![]() ![]() Given their past support for suspending Russia from the U.N. Permanent members of the body can always veto substantive matters, but this isn’t the case for procedural ones, which only require “an affirmative vote of nine members” as per the provisional rules of procedure and related procedural developments. ![]() So, Russia must be prevented from occupying Ukraine, and from dismantling what’s left of the international order - starting with next month’s presidency.Īnd along these lines, Atlas started the “ UN Boycott Russia” campaign, pushing for at least seven of the 15 Security Council member countries to boycott the body throughout April, thus blocking Russia from getting anything passed. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated, “Where is the security that the Security Council must guarantee? There is no security.” The Security Council isn’t just a renowned body that has the power of the “bully pulpit” it “ has primary responsibility, under the United Nations Charter, for the maintenance of international peace and security.” However, the body has fallen victim to gridlock for a long time now, and its flaws have never been more apparent. And when I asked if he thought such a thing would have been possible, he answered: “People would never have let it happen.” I then told him about Russia. “I would be sickened with rage,” my father said, having seen his own father deported to the camps during World War II. Just think if Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or Augusto Pinochet’s Chile were to take up the Security Council’s leadership - it would have been unbelievable. Likewise, now, while scholars are exploring and pushing the argument that an “ aggressor” cannot take up the position of the presidency, the world can still block Russia from getting anything done in its one month in a similar fashion - before, of course, working to change this system that enables such absurd situations to arise in the first place. And thanks to the concerted effort of thousands across the planet, we pushed the General Assembly to take notice of our candidate for U.N. And while the U.N.’s processes need deep reform, there’s a way of standing up for democracy within these halls of power.Ītlas, the global grassroots movement that I chair, did this in 2021, running stunt global primaries to shake up the opacity of the selection process of the U.N. This time, surely, we cannot look the other way.īut while stopping Russia may seem like an impossible task, there’s proof that citizen-led campaigns can impact the workings of international organizations. We have all been guilty of this - but not this time. But the truth is most of us are passive, either looking away or simply waiting while making polite dinner conversation about how abhorrent current events are. We are taught to look at history in a very binary manner - some resisted and some collaborated or some did good and some did bad.
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