Statement by Ambassador Vassily A. Nebenzia, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, at the Security Council meeting on Maintenance of international peace and security
We would like to thank you, Mr. President, and the Chinese presidency for organizing today’s discussion on issues related to strengthening the principles of multilateralism.
The proposed theme is highly relevant, as it enables us to critically take stock of the state of international relations and to discuss ways to overcome the systemic problems it has accumulated. We thank the Secretary-General, António Guterres, for his assessment, and Ms. Inga Rhonda King, President of the Economic and Social Council, Ms. Al-Thani, Acting President of the General Assembly, and Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf for their briefings.
Our world today is undergoing a period of profound changes that are leading to the creation of a polycentric international system. Thanks to the global activation of cross-border economic ties and the acceleration of scientific and technological progress, new centres of economic growth and political influence are gaining traction. They are seeking broader participation in international affairs and striving to create independent domestic and foreign policies that correspond to their national interests and to choose development models that reflect their national, cultural and religious identities. Those trends are only going to grow.
In the circumstances, the significance of multilateral diplomacy mechanisms, the joint quest for responses to common threats and challenges and the provision of collective leadership is also growing. The role of the United Nations and its Security Council as a central organ for world policy, as well as that of flexible global governance formats such as the Group of 20, is increasing, as is the importance of integrated regional and interregional associations. However, the desire of most States to strengthen the polycentric foundations of the global order is clashing with some players’ attempts to preserve their global dominance in order to gain unilateral advantages. They have no inhibitions about circumventing the United Nations and the Security Council and taking a selective approach to meeting their international legal obligations. They declare themselves to be multilateral but label those who do not agree with their policies and methods revisionists and opponents of multilateralism.
In other words, they recognize multilateralism only on their own conditions. One need not look far for examples of breaches of multilateralism. The basic principles of the settlement in the Middle East, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on the Iranian nuclear programme, the commitments under the World Trade Organization and the multilateral Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the key disarmament agreements for strategic stability are all under attack, along with many others.
As a result, the international law that the post-war world order was founded on is being devalued. We hear statements trumpeted that not only call into question the legal force of international treaties but also prioritize narrow, unilateral approaches above decisions taken within the United Nations framework, among other things. Within the United Nations, we have already drawn attention to the fact that our Western colleagues are relentlessly trying to replace the primacy of international law in world affairs with some kind of rules-based order. Those very rules are devised based on political expediency and are a clear example of double standards.
A similar approach is being used to impose sanctions on annoying States, declare trade wars and stoke tensions in international relations, while the reasons given for such measures are becoming increasingly farfetched, whether for alleged interference in elections or unsubstantiated accusations of the use of chemical weapons and other such sins. In order to accuse somebody of something today, it seems to be considered sufficient to add the phrase “highly likely”. No evidence is necessary and the accused’s views are of no interest to the accusers. While such methods are not new, they are now front and centre. But we well remember how many times false pretexts have been used to justify interventions and unleash wars.
We need only recall the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the occupation of Iraq in 2003 under openly lying pretexts whose legacy continues to be a heavy burden on Iraqis, and the crude manipulation of the Security Council’s mandate in Libya in 2011, which resulted in destruction and chaos that still continue. The same methods continue to be used against Syria today. These unilateral military actions have plunged the Middle East and North Africa into chaos and created a breeding ground for rampant extremism and terrorism.
There are disturbing attempts to drag some countries into military alliances against the will of their peoples, while other States are threatened with punishment for freely choosing their partners and allies. In the Balkans in particular, the States of the region are being promised future happiness and insistently dragged into NATO, with invocations of the inadmissibility of meddling in their internal affairs actually accompanied by shameless interference. This kind of bloc mindset only produces additional threats to international security and is ruinous for the principles of multilateralism.
We are seeing the space for constructive international cooperation contracting, confrontations growing, unpredictability generally increasing, nuclear doctrines being revised and the threshold for the acceptability of the use of nuclear weapons lowered, with a significant rise in the risk of spontaneous conflicts, and of course all of that affects the activities of the United Nations. In the next few days we will be commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War.
That was a strange war, which seemed to begin by itself. Its protagonists and participants could not even imagine the horrific disaster that would follow or the fact that the First World War would spawn an even greater disaster, the Second World War. The situation today compels us to examine those historical lessons cautiously and to hope that such scenes of reckless, unbridled spiralling, catastrophic confrontation will not be repeated. In the wake of the Second World War, we founded this Organization. For the first time in history, the principles of multilateralism were enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, establishing a workable mechanism for global governance through the harmonization of States’ positions.
The key elements for a polycentric world order were outlined, along with the basic principles and norms of international relations, from the sovereign equality of States and the prohibition of interference in their internal affairs to the ban on the use of force in international relations without the permission of the Security Council or beyond the limits of self-defence.
We also want to point out that according to the Charter, the use of sanctions mechanisms is the exclusive prerogative of the Security Council. Unilateral restrictions and attempts to apply national legislation extraterritorially are illegitimate, lead only to increased confrontations in international affairs and make the collective quest for solutions to emerging problems harder. Moreover, as practice has shown, such measures are ineffective as well as illegal. In order to avoid further complicating the international situation, it is important to uphold international law — the law proper, not some rule or other — including the Charter,
State sovereignty and respect for one another’s cultural and civilizational specificities — and to strive for cooperation, not confrontation. We must all acknowledge that our peoples have the right to independently determine their own future without outside interference in their internal affairs. We will see positive results when States unite their efforts in the interests of mutually beneficial and respectful cooperation.
That is the only approach that can produce dividends for all the members of the international community and a fair, democratic and harmonious world order. We hope that today’s discussions will develop into a serious conversation about the role of the United Nations, a crucial and key mechanism for regulating modern international relations.
