Two weeks ago, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy excoriated the United Nations Security Council for failing to protect his country and he demanded action, reform or its dissolution.
His judgment of the UNSC’s utility is shared by many; it’s also a misreading of its design and an inexact assessment of its purpose.
Still, the invasion of Ukraine has been a test for international institutions. Many have been found wanting. Fortunately, several have risen to the moment. We should acknowledge their successes and distill their lessons.
Zelenskyy’s remarks were brutal. The U.N. Security Council, “the key institution of the world designed to combat aggression and ensure peace cannot work effectively,” he said, adding that the organization “was unable to carry out the functions for which it was created” because of Russia’s veto as a permanent member of the UNSC. That failure leaves, Zelenskyy said, “only one institution left in the world to guarantee the security of states. Namely — weapons.”
He demanded that the world body fix the problem — either eliminate Russia as an aggressor or remove Moscow from a position from which it can block action by the U.N. If neither of those two options works, he added a third: “dissolve yourself altogether.”
Fat chance. A country can be removed from the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) with a vote on the recommendation of the Security Council. As a permanent member of the Security Council, Russia — like the U.S., Britain, France and China — has a veto on any action it takes. Moscow isn’t going to agree to a move that strips it of power. After all, the invasion of Ukraine stems from a belief that Russia doesn’t have the power, influence and status it deserves.
A counterpoint to inaction at the UNSC is the U.N. General Assembly’s vote last week to strip Russia of its membership in the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose members are required to “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights.” Pointing to war crimes that appear to have been committed in Ukraine, the United States’ U.N. ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, argued that “We cannot let a member state that is subverting every principle we hold dear to continue to sit” on the council. Moreover, as a founding member of the U.N. and holder of a UNSC veto, Russia should be held to a higher standard than other nations. Thomas-Greenfield rightly described Russia’s participation on the Council as “a farce.”
Russia continues to deny allegations of war crimes, accusing the U.S. and its allies of “human rights colonialism,” and charging Washington with attempting “to maintain its dominant position and total control in international relations.” Russia’s deputy ambassador to the U.N., Gennady Kuzmin, called on members to “vote against the West’s attempt … to destroy the (U.N.’s) human rights architecture.”
Ninety-five countries rejected that entreaty, and for the first time, a UNSC permanent member had its membership revoked from a U.N. body. While 95 votes were enough to pass the resolution, it was a big drop from the 141 votes backing last month’s nonbinding UNGA vote to condemn Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. Many of last week’s “no” votes reflected unease with expelling Russia before any war crimes investigation concluded.
The U.N. isn’t the only institution on its heels after the Ukraine invasion. Writing in the Nikkei Asia Review last week, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, warned that recent events pose a mortal threat to the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations. “The ASEAN we have known over the past 23 years … has run its course,” he added.
A series of issues — China’s actions in the South China Sea, U.S.-China competition in the region, the coup in Myanmar and finally the Russian invasion — have aggravated tensions and widened fissures in the organization.
Inaction is a dagger to the heart of the institution’s most cherished idea: ASEAN centrality, which insists that the body is the core of all regional architecture. Russia’s presence at the slew of meetings that ASEAN hosts will jeopardize Western participation, undermining its role as a convener and agenda setter.
Pongsudhirak calls this an “existential crisis for ASEAN where fudging and muddling may not get by.” He endorsed “new and more effective ways of cooperation among like-minded member states,” in particular, an end to the consensus-based approach that has guided ASEAN since its founding. He wants governments ready to take common positions to do so, even if all members won’t go along. He expects ASEAN’s founding members — Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore — to lead the way.
(Consensus isn’t always a bar to action by ASEAN. The readiness to ban Myanmar from some meetings after the 2021 coup is a departure. Pongsudhirak wants to see that flexibility adopted more widely.)
The Group of 20 faces a similar dilemma. Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is this year’s chair of the global economic caucus. An Indonesian Foreign Ministry official also insisted that the country “has a duty” to invite all members and the Russian Embassy in Jakarta has signaled that Putin will attend the meeting. Indonesian officials argue that their country’s independent foreign policy allows them to mediate the crisis, a logic that would seem to validate U.S. President Joe Biden’s call to invite Ukraine to the meeting. Others argue that Jakarta’s neutrality — it backed the UNGA resolution but abstained in the Human Rights Council vote — stems from weapons sales and the prospect of buying Russian oil on the cheap.
Let’s not ignore institutions that are working on this crisis. The most obvious example is NATO. Russia has not attacked a NATO nation, even though those nations are providing military support to Ukraine. Deterrence is working. Debates in Sweden and Finland about joining the organization — The Times of London reports this week that they “are poised to join this summer” — are clear signals that the trans-Atlantic alliance is strong and effective.
The European Union too deserves credit for its response. Moscow was banking on acquiescence and division from Brussels. Instead, the EU has shown remarkable cohesion and imposed unprecedented sanctions against a key trading partner. While there is good reason to worry about how long this resolve will last, its determination should be noted and applauded.
Then there’s the International Court of Criminal Justice. It has launched an investigation into war crimes and last month called on Russia to immediately suspend its invasion. That 13-2 ruling was an exercise in creativity, finding jurisdiction via Russia’s multiple allegations of genocide in Ukraine.
There will be complaints that the ruling has no meaning in the absence of an ability to enforce the judgment. That’s shortsighted. We should be applauding the readiness to make a decision, rather than playing it safe and taking no stand, the size of the majority — only the Russian and Chinese judges dissented — and the fact that we have an unequivocal statement calling Russia a violator of international law and a legal demand for it to stop.
A similar logic should be applied to UNSC (in)action. Yes, it hasn’t stopped the war — and the list of other such failures is long. But it wasn’t designed to stop a great power war. It does, however, serve two critical functions.
First, the U.N. charter, as The Washington Post editorial board points out, sets an “irrefutable legal standard of aggression around which to rally domestic and international support.” Its value should be apparent. It was the basis for the UNGA resolution condemning Russia.
Second, it provides a place to air disputes, forge a consensus for action and leave a record for history. As The Post argued, the U.N. “provided a forum, of acknowledged international legitimacy, through which the foes of Moscow’s aggression could apply political pressure to it and, indeed, to all nations, which had to state their positions for the record, contemporary and historical.”
The lessons are clear. Consensus is thin. Effective action to combat crime and injustice cannot be left to global institutions or the global commons. We shape our world and must act to create the outcomes we desire. Failing that, others will.
Brad Glosserman is deputy director of and visiting professor at the Center for Rule-Making Strategies at Tama University as well as senior adviser (nonresident) at Pacific Forum. He is the author of “Peak Japan: The End of Great Ambitions” (Georgetown University Press, 2019).