The images of these civilians killed, burned, lying in the streets of Boutcha are unbearable. The Ukrainian president nevertheless wanted to broadcast them on Tuesday, April 5, during a meeting of the UN Security Council.
Based on these images, on the potential war crimes perpetrated by the Russian army, Volodymyr Zelensky called on the United Nations to sanction Russia by excluding it from the Security Council.
A difficult requirement to meet
Kicking Moscow out of the Security Council would lead de facto to withdraw his seat as a permanent member as well as his right of veto. The task seems daunting at best and more likely impossible.
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The Security Council was created on June 26, 1945 by the Charter of the United Nations which gave birth to the UN. However, if the text ratifies the attribution of a permanent seat to five States (“ the Republic of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America”)it does not provide for any exit or exclusion procedure.
Expelling a member state from the Security Council would therefore imply amending the founding text of the UN in order to create the procedure which currently does not exist. Here too, the shoe pinches. “ Any amendment to this Charter recommended by the Conference by a two-thirds majority shall become effective when ratified (…) by two-thirds of the membership of the United Nations, including all permanent members of the Security Council », indicates the 108e amendment of the Charter of the United Nations.
France in favor of a modification of the right of veto
Since the Russian Federation is a permanent member of the Security Council, it is more than likely to block any attempt to deprive it of its rights acquired at the end of the Second World War. It can also oppose a modification of the UN veto system, as requested by the Ukrainian President so that “ the right of vetodoes not mean the right to “cause” to die”.
In the past, France has been open to a reform of the right of veto. In September 2017, President Emmanuel Macron gave a speech to the UN General Assembly in favor of restrictions on the right of veto in certain situations, notably in the face of war crimes. The massacres noted during the war in Ukraine would then fall under such a limitation.
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The request was renewed two months later by the French Embassy to the UN. “We need a Security Council capable of taking appropriate and effective decisions, unhindered by the exercise of the veto when mass atrocities are committed”said a representative of the French delegation.