Remove Russia from the Security Council

Throw Russia Off the UN Security Council

By Joel D. Joseph

The United Nations was established after World War II to prevent wars like the unprovoked brutal, and bloody war in Ukraine. The U.N. has been completely ineffective in part because Russia is on the U.N. Security Council and has the ability to veto any decision that it does not like.

First of all, Russia does not have a right to be on the Security Council. The U.N. Charter provides, in Article 23, that China, France, the U.K., the U.S. and the Soviet Union are the five permanent members of the Security Council. Russia is not the USSR. Putin wants Russia to become the Russian Empire once again, but the U.N. was created to stop territorial expansion and wars of aggression.

The USSR comprised 15 countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Most of these republics would now object to Russia having a seat on the U.N. Security Council. Three are NATO members in this group: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Others want to join NATO, especially the Ukraine, but also Georgia and Moldova.

Secondly, according to Article 4 of the U.N. Charter, the U.N. "is open to all peace-loving states . . . ." Russia has proved to be a brutal warmonger; it is not a peace-loving state. It has not only invaded Ukraine, it has also invaded Georgia and Moldova as well. Russia has murdered tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and has committed massive war crimes during its unjustified invasion of Ukraine.

All members of the United Nations have agreed to settle their international disputes by peaceful means, Article 2, Sections 3 and 4. In addition, these articles provide that "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."

Russia should be removed from the U.N. entirely for starting a war. As a first step, the United States should introduce a U.N. resolution in the general assembly to remove Russia from the Security Council.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, in January, 1992, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the U.N. Secretary-General, circulated a request among the U.N. membership that Russia replace the Soviet Union on the Security Council. There being no objection, the Russian Federation took the USSR's place, with Boris Yeltsin personally taking the Russian Federation's seat at the January 31, 1992 Security Council meeting.

In 1992, Russia was a peace-loving nation. Now it is the opposite. Since the U.N. Charter does not provide for permanent Russian membership on the Security Council, a vote by the U.N. General Assembly is all that is needed to remove Russia from the Council. Russia was granted membership on the Security Council only because there was no objection. Now a clear majority of the U.N. objects to Russia's permanent status on the Security Council.

Russia will get upset and may leave the U.N. entirely. So what? Russia does no good on the Security Council. It only makes the U.N. a paper tiger, worthless to stop a brutal, unjust war in the Ukraine.

Though it's possible for a country to be expelled from the U.N., it's never happened before, according to the U.N. Office at Vienna and Andrew MacLeod, visiting professor in the Department of War Studies at King's College London. However, since Russia has no right to be on the Security Council, removal from the Council is an appropriate remedy for a U.N. member who started a brutal war, killing thousands of innocent civilians and destroying the infrastructure of a civil, peace-loving country.