voting for the resolution?

Rogue state

If justice and logic do prevail in the United Nations, Russia, proven a rogue state by so much empirical evidence provided by mass and social media to viewers around the world, should be excluded from the Security Council, the UN organ charged with maintaining peace and order in the world. Formal charges have been presented in court, too. Ukraine and more than 35 member-states of the International Criminal Court have filed a complaint against Russia for committing crimes under the ICC jurisdiction relative to Russia’s invasion. Under the domestic laws of most countries, crime suspects are arrested and if public officials, suspended from office. Why shouldn’t Russia be suspended from the Security Council? The General Assembly has suspended Russia from the Human Rights Council. Shouldn’t the General Assembly also suspend Russia as a permanent member of the Security Council for violations of the UN Charter?

The reform of the UN has been the subject of a concerted effort once before (during the term of SecGen Kofi Anan) but this faltered and dissipated after no consensus on any reform could be reached. Since then, calls for reform have been heard sporadically from within and outside the halls of the UN but they are lost in the wilderness, so to speak. Lately, because it comes from the charismatic and heroic leader of a country in distress, the new call for reform resonates loud and clear. His proposal is radical but simple: the dysfunctional Security Council should be dissolved. Its functions should be transferred to the General Assembly.

Enough of the tinkering with the numbers of permanent and temporary members that would make the Security Council representative of the regions of the world. Enough of the anguishing over the question whether permanent members should retain the power of veto or not if the Security Council were to have a semblance of a democratic institution. Given the arrogance of the great powers and conflicting ambitions of everyone else, these efforts are headed nowhere.

The sponsors of this innocuous resolution might have been moved by the threat of the public outcry growing for the abolition of the Security Council. Unless the carnage and destruction in Ukraine stop and Russia or Putin is held accountable for them, the Security Council will be a mockery of itself, if not lose its reason for being.