Dr. Gunda Reire
Director
Ukraine can be helped now, not by reviving the debate with new vigor, reaching a sad and predictable outcome, but by focusing on the areas where progress is possible.
Reire_UN_RC.pdf The UN Security Council in Deadlock (Again). The Ability of the UN to Respond to Russia’s War in Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, a permanent member of the United Nations (UN) Security Council committed a blatant act of aggression, violating international law and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. Russia has been waging war in Europe, and the UN Security Council is failing to respond to it. In this light, the question arises – is this organization effective? Do we still need it?
The UN is the only global international organization that unites all sovereign states in the world, and the only one that has the power to authorize the use of force in international relations. The UN with all its imperfections still represents the closest approximation to a multilateral system of global governance that has ever been achieved. If the democratic world abandons it, we lose a multilateral forum and an instrument of enormous potential. The only option is to try to improve it.
This policy paper has been written for the Riga Conference 2022 in cooperation with the Latvian Transatlantic Organization (LATO).