A chara, – On November 18th, Russia, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), vetoed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Sudan where a civil war has killed tens of thousands of civilians since last April; 14 of the 15 members of the UNSC had voted in favour of the motion.
Two days later the United States, as a permanent member of the UNSC, vetoed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza where tens of thousands of civilians have been killed since October of last year; 14 of the 15 members of the UNSC had voted in favour of the motion .
The UN was founded in 1945 as, in its own words, “an international organization designed to end war and promote peace, justice, and better living for all humankind”.
Unfortunately the organisation – with five permanent Security Council members (the US, Russia, China, UK, France) each having a permanent veto – seems deliberately structured to ensure that this noble design is rarely honoured.
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Given that powerful states aim to achieve their ends by suspending legality in the interests of “national security” or “reason of state”, the world needs a genuinely transgovernmental international organisation that overrules such Machiavellian stratagems.
Given that any attempt to transform the UN into such an organisation would itself be vetoed by the permanent members, it would appear that humanity has allowed itself to be trapped in a cycle of inhumanity and injustice.
Is there a way out of this impasse? – Yours, etc,
RAYMOND DEANE,
Broadstone,
Dublin 7.
