Review Russia’s UN Membership and Reform the Security Council Veto

An International Citizens’ Initiative

Addressed to: The United Nations General Assembly, all UN Member States, and their Permanent Representatives to the United Nations.

Background: Russia’s UN Membership and Ukraine’s Challenge

On 26 December 2022, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued an official statement questioning the legitimacy of the Russian Federation’s continued membership in the United Nations and its status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the Russian Federation assumed the USSR’s seat in the United Nations, including its permanent seat on the Security Council. This transition took place without a separate General Assembly vote admitting Russia as a new UN member.

Ukraine has challenged the legal basis of that succession and called for its examination.

The absence of a separate admission vote does not, by itself, establish that Russia’s membership is unlawful. Nevertheless, the legal arguments raised by Ukraine warrant transparent and authoritative examination.

Almost four years after Ukraine’s statement, the fundamental questions it raised remain unresolved through any publicly identified formal determination by the General Assembly or the International Court of Justice.

Why has this issue not received a definitive international legal examination? What concrete action has followed Ukraine’s official challenge?

The Failure of the Veto System

The United Nations was established to maintain international peace and security.

Yet the Security Council’s permanent members possess the power to block substantive resolutions, including those concerning conflicts in which they are directly involved.

This creates a fundamental question of accountability.

Why does the international community continue to mobilise enormous resources to assist victims, rebuild destroyed communities and address the consequences of aggression while leaving unchanged a mechanism that can obstruct collective action to prevent or stop that aggression?

Humanitarian assistance is indispensable. But responding to suffering cannot replace the responsibility to prevent it.

How many more years must pass, and how many more people must die before UN Member States acknowledge that the existing system requires fundamental reform?

No permanent member of the Security Council should be able to use its veto to shield itself from international action concerning its own aggression.

This principle must apply universally, regardless of which country is involved.

Our Demands

1. Formal examination of Russia’s UN status

UN Member States must initiate a transparent legal examination of the circumstances under which the Russian Federation assumed the Soviet Union’s membership and permanent Security Council seat in December 1991.

This examination must explicitly address the legal questions raised by Ukraine on 26 December 2022.

2. Public accountability

UN Member States must publicly explain what institutional or legal steps have been taken to examine Ukraine’s position, what conclusions have been reached, and what obstacles remain.

3. Reform of the Security Council veto

UN Member States must pursue concrete reforms to prevent a permanent member from using its veto to obstruct international action concerning its own acts of aggression or other grave violations of international law.

Such reform must establish a universal mechanism applicable to every permanent member, without exception.

4. Concrete institutional action

The General Assembly must be asked to consider the available legal and institutional mechanisms for addressing these questions, including the possibility of requesting an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on appropriately formulated legal issues.

5. Transparency and measurable progress

States supporting these initiatives must publish their proposed actions, diplomatic commitments and progress toward meaningful reform.

Statements of concern and condemnation cannot substitute for measurable institutional action.

A Question to All 193 UN Member States

The United Nations has 193 Member States.

Why have the other 192 states not secured a collective solution to a system in which one permanent Security Council member can obstruct action concerning its own aggression?

What political, legal and institutional obstacles prevent meaningful reform, and what concrete steps are governments prepared to take to overcome them?

How can an organisation representing almost the entire international community remain unable to ensure effective collective action when a permanent Security Council member is itself involved in the conflict under consideration?

Why should the protection of a procedural privilege take precedence over the lives of civilians?

How many more years must pass? How many more innocent people must die before the international community recognises that something is fundamentally wrong with the present system?

We do not accept that the international community’s responsibility begins only after lives have been lost.

The purpose of international security must be to prevent catastrophe, not merely to manage its consequences.

Our Call for Action

This petition calls for legal clarity, institutional accountability and meaningful reform of the United Nations Security Council.

We demand concrete international action, not merely further declarations of concern.

The international community must confront the legal questions raised by Ukraine, address the structural weaknesses of the veto system and establish safeguards that prevent any aggressor state from obstructing international efforts to stop its own aggression.

Human lives must take precedence over political privilege.

The United Nations must be capable of preventing aggression, not merely assisting its victims after the damage has been done.

The international community must act.