Russia Fights to Keep Veto Right in UN Security Council

[Purveyor]

The Moscow Times
Sep. 26 2014 18:34

Moscow opposes calls to limit veto rights for UN Security Council members, a Russian diplomat was quoted as saying by TASS news agency Friday.

"We're against any change in veto rights," Russia's envoy to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, said on the sidelines of the 69th UN General Assembly in New York.

He added that "talks about a reform of the Security Council need to continue," but did not elaborate.

A proposal to suspend veto rights in the event of grave crimes against humanity that mandate urgent reaction, pitched in 2013 by France, was revived at a high-profile discussion at the assembly.

Separately, Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski urged a reform of the Security Council in a speech at the assembly.

Komorowski gave no outline for the reform, but explicitly linked his calls to the conflict in eastern Ukraine, where Russia is accused of backing pro-Moscow separatists who are fighting the Ukrainian army.

The Security Council, established in 1946, is the only UN body whose decisions are binding for members.

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http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russia-fights-to-keep-veto-right-in-un-security-council/507926.html

[delrem]

1. veto rights only properly belong to the world's only exceptional country, the USA.

The USA is the only country with the intrinsic moral fibre required to wield a veto with justice, as proven by history.

Now, back to the bombing of Syria.

[Igel]

2. Or you could argue that any SC member shouldn't be allowed to veto

a measure that primarily affects or targets itself.

Vote, sure. It'll often be the case that SC members, because they're not all countries like Andorra or Namibia, will be involved in all sorts of ways in all sorts of places.

There'd be a fuzzy area in between, since many vetoes would invariably also affect a number of SC countries. Perhaps a set of criteria coupled with a vote of a random set of relatively unaffected countries would work.

Since measures could easily be worded to game the system, that would also need to be addressed. Perhaps by allowing measures to be severable?