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Comment by Timwi | Hacker News Reader

How do you remove Russia’s permanent veto right if they have the permanent right to veto that?

Russia has a veto right only in the UN Security Council. For prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC) this is irrelevant. What matters is that Ukraine has accepted the ICC's jurisdiction over all alleged crimes committed on its territory since 20 February 2014.[1] The nationality of the perpetrator is irrelevant, and no one has immunity.

[1] https://www.icc-cpi.int/Pages/item.aspx?name=pr1146&ln=en

> the International Criminal Court (ICC)

The USA passed a law that its armed forces can invade the Hague if the ICC ever tried to charge the US.

It shows the farce of all of this - fresh from murdering Afghanis, Iraqis, Somalis, Syrians, and by proxy Yemeni, Palestinians etc., the US presses fir a "court" to try Russia in some sanctimonious exercise that it can not be a subject of.

That doesn't mean the rest of the world needs to give Russia and Putin a free pass.

Two wrongs does not make a right.

That said, Russia just as USA have nukes, so Putin will never go to ICC, and its waist of time discussing it.

It might not be nice, just or fair but if you have nuke, you are for all intense and purpose immune, unless your own country prosecutes you or gives you ower.

Theoretically the USSR is the entity which has a permanent veto right, and everyone has just allowed the Russian Federation to take the USSR’s seat.

In practice nobody is removing permanent veto power from the second largest nuclear power. The entire point of the UN was to give special powers to great nations so they wouldn’t fight out their grievances.

The only way to strip the Russia Federation of its Security Council seat would also call into question Russia even being in the UN. If they are kicked out of the UN entirely, would they even bother to reapply? Is it worth creating another League of Nations to have a temporarily more effective UN?

Soviet Union had a permanent veto right by statute. Russia only has it because people felt that Russia was the obvious successor despite leaving the Soviet Union before it was dissolved.

If enough important countries agree that Russia has no veto, then they can rewrite convention...

Which countries are the most important? What makes them important?

They have the largest militaries and nobody can really tell them what to do. Simple as that.

See: US invasion of Iraq, Russian invasion of Georgia and Ukraine.

Nukes and the power to use them worldwide.

Nukes. The unspoken requirement.

Well, in that case UN would just cease to exist, for good or for bad. We really don't need yet another international organisation that only pretends that the international law exists and apply it selective only to weak countries, leaving USA, Russia, China & other to be above the law.

Selective law is worse than no law at all, and selective justice is worse than no justice at all.

We go back to the lab and develop a superveto, harnessing cutting-edge quantum technology.

Lock the ambassador in the WC cabin when he goes for a break.

Quorum is established at the start of the SC meeting, after that, absention means abstention

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