.org/public/files/case-related/9/009-19500303-ADV-01-01-EN.pdf) observed that conditions of modern international relations, the very conditions that led to the creation of the United Nations, force a reconsideration of how to interpret international law:
The text must not be slavishly followed. If necessary, it must be vivified so as to harmonize it with the new conditions of international life. When the wording of a text seems clear, that is not sufficient reason for following it literally, without taking into account the consequences of its application.
In other words, when a literal reading would lead to “unreasonable or absurd results,” and “run counter to the purposes of the institution,” the interpretation of the text must be read more broadly and contextually.

But assuming, arguendo, that a Security Council recommendation must be made first, neither provision reads as a constraint on the General Assembly’s discretion and decision afterward. Article 97 (https://legal.un.org/repertory/art97.shtml), regarding the appointment of the U.N.’s secretary-general, follows a similar pattern: “appointed by the General Assembly upon recommendation by the Security Council.” This, also, looks like an affirmative recommendation from the council must precede the assembly’s opportunity to vote and appoint the secretary-general. In practice, this is usually the case. However, as early as 1950, the U.N. demonstrated its flexibility and broad understanding of the plenary power of the General Assembly: The Security Council was deadlocked (https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/research-reports/lookup-c-glkwlemtisg-b-7469165.php)over the reappointment of Norway’s Trygve Lie as the first secretary-general; despite the Soviet Union’s threatened veto, the General Assembly reappointed (https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/060/90/PDF/NR006090.pdf?OpenElement) him to the office anyway.

Just as the ICJ observed six decades ago (“it is the General Assembly which decides and whose decision determines status”), the assembly need not submit to the council’s recommendation. Otherwise, the word “recommendation” is hollow, and not just in one article but in several. It would, inevitably and always, lead to “absurd results” and “manifest injustice” that “run counter to the purposes of the institution.” And if the General Assembly can disregard that recommendation, it is not obvious at all that a recommendation must be made, one way or the other, first.

There is a foreseeable, though relatively weak, objection to this view—one that also considers context and the changing character of international relations. It would say the particular phrasing or word choice of these two provisions is—in the real world of politics and diplomacy—irrelevant, or at best an academic puzzle. It would insist that the clause “upon the recommendation of the Security Council” should be construed, as most observers conclude today, as a limiting constraint on the General Assembly’s freedom of decision and its timing. This broad interpretation, empowering the Security Council at the expense of the General Assembly, is—the thoughtful objector would say—the most natural one when considering the gravity of the council’s peacekeeping mission and accepting the scope of its responsibilities. In other words, the Security Council does wield tremendous authority and can speak for the U.N. as a whole by ordering punitive economic sanctions or authorizing military force. Therefore, presuming the Security Council must vote first and must vote in favor of admission or expulsion before the General Assembly may consider the course of action is a normatively coherent and pragmatically consistent reading of Article 4’s admissions criteria and Article 6’s expulsion process.

That presumption, however, fails in the face of the structural interpretation of the U.N. Charter; and its inappropriateness is even clearer when giving due regard to the drafters’ intentions and the very purpose of the charter outlined in Articles 1 and 2. During the Yalta Conference in 1945, Secretary of State Edward Stettinius of the American delegation described in a memorandum (https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945Malta/d357) the U.S. position on how future Security Council voting, relative to action taken by the General Assembly, would proceed. The memo explained that when it came to the issues of admitting new members, suspending or expelling members, and selecting a secretary-general, the action by the council was explicitly categorized as a “recommendation” and distinguished from decisions that would be left to the ultimate discretion of the council itself, like punitive enforcement actions.

So why the confusion? The procedural requirement that an expulsion vote within the Security Council must include the unanimous consent of each permanent member (regardless of whether one of those members was the problem) has been misinterpreted by some scholars (https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1339157.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Aa946747017d392303e06b254eb5 42556&ab_segments=&origin=) as proof that a problematic permanent Security Council member could effectively block its own removal before the decision could be made by the General Assembly: One commentator asserted (https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/sasklr16&div=39&id=&page=) unequivocally that “the General Assembly cannot expel a Member without first receiving a recommendation to that effect from the Security Council.” This might be called the “Security Council Permission Theory of Expulsion.”

But if the drafters of the U.N. Charter wanted a preliminary Security Council vote to be both required and binding on the General Assembly for admission or expulsion of a member, they could have said so explicitly. They certainly knew how to draft text in this fashion: They did so in several other areas in the charter. For example, in Article 12 (https://legal.un.org/repertory/art12.shtml):

While the Security Council is exercising in respect of any dispute or situation the functions assigned to it in the present Charter, the General Assembly shall not make any recommendation with regard to that dispute or situation unless the Security Council so requests. [emphasis added]

The Secretary-General, with the consent of the Security Council [emphasis added], shall notify the General Assembly at each session of any matters relative to the maintenance of international peace and security which are being dealt with by the Security Council and shall similarly notify the General Assembly, or the Members of the United Nations if the General Assembly is not in session, immediately the Security Council ceases to deal with such matters.



And in Article 25 (https://legal.un.org/repertory/art25.shtml): “the Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter.”

If words matter at all, then two points are paramount and largely obvious. First, a “recommendation” by the Security Council is not the same as a “decision” by the Security Council. Second, no conditional triggers or caveats like “unless the Security Council so requests” or “with the consent of the Security Council” are found to hinder the actions of the General Assembly permitted by Articles 4 and 6. The “Security Council Permission Theory of Expulsion” is long-entrenched. But it is also wrong.

Conclusion

Engaging Article 6 of the U.N. Charter to expel Russia is not, in fact or law, prevented by Russia’s status as a permanent member of the Security Council. Whether Putin and his agents in the government and military on the ground in Ukraine ought to be prosecuted as war criminals, or even whether Russia should be expelled from the U.N. for directly endangering international peace by waging an unlawful war of aggression against the territorial integrity of a sovereign neighbor and its noncombatant citizens, are deeply complicated geopolitical questions for which this post admittedly offers no hint of an answer. Instead, there is some reason to be optimistic, rather than cynical, about the global community’s legal right to hold even a Security Council permanent member accountable for its illegality by removing that offender from the community itself, as both a deterrent and an expressive signal of how much the global communities values the principles of the U.N. project. I suspect that this view does not appeal to the governments of any of the other four permanent members. But one consequence of making expulsion a real possibility is that it would shift attention to the justification required—the evidence of “persistent violations” that must be presented for the consideration of the General Assembly.

Expulsion has always been considered a drastic remedy, fraught with the risk that it would delegitimize the very concept of a global community of nations united in a process to peacefully resolve disputes and advance mutual interests, or at least cast out a member and force it to the fringe of global society, the periphery of cooperation and the sidelines of decision-making. That such action has never occurred in the U.N.’s history does not render the individual U.N. Charter’s meaning and purpose irrelevant, though. The charter is understood to be a “constitutional framework (https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/content/repertoire/constitutional-issues)” that structures the rights and responsibilities of the member states. Just as one would interpret the U.S. Constitution in the absence of binding precedent, the charter’s rules, including rules creating the rights and responsibilities of the Security Council, ought to be read in a way consistent with the charter’s purpose and design. Article 6, demonstrated by its text and by its relation to other articles, does provide for the very kind of accountability that intuition demands but that conventional wisdom has, so far, prematurely deemed procedurally impossible.

The UN Charter has been amended at least 5 times in it's history, this would be just another use of Art 108 process to get Russia out of the house. Personally, I prefer running the continuing state issue past the ICJ under Article 96(1) which would be binding under Article 94(1). The beauty of this is that it is fast, the jurists assess the question and answer that, and if it is that the USSR was not continued by Russia legally, then Russia is done on the UNSC. At that point, the UNSC can deliberate on a motion to suspend or expel Russia. Article 94(2) doesn't arise as an issue, where Russia has been removed from the UNSC by the ICJ ruling, which is binding on all members....

[WideScreen]

How about a UNSC2 ?

It's the usual way to get rid of an obnoxious member.

[Lonewolf_50]

IMHO
LW-50, just PM me with your objections... Why waste my time dealing with someone who is in 'trasmit only mode' on this topic? Two very simple points that you continue ignore. Spoiler to confine the text that isn't aviation content to its own zone.
1. The other four permanent members of the UNSC, who have held a privileged position since the UN's inception, are going to be very wary of removing a UNSC member for cause since it puts their own seats in jeopardy simply by setting a precedent.
2. The UN Charter is at best aspirational, and like any "international law" is only as good its enforcement. Over the history of the organization that has been uneven at best. To cite but one example of hundreds, Pres GHW Bush got UN backing for the 1991 Gulf War, his son did not, but both conflicts still happened-is the latter one grounds from attempting to remove the US (and the UK?) from the UNSC? (Separate topic, rhetorical question mostly).
The UNSC sanctions after the 1991 war were supposed to be fulfilled within 90 days to get sanctions removed. They were not. (As to the running sore that they subsequently became, also a separate topic). The original cease fire agreement and the conditions for sanctions removal are a classic case of how the UN talks the talk but frequently cannot walk the walk. The collective political will failed almost immediately.
Why?
"Enforcement" is at the whim of any and every nation's self interest in terms of what they are willing to contribute in time, treasure, and expenditure of political capital in order to address problem X, Y, or Z. (See, for example India and others still buying Russian gas after the 'special operation' began and the Shell "blend" gambit that eventually came to light).
Last note:
3. Just because you can muster an argument does not make it a fact.


4. Aviation Content: The much wished for UN No-Fly-zone (which does have precedent) that numerous posters have brought up since Feb 24 is not going to happen for the same reasons (and of course Russia's ability to veto). Interestingly, the lack of a no fly zone has not enabled Russian victory - their ability to conduct complex air operations in support of a theater level conflict is substantially less than many of us had suspected it was.

If you look at the recent river crossing mess that's in the news: despite their having smoked the crossing site and made the attempt while drones were a bit less able to 'see', their lack of even local air superiority left their troops exposed.
Granted, the video (up thread a bit) shows that the Ukrainian artillery, in a fine application of Red Army artillery doctrine, had already assessed that area as a likely river crossing site and had set up a kill sac (having pre registered their artillery). If they were at risk of airborne counter artillery measures, or had been counter attacked from the air when their positions were exposed by firing, that would not have been as effective as it was.

[Ripton]

Why waste my time dealing with someone who is in 'trasmit only mode' on this topic? Two very simple points that you continue ignore. Spoiler to confine the text that isn't aviation content to its own zone.
1. The other four permanent members of the UNSC, who have held a privileged position since the UN's inception, are going to be very wary of removing a UNSC member for cause since it puts their own seats in jeopardy simply by setting a precedent.
2. The UN Charter is at best aspirational, and like any "international law" is only as good its enforcement. Over the history of the organization that has been uneven at best. To cite but one example of hundreds, Pres GHW Bush got UN backing for the 1991 Gulf War, his son did not, but both conflicts still happened-is the latter one grounds from attempting to remove the US (and the UK?) from the UNSC? (Separate topic, rhetorical question mostly).
The UNSC sanctions after the 1991 war were supposed to be fulfilled within 90 days to get sanctions removed. They were not. (As to the running sore that they subsequently became, also a separate topic). The original cease fire agreement and the conditions for sanctions removal are a classic case of how the UN talks the talk but frequently cannot walk the walk. The collective political will failed almost immediately.
Why?
"Enforcement" is at the whim of any and every nation's self interest in terms of what they are willing to contribute in time, treasure, and expenditure of political capital in order to address problem X, Y, or Z. (See, for example India and others still buying Russian gas after the 'special operation' began and the Shell "blend" gambit that eventually came to light).
Last note:
3. Just because you can muster an argument does not make it a fact.






4. Aviation Content: The much wished for UN No-Fly-zone (which does have precedent) that numerous posters have brought up since Feb 24 is not going to happen for the same reasons (and of course Russia's ability to veto). Interestingly, the lack of a no fly zone has not enabled Russian victory - their ability to conduct complex air operations in support of a theater level conflict is substantially less than many of us had suspected it was.

If you look at the recent river crossing mess that's in the news: despite their having smoked the crossing site and made the attempt while drones were a bit less able to 'see', their lack of even local air superiority left their troops exposed.
Granted, the video (up thread a bit) shows that the Ukrainian artillery, in a fine application of Red Army artillery doctrine, had already assessed that area as a likely river crossing site and had set up a kill sac (having pre registered their artillery). If they were at risk of airborne counter artillery measures, or had been counter attacked from the air when their positions were exposed by firing, that would not have been as effective as it was.

Didn't the mods create a special thread for you two to transmit (https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/646407-airwar-russia-un-charter-article-23-1-a.html) at each other?

[Lonewolf_50]

Didn't the mods create a special thread for you two to transmit (https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/646407-airwar-russia-un-charter-article-23-1-a.html) at each other? No. IIRC, fdr did. (The mods did, I think, move a few posts there after the fact).
Like you, I am responding to a post in this thread.
If you want fdr to stop doing crap like this (http://https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/639666-ukraine-about-have-war-306.html#post11230718) and this (https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/639666-ukraine-about-have-war-306.html#post11230716) in this thread, then I suggest that you take it up with him.
Have you got any comment on the aviation related content that I posted, or are you just sniping?

[Ripton]

No. IIRC, fdr did. (The mods did, I think, move a few posts there after the fact).
Like you, I am responding to a post in this thread.
If you want fdr to stop doing crap like this (http://https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/639666-ukraine-about-have-war-306.html#post11230718) and this (https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/639666-ukraine-about-have-war-306.html#post11230716) in this thread, then I suggest that you take it up with him.
Have you got any comment on the aviation related content that I posted, or are you just sniping?
Your recollection and mine differ (https://www.pprune.org/11222374-post4857.html)
No not sniping, just getting a sense of deja vu from a month ago. I apologise, perhaps it would have been better if I'd quoted both you and fdr in my comment? I'll keep out of it now.
Rather than rehashing your response you could have just reminded him of the other thread.

[Lonewolf_50]

No not sniping, just getting a sense of deja vu from a month ago. I apologise, perhaps it would have been better if I'd quoted both you and fdr in my comment? Yes, that would have been a fairer approach than calling me out and leaving his spam unmentioned.
Your general position is a fair one, though. :ok: If it crops up again I will suggest that it be moved to that other thread where it belongs.
Back to bombs, BTR's, and BMPs. As you were :cool:

[T28B]

Suggestion taken for action.