Members of the United Nations General Assembly are currently considering Liechtenstein’s request to discuss a Washington-backed draft resolution that would require the five permanent members of the Security Council to justify their use of the veto. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has revived this long-standing idea of pushing the permanent members of the Security Council to ease the use of the veto.
Moscow’s veto allowed it to paralyze any action in the Security Council, which should intervene in such conflicts as the guarantor of world peace under the United Nations Charter.
Diplomats said the Liechtenstein proposal, backed by some 50 other countries, of which the United States is the only permanent member, would be put to a vote. In addition to the United States, China, France, Great Britain and Russia are permanent members of the Security Council.
The UN Security Council also has ten non-permanent members with no veto power.
The proposed text calls for the 193 member states of the General Assembly to meet “within ten days after one or more of the permanent members of the Security Council has exercised its veto, to discuss the situation over which the veto has been exercised.”
Other sponsors of the proposal who committed to vote for the text include Ukraine, Japan and Germany, noting that the latter two countries look forward to permanent membership in the Council if it is expanded due to their economic and political influence on the world level.
