Win back the UN. Why Russia’s return to the 1991 borders is not only a territorial issue

22.08.2023 0 By Writer.NS

Don’t believe when they say «the UN is not working». The UN is working, but anti-democratic regimes are gradually taking control of it, forcing it to work in their favor. The fight for the UN is not over, but today the democratic world is losing it little by little. And the main battering ram of anti-democratic forces, as usual, is Russia.

As the Third Reich and its bloc began to fade away, the future victors in the form of the United States and Great Britain began to think about the post-war order. Rejecting Churchill’s proposal to finish off Stalinism after Hitlerism, the Allies compromised with Stalin, justifying it with plans for the gradual democratization of the USSR. These plans were ridiculous and failed, as the near future showed. The West did not understand the nature of Russia, and that no other regime, except for a totalitarian one, on the basis of Russian society is impossible in principle. The West has not understood this even now, and its hopes for the gradual democratization of Russia after Putin’s departure are, in principle, no different from the hopes for the democratization of the Stalinist USSR 80 years ago.

How the UN appeared and how it changed

As part of the first step towards this compromise, on January 1, 1942, the United States, Great Britain, the USSR, as well as China, represented by the Republic of China, which at that time did not control most of its territory, signed the Declaration of the United Nations. Its signing was a way for the USSR and China to join the Atlantic Charter. Signed in August 1941 between Great Britain and the United States, it determined, in general terms, the structure of the world after the defeat of Germany. The Charter provided, in particular, the rejection of territorial changes not based on the freely expressed desire of the peoples concerned; the right of nations to choose their form of government, and the restoration of the sovereign rights of peoples who were forcibly deprived of them. Within the framework of these principles, neither the Russian nor the British Empire could exist. But, if the British Empire after the Second World War was, although not without difficulties, successfully transformed into the British Commonwealth of Nations — in full accordance with the Atlantic Charter, then the Russian Empire in the form of the USSR remained de jure until 1991, and de facto exists, in a truncated form of the Russian Federation, and at the present time, waging extortionate, imperialist wars for «their territories».

Already at this stage, Moscow outplayed the allies, taking advantage of the fact that the main point of the Declaration was not joining the Atlantic Charter, but the obligation not to conclude a separate peace with Germany and its allies. Taking advantage of this, the USSR furnished participation in the Declaration with so many reservations that, in fact, it did not undertake any post-war obligations. But the United States and Great Britain went for it, in dire need of holding the Eastern Front against Hitler.

This was followed by the Tehran-Yalta conspiracy, which was already completely shameful for the West — in fact, a direct ceding of the basic values of market liberal democracy, which underlies the Western world order. In fact, it was a worsened version of Munich, which gave Eastern Europe to the control of the USSR. This led to tragic consequences that still determine the development of the world. The reason for the ceding was the same incorrect forecast about the complete inability of the backward USSR to independent, without the help of the West, technological development. This gave rise to hopes for its gradual democratization and liberalization under the pressure of irresistible economic and technological factors. But the West, correctly assessing the inability of anti-democratic regimes for independent development, underestimated the factor of leakage of technologies obtained under lend-lease, as trophies, as a result of espionage.

This series of mistakes created a vicious approach to the structure of the UN: the principle of equality of nations, represented by states; regardless of the level of development of these states, which resulted in the equality of their votes in the General Assembly. It was assumed that the backward regimes, seeing the benefits of progress, would gradually reach for democracy and the market — after all, their leaders are also reasonable people? On this principle, on June 26, 1945, representatives of 50 states established the UN, having secured the right of veto in the Security Council for five founders: Great Britain, the USA, the USSR, China and France, which hurried at the last moment.

Although such an arrangement reduced the ability of the UN to influence world political processes, it, even in this form, proved to be useful as a diplomatic club where representatives of all countries of the world could meet, report their positions, demonstrate the possibilities of influencing the positions of other countries, see the positions and capabilities of others and agree on joint actions. In this role, the UN has reached this day.

Over the years, however, an unpleasant nuance surfaced: a numerically increased group of non-democratic countries began to consolidate against the West and increase its influence, turning the UN into its tool. The reason was obvious: most of the countries that later joined the UN (currently 193 against 50 at the start) were underdeveloped and undemocratic. Developed and democratic «cream» was removed at the start. But at the same time, all new members automatically received equal voting rights with developed countries.

Of course, there was a factor of financial and economic influence of the developed countries of the West. But it, as the two largest anti-democracies were integrating into the world economy: the military-raw material one, represented by the USSR, and then the Russian Federation, and the production one, represented by the PRC, began to erode too.

Russia and China, having gained access to big money, began to acquire their own economic clientele.

But post-Den China, being much more integrated into the economy of the West than the Russian Federation, avoids direct conflicts with it. Beijing is successfully using aggressive Nazi-Russia as an anti Western battering ram, providing it with rear and shadow support.

How the USSR and the Russian Federation turned the right of veto into a «diplomatic nuclear weapon»

The USSR, like, by the way, Maoist China, did not rely on economic integration with the West, but on the «confrontation of the two systems», at the end of which a world nuclear war loomed. Blackmailing the West with a nuclear threat and provoking local wars, the Soviet Union often avoided condemnation within the UN by systematically abusing the right of veto in the Security Council. To better see the scale of these abuses, let’s look at the numbers.

Since the establishment of the UN until June 2023, the veto right in the Security Council has been used 308 times. Of these, the share of the USSR and the Russian Federation, which inherited the veto right of the USSR, accounted for 152 cases (49% of the total), the share of the United States — 87 cases (28%). From 1946 to 1950, only the USSR used the right of veto. The US first used it in 1970.

From 1946 to 1991, the USSR used its veto right 119 times, an average of 2.57 times a year. RF, from 1992 to the present — 33 times, an average of 1.03 times a year, but the average figure does not reflect the real situation. From February 2022 to the present, the Russian Federation has used the right of veto 13 times, 8.67 times a year. If this is not an abuse of the right of veto, aimed at disrupting the work of the UN and subordinating it to your interests, then what is it?

Moreover, by manipulating the threat of a veto, Russia blocked hundreds of UN decisions at the development stage. In addition, Moscow is actually trading its veto right, providing a patronage for various dictatorial regimes.

How did the Russian Federation take the place of the USSR in the UN, and what are the consequences of this?

Although the USSR was in fact a unitary and totalitarian dictatorship, de jure it was a federation of 15 states. The USSR as a whole, and its two republics, Ukraine and Belarus, separately, have been members of the UN since its foundation. Moreover, the USSR, among the five founding countries, had the right of veto in the Security Council.

In 1991, the USSR ceased to exist. It was precisely the cessation of existence, and not the loss of part of the territories (as, for example, in the case of the collapse of the British Empire), which is clearly indicated by the Minsk Agreement of 1991 on the establishment of the CIS. The present Russian Federation legally inherits not the USSR as a whole, but one of the republics that were part of it — the RSFSR. Having retained in the name two words from the previous five, «Russian», and «Federation», instead of «Federal», the RSFSR lost the «Soviet», «Socialist», and also the «Republic», becoming the Russian Federation. The last loss is indicative — but we are now discussing a slightly different topic.

At the same time, the RSFSR, like 12 other republics of the USSR, was not a member of the UN. After the collapse of the USSR, 12 former Soviet republics joined the UN as new states, and the RSFSR, becoming the Russian Federation, usurped the USSR’s seat in the UN along with the right of veto. This was allowed on a wave of euphoria from the «end of the Cold War» and the «democratization of Russia», coupled with the privatization of its property and natural resources, with no small benefit for Western consultants who played the role of a pro-Moscow lobby. Taking advantage of the weakness of the new states, the Russian Federation, which inherited the allied power structures — most of the army, including nuclear weapons and special services represented by the KGB, assumed the debts of the USSR along with the foreign property of the deceased Union of the Russian Federation. At the same time, the seat of the USSR in the UN was seized, backed by the Alma-Ata Declaration of 1991, which stated that the USSR had collapsed and ceased to exist, but contained, among other things, a clause stating that 12 former republics of the USSR did not object to Russia took the place of the USSR in the UN, simply by changing the plates. The declaration was signed by 12 first secretaries of the Central Committee of the CPSU, from each republic.

But, even if we recognize the legitimacy of such consent — which, by the way, is also beyond dispute, such a declaration in relation to the UN was of an external nature. Most of the signatory countries, 10 out of 12, at the time of signing this document were not members of the UN at all — however, this only emphasized the legal absurdity of their decision to transfer the seat of the USSR to Russia. No decision of the UN General Assembly on such a transfer was made. Meanwhile, only the General Assembly could make such a decision, making an exception from the UN Charter, and fixing this fact, or acting on one of the precedents: the collapse of the United Arab Republic in 1961 (both countries, Egypt and Syria, were recognized as members of the UN since 1945 , that is, their place was divided into two), the separation of Singapore from Malaysia (Singapore rejoined) in 1965, and the disintegration of Serbia and Montenegro in 2006 (Montenegro rejoined).

However, in all cases of leaving a place for one of the countries, there were clear documents on its succession and a special decision of the UN General Assembly. There was nothing of the kind in the case of the transition of the place of the USSR to Russia. The UN leadership was silent, and everything was done without prior notice, without submitting the issue to the General Assembly for consideration. Perhaps this happened on a wave of euphoria from the collapse of the USSR, as it was then believed, directly into democracy, but it is much more likely that the corruption factor worked. Of course, due to the prescription of years, evidence of corruption by the Soviet / Russian special services of the UN apparatus in 1991 can no longer be found, but …

It is also appropriate to recall that during the division of Czechoslovakia and the SFRY, all the countries that formed in their place joined the UN anew. Serbia tried to repeat the move of Russia, but it was refused, and this in itself became a precedent not in favor of Moscow.

But building democracy was not on the list of goals of the neo-Soviet Russian leadership. Natives of the party nomenklatura, who reigned in it at first, were purged in less than a decade, replaced by people from the special services. After that, Russia confidently turned to its usual totalitarianism — the only structure of society in which it can exist without disintegrating into nation-states.

Why is it necessary to isolate Russia in the UN and why everything cannot be left as it is

Today, Russia has become the main instrument of a systemic attack on the Western, liberal-democratic world order, which is already experiencing a number of crisis phenomena. But, if the internal crises of the West are crises of growth, then the Russian attack on the West is aimed at collapsing into the past, at the time, if not the Vienna Congress, then at least the Yalta conspiracy, with the division of the world into spheres of influence, which the Kremlin speaks openly about . In addition to raw materials, Russia, operating against the West, relies on close ties with global organized crime groups and global terrorism, implemented through the special services back in Soviet times and strengthened in post-Soviet times. In this regard, Russia undoubtedly inherits the Soviet Union.

Here it is appropriate to note the fundamental difference between Russia and China.

China, being more powerful than Russia in all respects, claims to be integrated into the global world as an alternative to the West «the third way of development», and, competing with the West, uses Russia as a battering ram. But, the Chinese plan only at first glance looks dangerous in a strategic perspective. In reality, the «third way» is an eclectic chimera that leads China to a dead end. The internal crises created by the insurmountable contradictions of the idea of a «third way» are already undermining it, and China, as a result, will either fall into stagnation, heading for a return to the pre-reform state of Maoist indoctrination and poverty, or become part of the world that is taking shape before our eyes as a product of the further evolution of Western liberal democracy.

And with Russia, everything is more complicated: its goals are more mundane, and, because of this, they are achievable. Russia, in fact, claims to be a global organized crime group and a global racketeer parasitizing in the developed West. To this end, it is ready to enter into an alliance with various marginal regimes that are looking for a non-existent «third way of development», including the regime in Beijing. Moreover, in this regard, everything is absolutely clear in Russia: there is not a single significant force, either in power or in the opposition, which would be interested in a different path of development, and there is no social basis for its emergence in the future. Russia, in all its manifestations, is hopelessly and irremediably archaic, and therefore criminal and parasitic. It cannot be reformed as a whole, and must be dismantled as a constant existential threat to all mankind. The only trouble is that the world is moving extremely slowly and with difficulty towards understanding the real nature of Russia.

An alternative to dismantling Russia is its parasitism on humanity, fraught with constant risks of wars, nuclear blackmail, and a general rollback — all that Russian propaganda calls a «multipolar equitable world order», when hopelessly backward countries with medieval regimes can, huddled together, blackmail a developed part of the world and live off of it. And the dismantling of Russia requires, first of all, its international isolation, including within the UN. This situation is similar to that when a recidivist criminal who does not think of a different way of life is isolated from society, because, being at large, he turns out to be a constant threat. Moreover, if Chinese society and culture (as well as Iranian, and even North Korean) contain elements that can, over time, return them to the main path of human development, and there are examples of the development of these cultures and societies along this path (Taiwan, South Korea and Turkey as the Muslim antipode of Iran), then with Russia everything is different. All, without exception, projects of westernized development based on Russian culture, invariably, since the time of Ivan III, have failed, again, and again, and again, sliding into marginal criminal parasitism on the western periphery.

The fact that Russia has the right of veto blocks the possibility of organizing an International Tribunal over it under the auspices of the UN, a decision at the UN level on the payment of reparations to Ukraine, the introduction of UN troops on the border between Russia and Ukraine to guarantee the non-repetition of Russian aggression, and nuclear disarmament of Russia under the auspices of the UN. Meanwhile, all these problems will have to be solved after the military victory over Russia, which — and here it is necessary to soberly assess the actual state of affairs, will not be final. Even in the best-case scenario, Russia will be pushed back to the 1991 borders and weakened militarily and economically, but will remain dangerous. Its final appeasement and dismantling into nation-states, which will have a chance to develop democratically, will take decades, and the legitimation of these measures is impossible without the participation of international organizations.

How to deprive Russia of the right of veto in the Security Council and limit its influence in the UN

Although the mistake made three decades ago with the transfer of the USSR seat to the UN to Russia is obvious today, including for Western commentators[1], it is extremely difficult to correct it. Russia not only makes extensive use of the right of veto in the Security Council, but also strengthened itself in the UN apparatus[2], introducing more than 400 employees into it, most of whom are actors of the Russian special services. One can only guess how many UN employees are secretly recruited by the Russian special services, but there are undoubtedly a lot of them. This gives Russia many levers of influence, sometimes subtle, but significant. For example, the deliberate distortion of the meanings of UN documents when translating them into Russian, which is then used by the Russian delegation.

But the main obstacle is the lack of political will of the West, and its fear of the unpredictability of Moscow’s actions and the willingness of some Western politicians and experts to justify the legitimacy of Russia’s presence in the UN Security Council and the UN.[3] Here you can see an analogy with the reaction of a law-abiding person to a criminal, whose behavior seems to him illogical and unpredictable — and he is forced to act strictly within the law, and for this reason is extremely limited in the set of possible answers In reality, this is far from the case: the Kremlin is quite logical and consistent — it simply «takes Western people on the hook», and there are more than enough opportunities to respond. Of course, the interpretation of laws is always ambiguous, and the author of [3] gives an interpretation in favor of Russia, but dozens of other lawyers give much more convincing interpretations in favor of its exclusion. Another question is that the realization of all this, and with it the realization of the requirement to isolate and dismantle Russia, is difficult for the West to come to. And a mixture of misunderstanding, fear, and political impotence is covered by demagoguery that both the UN and the West «cannot afford to refuse to communicate with Russia» and must «keep channels for negotiations».

Meanwhile, this is not at all about refusing to communicate and negotiate with Moscow in general and in principle. It is only about the termination of powers illegally usurped by Russia, which rightfully belonged to an already non-existent state — the USSR, or its heir.

Thus, as usual, the main obstacle is the lack of a good theory to see the situation as it is. And accordingly, to form the will to act adequately to this situation among a group of developed Western countries, which, due to the availability of economic and political resources, constitute the influential core of the UN. In the presence of the will to isolate Russia, the possible schemes of action are quite obvious.

The most obvious actions are «on the forehead», with the removal of the issue of the illegality of the inheritance of the Russian Federation of the place of the USSR to the UN General Assembly. In this case, to deprive Russia not only of a seat in the Security Council, but also of a seat in the UN, and a proposal to go through the entry procedure again, without being tied to the USSR, a simple majority of votes will be enough. It’s just a matter of getting that big, since Russia is still pretty powerful.

Of course, her influence is fading. The anti-Russian coalition after 02/24/22 surpassed the anti-Hitler coalition in the number of participating countries, and continues to grow. Nevertheless, bringing the point of Russia’s membership in the UN to the General Assembly requires preliminary preparation, and this point must be formulated with the utmost precision.

We are not talking about the exclusion of the Russian Federation from the Security Council, and the exclusion from the UN forever. We are only talking about identifying and correcting a procedural error that arose due to the automatic extension of the membership in the UN of the already non-existent USSR to Russia. As part of the elimination of this error, the current membership of the Russian Federation in the UN should be recognized as illegitimate, after which Russia can, if it wishes, go through the entry procedure again. No one will deny Russia the right to join the UN, the procedure itself is nothing complicated, and Russia already has all the bodies necessary to work in the UN. But legitimate entry presupposes, firstly, the exclusion of all current Russian employees from the UN apparatus, as citizens of a country that is not a member of the organization. After Russia’s legitimate entry into the UN, their work in the apparatus can be re-examined, and they can be accepted again, or not accepted. And, secondly, such an entry removes Russia from the number of founding countries of the UN, and deprives it of its right of veto in the Security Council.

The preparation of such a solution to the Russian question should include, firstly, a request for clarification of the list of documents required for any country to join the UN, sent to the UN Credentials Committee. Further, according to the response received to this request, a set of documents relating to the Russian Federation, a state that existed until 1991 as the RSFSR within the USSR, and was not a member of the UN in this capacity, should be requested. Of course, these documents will not be provided, because they simply do not exist. Their absence will be sufficient grounds for applying to two committees: the UN Credentials Committee and the UN Security Council Credentials Committee demanding that the powers of the Russian delegation be not recognized.

Finally, although the UN Charter does not spell out the procedure for expelling a permanent member of the UN Security Council, there is experience in the history of the UN to replace it: by the UN General Assembly Resolution of 1971, Taiwan was deprived of the right to participate in the UN on behalf of all of China, since in fact it did not control most of its territory. [4] Russia also does not control a significant part of the territory of the USSR, and cannot be considered a representative of all the peoples of the USSR.

In addition, the UN Charter requires that members of the Security Council abstain from voting when the Council is considering a dispute to which they are a party. This duty, however, is limited by Chapter VI of the Charter, which deals with the peaceful settlement of disputes — but the war in Ukraine is definitely not the case. Finally, the powers of a UN member can also be frozen in connection with behavior that runs counter to the principles of the UN. So, after the suppression of the Hungarian uprising in 1956, the powers of the USSR delegation were frozen until 1959. The privileged position of the UN founding country and the permanent right of veto in the Security Council did not help either. The powers of the South African delegation were frozen from 1969 to 1994, for the policy of apartheid, until its abolition.

Thus, the aggression against Ukraine in itself provides grounds for a temporary freeze of the powers of the Russian delegation, up to and including its termination. And, than, slowly, they can already deal with the question of the legitimacy of the current Russian membership in the UN.

The point, therefore, is only in the political will of the West and its readiness to launch a diplomatic offensive against Russia. This is exactly what Ukrainian diplomats need to work on, encouraging the West to take decisive action, and political scientists, exploring the real role of Russia in the modern world, which is strikingly different from the benevolent image that has developed through the efforts of Soviet propaganda and has largely survived to this day, especially in Third World countries.

«If we leave Russian aggression in place, if Russia gets what it seeks to get from its aggression against Ukraine, in fact the whole structure that we created in 1945 will be in jeopardy,» said Thomas Grant, professor at the Lauterpacht Center international law and a member of CivicHub, an organization seeking to expel Russia from the UN[9]. “We believe that the reasons for this [for the expulsion of Russia] are extremely strong.«[5]

«Russia’s place on the UN Security Council is a parody. But this is something that freedom-loving nations can change if they are determined,» writes Thomas Grant in another article.[6] «This is also existential for the UN: whatever authority this organization has for maintaining peace and order in the world, it will be lost if it cannot respond to Russian atrocities and aggression against Ukraine.»

In other words, if the expulsion of Russia from the UN is most likely due to the procedure, in connection with the elimination of a legal error made during the transfer of the seat of the USSR to the Russian Federation, then the restriction of the powers of the Russian delegation preceding this step, which is rather complicated for the reasons stated above, can and should be in the nature of punishment for aggression against Ukraine, and this will fully comply with the UN Charter. And the issues of extradition of war criminals and payment of reparations for the unleashed aggression can and should be connected with the new admission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations. All this, taken together, will be a serious test of the UN’s strength, but at the same time, it will also give a chance to carry out long overdue reforms in it. Their necessity was shown by the inability of the UN to actively intervene in the situation in Ukraine. «The failure of the UN on Ukraine was caused by Russia’s position with the right of veto in the Security Council,» says former New Zealand Prime Minister (2017-2023) Jacinda Ardern, who has long opposed veto power for five selected countries[7]. «Russia used its site on the council to take a morally bankrupt position after a morally bankrupt and illegal war.»

But such a profound reform of the UN Charter is an extremely difficult task. And, even if Russia’s exclusion kicks off negotiations to completely abolish the veto, they could drag on for a very long time. And, therefore, the question will also arise of what to do with the right of veto of the USSR, taken away from Russia, which illegally appropriated it.

It is possible, of course, to abolish it altogether, leaving only four countries as its owners, but from the point of view of the UN Charter, this will require changes to be made to it. It seems more appropriate to refer to the Taiwanese precedent for the transfer of veto power. Although formally the transfer of the right of veto from the Kyrgyz Republic to the PRC by the UN General Assembly resolution of 1971 was a transfer within China, de facto it was about changing the entities that have the right to dispose of it. Having rolled back the situation to the collapse of the USSR, and to the RF illegally obtaining the right to dispose of the Soviet right of veto, we will also see several entities that were once parts of a single whole that can claim to inherit this right. At the same time, Russia, which could claim to inherit Soviet law, if it did not evade legal procedures, but sought a special resolution of the General Assembly, has lost this right over the past three decades, systematically violating the fundamental principles of the UN.

The closest to the Taiwanese precedent, as well as the letter and spirit of the UN Charter in this case will be the transfer of the right of veto in the UN Security Council to Ukraine, — considers The Washington Post columnist Mark Thiessen, who substantiates his point of view in detail [8]. Undoubtedly, such a step would be an important precedent for punishing aggressor countries.

However, regardless of the future fate of the veto right of the former USSR, depriving Russia of the right to use it is long overdue. The current situation is actually killing the UN. Dozens of authors write about this, citing many arguments, including well-known experts in international law. [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18].

Serhii Ilchenko, Newssky columnist