The UN Role and Its Uselessness

Here is why the UN can't do anything for Ukraine

Languages: UA | RU || BG | CS | DE | EL | ES | FR | HR | HU | IT | PL | RM | TR |

Reading time: 41 minutes (46 minutes with footnotes)

Welcome to the peace initiative for Ukraine in which you can contibute by raising your awareness as well as your consciousness^[+] and spirit to the modes^[+] of neutrality^[*^], decency, respectfulness, wisdom^[*^], objectivity, mastery of the intellect, surrender (ego and mind to God’s will), and finally peace (inner then outer). To properly grasp everything, we recommend reading the articles of this peace initiative in the order that we^[*^] designed it, which is listed in the CONTENTS. So if you haven’t read the previous articles, we urge you to do it, please. With this article we continue “Peacemaking Mediation” segment in this peace initiative, moving on from the US Role to the UN Role.

As peace activists, we help raise public awareness and consciousness which brings us to the issue of the UN uselessness in Ukraine. If you wonder where is the UN in all this and why it doesn't engage in any diplomacy between the warring sides or sends peace corps, then get all your questions answered here as well as realize why and how you then have to intervene for bringing peace.

Apart from the US, another useless arbitrator in the war in Ukraine is the UN.

Here we will proceed with explaining why it is impossible to rely on the UN to help with peacemaking in Ukraine.

In short, the UN has been paralyzed by being hijacked by the US, serving as a US tool to perpetuate the US hegemony with US officials intimidating, bullying, coercing, and bribing other UN representatives into voting according to the US orders.

Top UN official, the Director of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) in New York, Craig Mokhiber, confirmed it in his resignation letter^[+][+] in November 2023: “In recent decades, key parts of the UN have surrendered to the power of the US.”

Even some UN Council members blame the UN's undiplomatic accusations that have had no real chance of promoting a diplomatic solution to the war. Many UN actions have disregarded the importance of a balanced approach, fostered animosity, and escalated the war, as we will explain here.

"In the current war in Ukraine, we are witnessing the impotence of the Organizations of the United Nations.” – Pope Francis^[+]

Due to US or NATO's world domination, majority rule, subjectivity (lack of objectivity), bias, double standards, and disrespectful insulting Russian President Putin^[+], Russia is unwilling to negotiate with them let alone obey them.

Both Russia and Ukraine have been accused of murder, torture, rape, and crimes against humanity but charges are raised only against Russia. These charges were amplified when the UN’s International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, accusing him of “unlawful deportation” of thousands of Ukrainian children, even though Russians rescued and evacuated those mostly orphans from the war zone^[+] (just as they evacuated millions of adults) and placed them in camps where they have been treated nicely as reported by some foreign journalists^[+] and those kids who returned claimed they were well-cared for.

However, for some reason, Ukrainian authorities and their President Zelensky have not been accused of their kidnapping of ethnic Russian kids, child-trafficking^[*^], and their state-sponsored anti-Russian military summer camps for kids^[»][»], run by the notorious neo-Nazi Azov brigade, where small kids are taught not just to use weapons and fight but also to hate Russians. They are being indoctrinated and told to shout hateful anti-Russian slogans – and the UN members pay for all that!

What incentive is there to make peace if what is on offer from the UN is a prison cell?

👎The main problem with the UN regarding issues with the Global East and the South is that the UN promotes the interests of the West, in particular of NATO states such as the US, EU, and UK.

The UN has become unjust and dysfunctional because it is hijacked by NATO states.

NATO has 32 votes in the UN General Assembly while countries like China, Russia, India, and Iran have just one vote each. Plus 55 Commonwealth countries belonging to the UK can never vote against the UK (NATO) interests. So, in the UN, NATO and Russia are represented 87:1 plus the current UN Secretary-General comes from a NATO state, all of which is obviously not fair and such disbalance leads to the UN's dysfunctionality and unfair UN resolutions that provoke conflicts and wars.

Plus, NATO states coerce the UN representatives of other world countries into voting as ordered by Washington with all sorts of threats, from sanctions to private threats (e.g. kids of many UN representatives study in the US, so they threaten to expel as Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said^[»] that his colleagues at the UN told him).

NATO and Russia are enemies or rivals, therefore, because the UN is structured to give much more votes to the NATO states, it is inclined towards NATO interests and as such unqualified and unwelcome by Russia to mediate peace talks.

To overcome that, Russia could give all its provinces the right to declare independence and form sovereign states under the condition they all stay in the Eurasian Union and support the interests of that union. Like Washington is controlling Brussels that controls its 27 states, so could Moscow do the same to gain the right to have more votes at the UN. This way they could, like the European Union, all have the right to their own vote in the UN General Assembly and influence the UN resolutions against NATO interests.

However, judging from history, this might not work out as it didn't work out with the Soviet Union giving Ukraine many lands and a sense of identity to justify another vote in the UN, although it worked with Belarus. In 1944, the USSR altered its constitution to let its republics have sovereignty to push for more votes in the UN and some other reasons. Otherwise, the East bloc would have had fewer votes and might not have accepted the UN as a valid institution. So, it had to get some teeth and some credibility on all sides of the political spectrum and, literally, the planet.

Also, the US could counter-act with all their 50 states to also be represented, as they were set to do in the 1940s.

Looking at the structure of the UN where each country has one vote at the General Assembly (that issues resolutions) regardless of its geographical or population size, it is clearly unfair that in voting, it does not matter whether a country had huge population of 1.4 billion like China and India or just 10.679 people like Tuvalu.

Another main problem with the UN is that it represents majorities and not minorities, which is why the territorial integrity or sovereignty of a state is more regarded as the human right to self-determination when it suits a majority. Therefore, the United Nations should be called the United Majorities. Because the UN doesn't attempt to protect the rights of minorities and allows the tyranny of the majority^[+], the victims and freedom fighters or separatists become aggressive and breaches of the peace occur, resulting in wars.

The UN representatives represent and serve the interests of their states, that is, the majority of the state. They vote in the interest of the ruling majority rather than in the interest of the minorities, who are then unrepresented although they are the major peace breakers. As long as their interests are disregarded, there will be no peace in the world. Since the founding of the UN, too many wars have been waged because of the denial of the legitimate aspiration of ethnic minorities to achieve their fundamental human rights, including the right to internal or external self-determination. It is not the exercise of self-determination that generates conflict and war, but the unreasonable denial thereof. The realization of the right of self-determination is essential to maintaining local, regional, and international peace and must be seen as an important war-prevention strategy. It is thus the responsibility of the UN and of the international community to address the grievances of people who are denied the right to equal participation in decision-making.

In other words, to bring about world peace, the UN needs to reform to protect the interests of majorities and minorities equally. Territorial integrity should be neither violated nor preserved by violating human lives and rights.

The UN General Assembly ought to take a proactive role in mediating all crises associated with self-determination but it is doing the opposite – by issuing confrontational resolutions, it adds fuel to the fire; it escalates conflicts into wars.

The majority of Ukrainians consider the UN peacekeeping mission – military intervention – to be the most preferable way to resolve the conflict in Ukraine but this is impossible because Russia as a permanent member of the UN Council has the power and right to ban (veto) it. A range of other United Nations entities is in Ukraine, with more than 1.200 national and international UN personnel (as of July 2022)^[+].

No UN military peacekeeping force can be deployed because of the Russian veto. According to the UN charter, as one of only five permanent members of the UN's Security Council, Russia has the power to ban the UN's military intervention. Ukrainian President Zelensky called on the UN body to remove Russia, but there is no provision or mechanism to remove a permanent member of the Security Council written into the UN charter. And other four permanent members of the Council don't want to change that out of self-interest because it would then also limit their veto powers in the future. While Russia has ensured that the UN Council can do almost nothing concrete about the war, Ukraine and partner states have used it as a platform for frequent discussions with the goal of shaming Russia, which is, of course, undiplomatic and further antagonizing Russia, thus escalating the war rather than working toward bringing peace.

With peacekeeping armed forces being prohibited, the only option left for the UN was to use diplomatic means but it failed due to its countless contra-productive undiplomatic actions^[+], which antagonized Russians rendering them unwilling to communicate, let alone make any concessions.

The United Nations propagates^[+] Russian military operation or “invasion” in Ukraine as “to be a violation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. It is contrary to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.” But the Kosovo independence^[+] in 2008, NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999^[+], NATO wars in Iraq^[+] (2003–2011), Afghanistan^[+] (2001–2021), Libya^[+][+][+][+] (2011, 2014-2020), Syria^[+][+][+] (2011-present), American funding and arms support for Taiwan’s independence from China, and elsewhere^[ꚛ] were all also a violation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of those countries and contrary to the principles of the UN Charter, too, nevertheless the NATO invaders were never vilified as Russia is now.

The UN never authorized NATO wars; it never issued resolutions in support.

For instance, Kofi Annan, the then-Secretary-General of the United Nations, called the invasion of Iraq^[+] (2003–2011) illegal under international law, as it violated the UN Charter but his words had no effect. In other words, the tail was wagging the dog. The US and UK had insolently undermined the United Nations Security Council in the process of declaring war, not providing a legal basis for it, and failing to prove that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. There was never a request from the Iraqi people to liberate them. None of the US, UK, and a few other allies’ presidents or commanders were ever accused of war crimes let alone sentenced for it – how come? How is their invasion of Iraq any more justifiable or moral than Russia's military operation in Ukraine?

Just because Saddam Hussain was in their view an evil dictator (because he did not obey Washington and which could be also said about many other presidents who were not attacked), there was no justification to attack the whole country and kill around 50.000 other people because of just one supposedly guilty guy, not to mention all the devastation during eight years of war. Who is then more evil?! Saddam never killed so many people and destroyed his or any country. He actually battled terrorism more than the US has. Just because the US or its allies had no intention to annex parts of Iraq, it doesn’t make it any more justifiable than the Russian military operation, especially because the US had other own interests there. According to some experts^[+], the main reasons for invading Iraq were control over oil and the preservation of the dollar as the world's reserve currency, as well as the reason we explained above about boosting the US economy and the US’s need for wars to sustain its economy that depends on the arms industry.

Liability for war crimes is not limited to those who carry out the acts, but also those who order, assist, or are otherwise complicit in the crimes. So, if US Presidents Bush and Obama and UK Prime Ministers Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron and all the other presidents (Australia – John Howard and Kevin Rudd; Poland – Aleksander Kwaśniewski, etc.^[+]) who were involved in the aggression didn’t have to be held accountable for their war crimes, why should Putin be accused or held accountable? How can impunity apply to some leaders and not others? Despite all the invasions NATO countries have done, ICC¹ never indicted any NATO leaders – it indicted 52 people in history^[+] – 48 are Africans and the remaining 4 are Russian – clearly, ICC only serves NATO interests.

Unlike Russia, which (like the US) is not a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) so its authorities are not bound to cooperate with the court, the UK, Australian, Polish, and other NATO states' coalition leaders engaged in Iraq invasion were not exempt^[+] from ICC's trials, which makes it even more unreasonable to charge Putin but not the others.

We are not suggesting anything, just raising the point of unfairness and unreasonableness.

Another similar example of double standards was the US's invasion and occupation of Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Between 2014-2022, Ukrainians were killing and terrorizing Russian ethnic minorities for years (not just for a day like in the US) but according to the UN and US, Russia was not allowed to intervene, but when Al-Qaida (not Afghanistan) attacked the Americans, the US was neither condemned nor brought to justice for their war crimes in Afghanistan and tortures in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. If Russians had called their special military operation a “war on terror” (as Russians were terrorized and killed in Ukraine for years), would that be then as justifiable as the US's invasion and occupation of Afghanistan?

Double-dealing and bias of the UN are the main causes of why it hasn’t been able to prevent or end the war in Ukraine and the reason why we can’t rely on it to find a solution and bring peace to Ukraine.

Double-dealing of the UN is a major cause of wars across the globe because wronged nations are frustratedly, desperately, and aggressively reacting to the injustice inflicted by the UN's resolutions.

Apart from Wikileaks exposing the US' double game^[+] on UN Security Council in 2011, there have been countless accusations of the UN's double standards, which undermines the Security Council’s legitimacy and authority and it is to blame for the UN's dysfunction and inefficacy. Just to name a few instances apart from already mentioned Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, and Syria: Iran^[+] (the West’s ‘double standard’ towards Iran’s nuclear program), North Korea^[+] (double-dealing standards regarding the activities of the DPRK for self-defense – the missile test), Libya^[+] (double-dealing at the UN Human Rights Council), and Falkland Islands^[+], and perhaps the most relevant is Kosovo^[+][+] (validating Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008 despite it was violating the Constitution and territorial integrity of Serbia but not doing the same for Crimea), etc.

The UN has also drawn criticism for its failures to achieve its main objectives, which proves that it is incompetent to end war just as it was incompetent to prevent it.

The UN’s central mandate is to prevent war, which the UN disgracefully failed to accomplish not only in Ukraine but in many other countries too. The founders of the UN envisioned that the organization would act to prevent conflicts between nations and make future wars impossible; however, the UN has not lived up to this responsibility and duty.

The United Nations Peacekeeping efforts began in 1948. Since then, United Nations peacekeepers have taken part in a total of 72 missions around the globe, 14 of which continue today. Despite many calls for the UN to become the agency for achieving peace, its peacekeeping has never prevented nor helped end war or genocide. Perhaps the mere presence of the UN or world police has prevented some criminal leaders to start a war or increased the chance of resolving crises peacefully but when called to arbitrate, the UN has always failed.

The inefficacy of the UN efforts is evermore reported and discussed. Apart from the failure to prevent or end the war in Ukraine, recent major fiascos range from failure to prevent and end the civil war in Syria and genocide in Rwanda and Darfur, as well as the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, to failure to provide effective humanitarian aid in the Second Congo War and Somalia, not to mention failure to implement provisions of Security Council resolutions related to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and Kashmir dispute.

No doubt, UN peacekeeping corpses have protected civilian lives on numerous occasions but they did the opposite as well – both endangered and abused (e.g., sexual abuses of UN soldiers). Plus, the cost of lives – both, the lives of the UN soldiers and those they killed. The ratio of their protection vs. harming is undocumented, thus as long as they are saving lives, we are all for it but preventing and ending war is a whole other issue. In this peace initiative, we are concerned with ending the war, therefore we shine a light on the UN's incapability to do it diplomatically instead of militarily, regardless of its other capabilities (we have no intention to undermine their value).

As a matter of fact, rather than prevent conflicts, the UN has actually caused many of them with the actions such as unjust double dealings, biased resolutions, and inaction.

For instance, if the UN had not legitimized the illegitimate violent overthrow of the Ukrainian government in 2014 (for the reasons we are giving below), and if it had acknowledged the 2014 Crimean referendum (and Crimea's declaration of independence like it did for Kosovo), there would be no war in Ukraine and no global food, energy, and financial crisis threatening the planet today. The human rights of the Russian ethnic wouldn’t have been violated to the extent that they would seek to secede from Ukraine and seek help from Russia. The US-backed violent overthrow of a democratically-elected President led by neo-Nazis is constitutional but a declaration of independence placed to a general vote is not?

Instead, the UN did everything to escalate this conflict^[+] and to provoke Russia to take the matter into its own hands, without leaving any possibility for peacemaking – the UN's condemnation, deploring the Russian “aggression”, condescendingly calling for the “swift and verifiable” withdrawal of Russian troops, ordering Russia bossily, demanding, criticizing Russia, suspending Russia from the Human Rights Council, calling a biased investigation into the atrocities alleged against Russian occupation troops but not against Ukrainian troops, adopting a resolution calling for Russia to pay war reparations to Ukraine – none of it could ever help negotiate peace with Russia and indeed just provoked Russia to be more hostile.

Honestly, what have all those bigwigs in the UN been thinking when they were expecting that any of these offensive lingos and actions toward Russia would remotely have any peacemaking effect?! Don't they know any better? God bless them, but don't they know the old truism: sow the wind, reap the whirlwind?! I would really like to know what dubious diplomacy schools they attended and who were their “wise” professors because they really need some refining and upgrading. I mean, to get a superpower like Russia and a leader like Putin to do what you want them to do, you should know better than to condemn them, deplore them, condescendingly order them around, demand, criticize, pressure them, suspend them from the Council, treat them unfairly, make insulting comments and hostile resolutions. In Slavic folklore, we have an aphorism that apparently should be written as a banner in The UN's University for Peace (UPEACE) and all schools teaching diplomacy and International Relations: If you want the birds to sing, you should not crack the whip!

Secretary-General António Guterres’s condemning Moscow without giving Moscow the benefit of the doubt (presumption of innocence until proven guilty by law) and with shameful subjectivity (inappropriate for top diplomats who should be objective and neutral in their peacekeeping efforts) was counterproductive as it alienated President Vladimir Putin who then cut off communication with him as a penalty, making it impossible to negotiate peace. A Secretary-General should know better.

But then again, he is from Portugal, which is a NATO and an EU state, so he certainly feels obliged to take the side of NATO and the EU. Even if this is not a NATO proxy war^[+][*], Russia is NATO's as well as the EU's rival.

And we shall point to a curiosity of another Portuguese in this whole story, the former EU President José Manuel Barroso, who messed it all up in the first place by coercing Ukrainians to pick a side between the EU and Russia when proposing the anti-Russian European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement^[+], which started a revolution and the whole Russo-Ukrainian conflict that escalated into a war. It is also curious that both were Portuguese Prime Ministers, one after another, and both are members of the globalists Bilderberg Group^[+]. There’s nothing new in a global leader coming from a small country but when just one small nation gives the world several (five^[+], all members of the Bilderberg Group) political leaders with international profiles in a short time frame, one needs to pause and wonder why, especially when one of them mismanaged the agreement talks and so triggered the conflict and the other mishandled the peace talks and so contributed to this war. Clearly, both leaders from Portugal (and a NATO state) were not up to their tasks. Even though Machiavellian politicians are all around us, we believe, their misconduct resulted from errors of judgment rather than malice. Like with Putin, Zelensky, etc.

The UN Security Council’s five permanent members are locked in wars of diplomatic attrition over many issues, which makes the UN dysfunctional. Russia and China have abstained from a growing number of UN resolutions, which Council members generally believe corrodes the credibility of the Security Council’s decisions.

All these are the issues that make it impossible for the UN to help end the so-called Russo-Ukrainian war (NATO-Russian war), which is why the world needs another mediator until the UN reforms itself. Obviously, the UN has to step up its game if it truly seeks to accomplish its objectives.

As peace activists, we propose a UN Reform to adopt transnationalism – to prioritize human rights over territorial rights and formulate a clear definition of the term “invasion” because when there is a resolution on these two issues, then this would prevent and end all wars – international law is our “weapons”.

The realization of the right of self-determination is essential to maintaining local, regional, and international peace and must be seen as an important war-prevention strategy. To bring about world peace, the UN needs to protect the interests of majorities and minorities equally. In democratic societies, majority rule is often used to suppress, repress and oppress minorities, even to prosecute and kill them. States not respecting the right to internal self-determination of their population (including minorities) should forfeit the protection of their territorial integrity to facilitate people’s external self-determination then.

There is a major need to relieve tension within the United Nations between internationalism and transnationalism^[+], two forces that encompass different sets of interests and reflect distinct constituencies. As an intergovernmental institution, the UN reflects the overlapping interests of its member states, particularly those on the Security Council. As a transnational organization, however, the UN also often represents a common good that transcends the sum of individual state interests. In many cases, transnational concerns such as human rights or self-determination conflict with the more traditional intergovernmental concerns such as security or territorial integrity. When this occurs, the UN is unable to function effectively, such as in the case of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.

The concept of transnationalism² implies a weakening of the control a nation-state has over its borders, inhabitants, and territory. It needs to be understood within the context of globalization³, which is a related but not the same concept. Transnational processes are anchored in and transcend one or more nation-states. With multinational states, transnational communities^[+], transnational corporations^[+], and increased global mobility, working abroad, remote workers, digital nomads, immigrants, and refugees, where ethnic minorities and newcomers are more likely to maintain the identity of their culture of origin and less likely to assimilate, boundaries dissolve and the territorial controls imposed by the traditional nation-state become less relevant. However, citizenship, nationality, political participation, and paying taxes stay relevant for transnational groups.

The world is becoming more and more transnational, shifting or removing boundaries and blurring the lines in many aspects and fields, so the UN should adapt or, even better, lead the way.

Intergovernmentalism is certainly the dominant force in world politics, but transnational actors have also achieved increased visibility and influence within the global organization. From this perspective, the UN not only provides a forum for states to resolve their disputes, but it also should serve as a medium through which state and non-state actors promote their often-competing interests. Thus, resolving the conflict between these forces within the UN could help to empower their respective roles in international politics.

Internationalism or intergovernmentalism as a dominant force in the UN has proven to prevent the UN to function effectively or bring world peace. There will always be conflicts of interest among the states, which would time and again prevent the UN peacekeeping efforts. This is one of many reasons why we propose a move toward transnationalism. Another reason is to transcend nationalism that harms other nations. Nationalism is great for giving people a sense of belonging, roots, and identity but is often abused as a tool for mobilizing the folk to take part in a war harming another nation engineered by war profiteers among the ruling elites, therefore, the concept of transnationalism may be then used to counter that and prevent neo-Nazi ideology to gain power.

---

The Value of Human Rights vs Territorial Rights

As one of the main measures in adopting transnationalism, we propose to prioritize human rights over territorial rights (human integrity over territorial integrity). The conflict between these two principles has been a major cause of wars in the world. Both principles, territorial integrity and the human right to self-determination are enshrined in the UN Charter^[+] but only territorial integrity has been honored, while the violations of the human right to self-determination have been mostly disregarded by the UN. This needs to change.

States that do not respect the human rights, including the right to internal self-determination of their population (including minorities) should forfeit the protection of their territorial integrity to facilitate people’s external self-determination then.

This rule would oblige all states to treat their minorities with respect and protect rather than abuse their human rights if they don't want to lose them and their territories. There is also another side of that medal where a minority may abuse its rights by making unfair demands, therefore, to avoid that, human rights demands must be determined by international law.

For instance, if there is a humanitarian crisis, with a state violating humanitarian rights, such as linguistic rights or murdering people based on their ethnicity, religion, or any other such factors, then the natives should be eligible to invoke their right to self-determination.

In most cases, including Crimea and Donbas, the UN has been declaring that the principle of territorial integrity should have precedence over self-determination. In other words, the UN deems that territorial rights have more value than human rights.

The question is why should states’ territorial integrity be more valuable than human lives and human rights (to self-determination)? It is regulated that way because the UN representatives represent and serve their states instead of their folk. They vote in the interest of the ruling classes rather than in the interest of the general public.

The UN’s Charter^[+] calls for no territorial changes made against the wishes of the people and the right to self-determination for all peoples, but what about territorial changes wished by the people who have the right to self-determination? For instance, Russian natives in both Crimea and Donbas who have the right to self-determination wished to declare independence and integrate into the Russian Federation (rather than integrate into the EU), which required territorial changes.

Another question is why should the world's territorial borders from 1945 (when the UN Charter was adopted) be set forever? The concept of territorial integrity or inviolability or sanctity of international borders is as volatile as states and borders because they are all artificial rather than natural constructs. On core interests, each country is allowed to judge what to do on its own merits, on the situation's own merits The world's history is full of dynamics of shifting borders. But somehow, the year 1945 was set as a year when all borders should forever stay static from then on as they were at the time and any change of borders would be then declared as a violation of sovereignty and territorial integrity. There is something awkward about that for the mere reason that one particular year was taken as the benchmark as if that point in history is somehow measure of all things.

This was contradicted by the UN's resolution on validating Kosovo’s declaration of independence^[+] in 2008 (on grounds of a humanitarian crisis, which was also the case with the Russian ethnic minorities in Donbas in Ukraine, which suggests the UN's double standards), as well as that of Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1991 and other cases. The big question is why ethnic Russians were not given the same rights? It is precisely such injustices or double standards by the UN that cause people to rebel and start wars. Whatever suits NATO, it seems to be accepted by the UN but the same type of cases that suit Russia are rejected — no wonder Russia is not fine with that.

Crimea vs Kosovo independence - what’s the difference?

The protection of minorities is justified by another Purpose of the United Nations, which is “to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace”.

In democratic societies, majority rule is often used to suppress, repress and oppress minorities, even to prosecute and kill them. The right to self-determination by a minority has long been contested in democracies with majority rule.

In the case of Crimea and Donbas, self-determination was in accord with the principle of regional majority rule and equal rights but at odds with the territorial integrity of the national state.

Ethnic minorities are often victims of the tyranny of the majority^[+]. No wonder they pose threats to the peace and engage in acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace. Unless effective mechanisms were created to deal with such realities, crises would continue.

According to the UN Charter, Article 1 in both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)^[+] and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)^[+] reads: "All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right, they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social, and cultural development."

Therefore, we appeal to the UN Council to Complying with the demands of the separatists is the only way for the UN to “bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace”

As a matter of fact, by issuing resolutions that give precedence to territorial integrity rather than the fundamental human right to self-determination, the UN has unintentionally caused many conflicts and wars in the world.

It is time to change that by “taking effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace”, just as the UN Charter^[+] prescribes it.

To that end, we propose these

Effective Collective Measures:

➡    take a proactive role in mediating all crises associated with self-determination by mandating a competent (well–informed, objective, neutral) peacemaking counselor or entity within the UN, which would have a responsibility and duty to take a proactive role in addressing the complaints of minorities who are denied fundamental human rights and obliging the parental state to respect their right to self-determination, warning about state’s territorial integrity being otherwise legally disregarded so as to facilitate peoples’ external self-determination then.

➡    ban all military alliances from expanding - ban the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from expanding to Russian borders as prevention because NATO’s expansion poses a threat to the region’s peace and stability as NATO protects majorities (states) at the cost of the lives of minorities. The same should be applied to Russia – a ban to expand to NATO states' borders. Buffer zones between those and other military superpowers should be designated and expanded. Military alliances and values should be decreasing instead of expanding, making them obsolete by expanding pacific alliances and values

➡    ban the forceful, undemocratic overthrow of democratically elected Presidents and governments – whenever such an undemocratic regime change occurs, the UN should issue a resolution and implement measures to annul any such event dismissing new regimes. All attempts to overthrow legitimate governments by force or other illegal means disrupt the democratic and constitutional order, the legitimate exercise of power, and the full enjoyment of human rights, which is why they should be condemned rather than supported as in the case of the Maidan revolution^[+] in Ukraine in 2014, which escalated into war. Furthermore, an expert legal counselor or entity within the UN should be mandated to take a proactive role in addressing the complaints of people who are against the government and propose peaceful legal remedies

➡    classify all issues of territorial integrity and self-determination as key issues of international peace and security. Resolutions on key issues are decided by a two-thirds majority. On key issues decided by two-thirds majority rule, an abstention should have an effect of a no vote (like in the Council of the European Union). This way any possible coercion (retaliatory measures, political blackmail, and economic threats) would not have much power to sway the results of the voting. For the same reason, voting should be anonymous, just as it is in all elections. Or, at least, there should be a preliminary anonymous yes/no survey on coercion where all members could disclose whether they were in any way coerced

➡    state an unambiguous definition of "invasion"⁴, "self-determination" and "remedial secessions" and its parameters to avoid different interpretations of it and avoid conflicts or wars over it. When there is a resolution on these concept, then this would prevent and end all misconception that cause conflicts and wars. The criteria for exercising and recognizing the right of self-determination must be applied uniformly and not à la carte. Under international law, “remedial secession” is allowed in extreme cases of repeated oppression or subjugation of a minority, leaving it with no other option to exercise “internal self-determination” in a meaningful way. To prevent controversies regarding remedial secession, let's make it clear that the territorial integrity of a state can be discarded if there are serious and persistent breaches of the human rights of its citizens. States not respecting the right to internal self-determination of their population (minorities) forfeit the protection of their territorial integrity

➡    use Kosovo's independence as a precedent^[+], instead of double dealings. Policies based on double standards are the true threat to international peace and security. To avoid different interpretations of the meaning of a precedent, an unambiguous definition and consensus is required. This precedent from 2010 should apply to all other separatist movements involving similar legal issues, a major humanitarian crisis, and a risk to regional stability. Repeated oppression of a minority should be prohibited and if a government doesn't comply, the oppressed minority should be allowed a “remedial secession” to exercise their right to self-determination regardless of a state's territorial integrity. Besides Kosovo, the UN has also recognized the unilateral declaration of independence of several other states^[+], including Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1991^[*^], whereby in Slovenia there was no humanitarian crisis or repeated oppression of the minority, no serious and persistent breaches of the human rights of the residents.

The double standards of NATO-puppet UN on that issue is exposed by many statesmen, including Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov^[»]: “When the US recognized the independence of Kosovo, they said it is self-determination. When Crimeans held a referendum, they said it violates territorial integrity. UN Charter is not a menu. You have to respect it in its entirety.”

➡    acknowledge separatist movements because they pose threats to peace as long as they are disregarded. The separatists emerge^[+] only when their human rights are violated, which is why they should be protected by the UN. It is precisely because the UN fails to protect the rights of minorities and allows the tyranny of the majority^[+] that their acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace occur.

For instance, the UN General Assembly resolution “Calling upon States Not To Recognize The Changes In The Status Of The Crimea Region”^[+][+][+] on 27 March 2014 (after the Crimean referendum and subsequent annexation to Russia) disregarded the will and voluntary choice of the locals as well as their right to self-determination by rejecting both the validity of the Crimean referendum and its results (Crimea’s declaration of independence).

Other instances when the UN failed to protect the rights of Russian ethnic minorities in Ukraine (which resulted in acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace) is the inaction^[+] (no investigation and resolutions) of the UN's Human Rights Council, General Assembly, or Security Council regarding law violations in Ukraine:

• the unconstitutional regime change through the unlawful overthrow of a democratically elected President and Government in Ukraine in 2014 – the whole manner in which the Ukrainian Prime Minister, President, Ministers, and judges were removed from their office was unconstitutional and illegal

• in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan revolution, the new self-appointed regime prosecuted and killed many Russian ethnic people (who didn’t accept the new, undemocratically instituted regime) whose human rights were severely abused (the reported practice of unlawful deprivation of liberty and torture and other ill-treatment of individuals, abductions, and murders of journalists and activists), their representatives were unlawfully expelled from the government posts and prevented to run for office in new elections

• in a series of judgments by the European Court of Human Rights on the Maidan protests, Ukraine was found to be in breach of its obligation to investigate and prosecute human rights violations and was ordered to pay compensation to the victims (including law enforcement) but Ukraine never complied and the UN did nothing about it

• †the violations of the right to self-determination against Crimeans and Donbas people (Russian ethnic minorities)

• †violations and abuses of human rights committed in the context of Ukraine’s aggression against the Russian ethnic minority in Ukraine during the Donbas war from 2014-2021^[+][+][+].

---

The Value of Human Lives vs Territory

Humanity as a whole should agree at last on what has more value: human lives or possession of territories. In other words, as the human race, we should determine that no proprietorship or rule of territories is ever worth killing, wounding, detaining, destroying, and violating human fundamental rights^[+].

Among universally recognized rights that are seen as fundamental, i.e., contained in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights^[+] and and other UN Covenants are the right to self-determination, liberty, freedom of movement, and others.

As freedom and peace activists, we appeal to all humans to allow other humans to live freely as opposed to forcing anyone to live under an oppressive regime. In other words, if any native folk wants to separate, let them – because it is better to be kind than to be right or possessive.

Just as humanity allows divorce in a family, so should be allowed separation in a state.

Why should the territorial integrity of states be any more valid than that of a family? We are talking about the cases when a native folk wants to separate, declare independence or integrate with another country because the new regime severely violated their right to internal self-determination and the relationship between the indigenous people and government reached a point beyond repair because the UN or international peacemaking organizations didn't take a proactive role in obliging the parental state to respect its population's fundamental human rights.

We are not talking about the cases of unwanted foreign invasion and occupation, as this is something else. There is nothing to gain by comparing apples to oranges. Russians annexed a willing folk, which is then not an invasion but liberation for them.

In the cases of Crimea and Donbas, the native folk declared independence and chose to join Russia. So, Russia didn't invade them but intervened to protect them from the Ukrainian nationalists and army who forcefully resisted the will of the locals and denied them the right to self-determination – in the case of Donbas⁵, by killing them and terrorizing them for eight long years. The UN and NATO didn't respond to the humanitarian crisis as they did to protect Kosovo, so Russia did it instead.

Whenever two people or folks don't like each other any longer or don't share the same values, and after years of struggle, the relationship only worsens, the best would be to go their separate ways, until one day they find a way to reunite again (perhaps under a greater union, such as the EU or EEU⁶). If part of Ukraine wants to join the EU and another part wants to join Russia or EEU, then let's all respect their free will and let them self-determine their lives. It is about valuing human rights over the territorial ones.

In both, a marriage or a state, if it is necessary to let go and divide the estate, in the end, it is better so than living in a toxic relationship. Like in a marriage, divorce or separation should be the last option. Ideally, the conflicted sides should go to a couple’s counselor or therapist to resolve their issues and stay together forever but in the case of the clash between Kyiv's new US-puppet regime and Russian ethnic minorities in Crimea and Donbas, no one from the UN officials or any other peacemaker organizations (that was equally respected by both sides) stepped forward (or was not given a chance) to act as “counselor” or “therapist”, therefore separation was inevitable.

That was a huge omission by the UN or any other peacekeeping organization. This calls for a reform in the UN to facilitate such an entity within the organization, which would be competent (well–informed, objective, neutral) and promptly ready to step in whenever similar geopolitical conflicts arise. The UN or international peacemaking organizations have a responsibility and duty to take a proactive role in addressing the grievances of people who are denied fundamental human rights and obliging the parental state to respect their right to self-determination, warning about their territorial integrity being otherwise legally disregarded so as to facilitate people’s external self-determination then.

Under international law, “remedial secession” is allowed in extreme cases of repeated oppression or subjugation of the minority, leaving it with no other option to exercise “internal self-determination” in a meaningful way. In other words, the territorial integrity of a state can be discarded if there are serious and persistent breaches of the human rights of its citizens. States not respecting the right to internal self-determination of their population forfeit the protection of their territorial integrity to facilitate people’s external self-determination then. Russian ethnic minorities in Ukraine were left with no other option to exercise “internal self-determination” in a meaningful way but to resort to “remedial secession”, which is allowed by international law and was already allowed to Kosovo, Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, among others^[+].

The international law on statehood and the principle of self-determination provides a normative framework that supports the classic conception of the international legal order as shaped and constituted by states. The declarative effect of statehood and self-determination masks significant ongoing uncertainties, as well as disguising the difficulties inherent in applying these doctrines to novel and persistent factual situations. When the International Court of Justice’s 2010 Advisory Opinion on Kosovo contradicts the opinions on similar cases in Ukraine, one needs to pause and wonder why. Besides Kosovo^[+], the UN has also recognized the unilateral declaration of independence of several other states^[+], including Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1991, whereby in Slovenia there was no humanitarian crisis or repeated oppression of the minority, no serious and persistent breaches of the human rights of the residents.

When Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence in 1991, the international community rejected them. The United States stated that it would not recognize Slovenia or Croatia under any circumstances and the European Community (EC, except Germany) agreed but after a Yugoslav army offensive in 1992, it all changed. In doing so, the US and EC cited such fundamental values as freedom and the right to self-determination.

The question is then, why didn't the same happen when the Ukrainian army attacked the two Donbas Republics that declared their independence? And not only that, regardless of granting it to the Yugoslav Republics and an autonomous province, most of the international community claimed the independence declarations of Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk to be illegal – against international law – how come? How can some be illegal and others not when the circumstances and legal issues were the same?

This double standards approach is unlawful as well as unacceptable, and surely provokes anger, conflicts, and wars. Many distinguished commentators noted that the initial US and EC policies might have encouraged the violent actions of the Yugoslav army, therefore the US and EC made an effort to remedy it by supporting the separatists. The same comments sprang after the Ukrainian army attacked Donbas^[+] but this time they were disregarded because they came from Russia and its allies.

Yugoslavia Case Study

Similar to the situation in the former Soviet Union with non-Russians feeling subjugated by Russians, Non-Serbs wanted to part because they believed that a strong central Yugoslav federal government permitted Serbia, the largest republic in size and population, to dominate them and the government. Croatia and Slovenia were economically stronger and had different political aspirations as well as different religion (Catholics vs. Orthodox). They didn’t want communism any longer, whereas Serbia insisted on the old autocratic communist regime.

Serbia's resistance to negotiating a loose confederal arrangement has led Slovenia and Croatia to take steps toward secession from Yugoslavia. The federal government has then resorted to military action to preserve the union.

The Yugoslav constitution^[+] said nothing about a right to succession but included several provisions that could deny the right to secede. Article 5^[+] required the consent of all republics and provinces before the borders of Yugoslavia could be altered. Secession disrupted the foundations of the order, stirred up national hatred, and threatened the existence of the state, thus Article 203 nullified a republic’s right to secede. Article 244 of the constitution also prohibited secession by guaranteeing Yugoslavia its territorial integrity. Article 283 gave only the Yugoslav Assembly the power to determine alterations in the state's boundaries.

In other words, under Yugoslav constitutional law, the republics had the right to self-determination, and, consequently, the right to self-government but did not have a right to secede (unless the federal government and all of the republics and provinces agreed to it.) And succession right was not yet recognized under international law anyway.

The right of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo to determine their own political, economic, social, and cultural development is an issue that has consequences for ethnic minorities around the world, particularly in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine. Since the fall of Eastern Europe's communist regimes in 1989-1991, nationalism has become an increasingly potent force. Nationalism has encouraged ethnic minorities to voice demands for recognition, the restructuring of governments, and even the redrawing of borders. The Baltic states Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, for example, have successfully asserted their independence.

After many years of extreme casualties (14.000 killed, 54.000 wounded, and 2,6 million Ukrainians displaced) in Donbas^[+][+][+] from 2014-2022, the UN should have recognized the humanitarian crisis and just like with Kosovo, Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina recognize the two Republics that declared their independence – the Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic. If the UN had done that just like in the case of Kosovo, Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, there would be no war in Ukraine and no unnecessary casualties^[+][*^].

What do we call a situation when thousands of civilians belonging to an ethnic minority are killed by a government and millions displaced? Putin calls it genocide and ethnic cleansing. What does the UN call it? If the killing of around a hundred^[+] in the city of Bucha^[+] is termed “genocide” by the Western leaders^[+][+], Zelensky, Mayor of Kyiv Klitschko^[+], and many other Western authorities, then why were killings of thousands of Russian ethnic minority not condemned as genocide?

If only the UN had responded properly – amidst the humanitarian crisis between 2014-2022, allowed “remedial secession” to protect the human rights of Russian minorities rather than the territorial integrity of Ukraine, like it did with Kosovo, Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, there would be no war, no destruction, no need of refuge for millions of Ukrainians, no energy and food crisis, and no suffering of millions of people. Instead of ensuring peace, the UN has provoked a war.

Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya said^[+] that the crisis in Ukraine was sparked by the West’s disregard for the crimes of neo-Nazis, as the West⁷ has been turning a blind eye to the crimes of Ukrainian neo-Nazis in Donbas^[+] and showed no compassion to Donbas residents as their homes and lives have been destroyed by Ukrainian troops.

The hostilities in Ukraine will end once Western countries cease their proxy war^[+][*^] against Russia when those who are backing this conflict stop their proxy war against us by using poor Ukrainians who are dying for them, said^[+] Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya

Now that you got some insights into the UN uselessness in Ukraine and how it doesn't engage in any diplomacy between the warring sides, then ask yourself how on Earth should peace come about and who is supposed to bring peace. If you ask us, after all our research and brainstorming of all possibilities, we would tell you that the peace is up to you! It is your and our responsibility to intervene to bring peace.

If you falsely think you are powerless believing there is really nothing significant that you can do, you’re wrong because you do not take into consideration the most important fact and that is: you are not alone. Alone you may be powerless but with us, you are powerful. All we are asking you is to raise your awareness and consciousness and help others do the same by sharing peace-mongering content on social media and your other environments. Most importantly, do not add hatred, fear, Russophobia, and such negative energies to the forces that are driving the war machine.

If you are still reluctant about your own role in the war in Ukraine while you think that it is up to the European leaders to do it, then you need to raise your awareness about the EU role, that is, read our next article on the EU impotence so as not to count on the fox to guard the hen house, so to speak.

Thank you for reading this article and participating in this peace initiative by raising your awareness and, hopefully, your consciousness and spirit. To properly grasp everything, we^[*^] recommend reading the articles of this peace initiative for Ukraine in the proper order, which is listed in the Contents. So if you haven’t read the previous articles, we recommend that you do. This article is part of the “Peacemaking Mediation” segment. When you are ready, please proceed to the next article in this series: The EU Impotence

1. ICC or International Criminal Court^[+] is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal headquartered in The Hague, the Netherlands. The ICC is distinct from the International Court of Justice, an organ of the United Nations that hears disputes between states. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression.

The ICC began operations on 1 July 2002, upon the entry into force of the Rome Statute, a multilateral treaty that serves as the court's charter and governing document. States which become party to the Rome Statute become members of the ICC, serving on the Assembly of States Parties, which administers the court. As of November 2023, there are 124 ICC member states^[+]; 41 states have neither signed nor become parties to the Rome Statute.

Ukraine, Russia, and the United States are not party to the Rome Statute (they signed it but not ratified it^[+]), which forms the basis for ICC jurisdiction, therefore the ICC has no jurisdiction over Putin or any Russian, thus any arrest warrant is invalid. The ICC claims to have jurisdiction because the government of Ukraine consented to grant ICC jurisdiction over its territory in this matter, and the alleged crimes took place within Ukraine, thus anyone committing crimes in Ukraine can be prosecuted by the ICC, including Zelensky and other Ukrainians but for some strange reason, ICC prosecutors only charge Russians, which is evidence of bias. There are countless accusations of Ukrainian war crimes, including Ukrainian child trafficking scheme to take ethnic Russian orphans from Donbas into many European countries and beyond.

Also, if that jurisdiction justification has any value, then governments of Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. could apply the same argument to call for arrests of American, British, and other NATO presidents but for some strange reason, this reasoning applies only when it suits NATO.

2. Transnationalism^[+] is conomic, political, and cultural processes that extend beyond the boundaries of nation-states. The concept of transnationalism suggests a weakening of the control a nation-state has over its borders, inhabitants, and territory. Increased immigration to developed countries in response to global economic development has resulted in multicultural societies where immigrants are more likely to maintain contact with their culture of origin and less likely to assimilate. Therefore, loyalty to the state may compete equally with allegiance to a culture or religion. With increased global mobility and access to instantaneous worldwide communication technology, boundaries dissolve and the territorial controls imposed by the traditional nation-state become less relevant. However, state definitions of citizenship and nationality and the rules for political participation may become more relevant for transnational groups.

3. Globalization^[+] is the development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets. It is critisized because, in a nutshell, it allows a big fish to eat the small ones.

It is a concept (related to transnationalism) that represents the intensification of economic, cultural, and political practices accelerating across the globe. Although many large corporations have been operating globally for decades, the Internet has enabled small organizations and individuals to access instantaneously a worldwide communication network. Global processes are closely related to transnationalism yet tend to be separate from specific national boundaries. Transnational processes, on the other hand, are anchored in and transcend one or more nation-states. The impacts of the transnational migration of groups, although different, need to be understood within the context of globalization. The changes created by each are mutually reinforcing.

4. Definition of invasion:

According to dictionaries, invasion is the act of an army that invades for conquest or plunder. This is not the case with Russian intervention in Ukraine. Russia conducted its Special Military Operation^[+] in response to the call of Ukrainian regional authorities (DPR and LPR in Donbas) for help in defense against armed attacks on them as well as in response to Russia facing a permanent threat from heavily militarized Ukraine and its ally NATO. Russian forces were invited by the Eastern and Southern Ukrainian folk (Russian ethnic minorities) to save them from continuous state-sponsored terrorist attacks, which was then not a Russian invasion but liberation for them. The People’s Republics of Donbas^[+] and Russian ethnic minorities of other Ukrainian regions asked Russia for help in self-defense because armed attacks have been occurring against them by the Ukrainian regime and its neo-Nazi Azov Regiment^[+] and other fascist paramilitaries that have been killing, terrorizing them, and violating their human rights for years. According to the address^[+] by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin^[+] on the eve of SMO, to defend Russia and the Russian people, he decided to carry out a special military operation in accordance with Article 51 (Chapter VII)^[+] of the UN Charter, with permission of Russia’s Federation Council, and in the execution of the treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic, ratified by the Federal Assembly on 22 February 2022.

On 21 February 2022, eight years after the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic declared independence in May 2014, Russia finally recognized their independence, which means that, from a legal standpoint, Russia entered those independent Republics rather than Ukraine as well as some Ukrainian territories from which were conducted armed attacks on those Republics, which Russia intended to demilitarize and denazify.

Since the Donbas republics declared independence in 2014 (and by way of a referendum in September 2023 chose to join Russia, followed by Russian annexation), all military operation in those provinces that were previously seized by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) is liberation, not invasion, as seen by the natives of the region.

5. Donbas^[+] is a coal mining region that was part of eastern Ukraine from 1922-2022 (now part of Russia) consisting of two Republics - Donetsk and Luhansk - where most residents have been Russians for centuries. In 2022, after Bolsheviks defeated the Ukrainian nationalists, Lenin gave that part of former Russian Empire with mostly ethnic Russian residents to the Soviet Republic of Ukraine under condition that it remains part of the Soviet Union and under Moscow governance (Kyiv administration) but in 1991, Ukraine violated that agreement by breaking off from the Soviet Union and from Moscow, and since 2014, Ukrainians had been demolishing all Lenin's monuments, therefore they have no rights to claim the territories he conditionally granted them. Since Ukrainians hate Lenin and Stalin so much that they demonize them, then in the Russian view^[+], it is only fair to give back all the land^[ꚛ] that Lenin and Stalin allocated to Soviet Ukraine, without even asking the locals’ permission (the majority were Russians in Donbas).

6. EEU = Eurasian Economic Union - click here^[+] for more details

7. West^[+] = the US, EU, UK, and Canada - Anglo-Saxons; NATO states