[But first its necessary to get around Russias veto in the UN
Security Council. ]
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REPLACING A DISASTROUS WAR WITH A JUST PEACE IN UKRAINE  
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Lawrence S. Wittner
January 14, 2024
Foreign Policy in Focus
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_ But first it's necessary to get around Russia's veto in the UN
Security Council. _

, Shutterstock

 

Although the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has captured
the world’s horrified attention, the war in Ukraine has had even
more terrible consequences. Grinding on for nearly two years,
Russia’s massive military invasion of that country has taken
hundreds of thousands of lives, created millions of refugees, wrecked
Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and economy, and consumed enormous
financial resources from nations around the world.

And yet, despite the Ukraine War’s vast human and economic costs,
there is no sign that it is abating. Russia and Ukraine are now bogged
down in very bloody military stalemate, with about a fifth of
Ukraine’s land occupied and annexed by Russia.

Meanwhile, polls show
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overwhelming majority of Ukrainians remain determined to continue the
struggle to free all of Ukraine from Russian captivity. Indeed, an
opinion survey
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fall of 2023 found that 80 percent of Ukrainians polled believed that
under no circumstances should Ukraine give up any of its territory.

Similarly, in Russia, polls have found that a majority of the public
appears content with the Putin regime’s military conquest of Ukraine
and is opposed to any peace settlement
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that would relinquish Russian control of conquered Ukrainian land. Of
course, the accuracy of Russian polls on the Ukraine War remains
deeply suspect, for professing opposition to the war could easily lead
to arrest, as it did for 20,000 Russians
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in 2022. Perhaps for this reason, numerous Russians polled
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refused to answer the question of where they stood on the war. One
participant responded: “Thank you for the opportunity not to testify
against myself.” In any case, in increasingly authoritarian Russia,
public sentiment against war seems unlikely to alter the Putin
administration’s determination to triumph on the battlefield.

Admittedly, in the United States, the major supplier of military and
economic aid to beleaguered Ukraine, some developments point to
declining enthusiasm for that role. The Republican Party has revived
its 1930s policy
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(once termed “isolationism”) of appeasing military aggression by
rightwing dictatorships, while leftists with an anti-American slant
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somehow destroying “U.S. imperialism.” Nonetheless, unless Donald
Trump and his MAGA followers sweep into power in 2024, it seems
unlikely that the U.S. government or its NATO partners will entirely
abandon Ukraine to a future under the jackboot of Russian military
occupation.

Given these obstacles, is there a way to secure a just settlement of
the Ukraine War?

There is, but it will take some creative action by the United Nations,
the global organization that has been authorized to enforce
international security.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24,
2022, the overwhelming majority of the world’s nations have
repeatedly used their participation in the UN General Assembly to
condemn the Russian invasion and to call for a just peace in Ukraine
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For example, on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the war, the
General Assembly
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by a vote of 141 nations to 7 (with 32 abstentions), demanded that
Russia “immediately, completely, and unconditionally” withdraw its
military forces from Ukraine and called for a “cessation in
hostilities” and a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace” based
on the principles enshrined in the UN Charter. The UN Charter
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constitutes international law and bans “the threat or use of force
against the territorial integrity or political independence of any
State.”

Even so, it is the UN Security Council that is tasked with enforcing
international security, and Russia has used its veto in that UN entity
to block UN action to end the Ukraine War.

The paralysis of the UN Security Council, however, need not continue.
As Louise Blais, Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations from 2017
to 2021, has recently pointed
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out, Article 27 (3) of the UN Charter states that a party to a dispute
before the Security Council shall abstain from voting in connection
with the dispute. But, when it came to the Security Council’s votes
on the Ukraine War, as Blais noted, “none of the 10 elected Security
Council members had the courage, vision or backing to put forward a
resolution” demanding abstention. According to Blais, the
unwillingness of the four other veto-wielding members (Britain China,
France, and the United States) to avoid a crippling Russian veto and,
thereby, empower the Security Council to act, reflected their “zero
interest in supporting such a move for fear it would limit their own
power in the future.”

But there is ample precedent for limiting the veto in this fashion.
The UN has a history of veto-wielding nations abstaining from Security
Council voting when they are parties to a dispute.  As Blais
observes, between 1946 and 1952, Security Council members “regularly
adhered to the obligatory abstention rule.” Only in later years did
the five permanent Security Council members curtail the application of
this practice.

In short, based on both international law and precedent, the UN
Security Council has the authority to impose a settlement of the
disastrous Ukraine War. What kinds of international action this would
require would need to be determined by the world organization, just as
the final terms of a peace agreement would ultimately need to be
accepted by the contending parties. But, given the overwhelming
support in the UN General Assembly for the withdrawal of Russian
military forces from Ukraine and for a lasting peace agreement, such a
peace settlement is likely to be a just one.

At the least, this would be a far better method of dealing with
international conflict than the current full-scale war currently
raging in Ukraine. And it could serve as a model for resolving other
intractable disputes, such as the brutal Israel-Palestine conflict, as
well.

* Ukraine; Russia; United Nations
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