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Comment by cmurf | Hacker News Reader

Putin is expected to formally annex four Ukrainian regions, following sham elections.

From the outset Russia's war of aggression sets it outside its obligations under the UN Charter, the Budapest memorandum, and Geneva Convention. But once annexation is announced by Russia, the rest of the world has to decide what to do about a violation of the most central proscription in all of international law.

I'm skeptical the UN system avoids defacto collapse if it refuses to strangle the Russian regime at this point. And if the UN system ends, whether 5 months or 50 years, I uave serious doubts about WW3 being avoidable. The UN system stinks. But it's all we have, born from the ashes of WW1 and 2, to avoid it. Since we haven't done the hard work of getting rid of nukes, I'm also skeptical humanity avoids using at least one.

China and India need to show up and defend the Charter. They agreed to be bound by this obligation.

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> the rest of the world has to decide what to do about a violation of the most central proscription in all of international law.

Morocco annexed Western Sahara, and while most of the world still considers that illegal, the United States has been pretty open about supporting Morocco's control over the area, and Morocco enjoys good international relations otherwise.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/us-open-...

Annexation has happened a few times over the past few decades.

I think the highest value of the UN is in the security council. It's a forum for the nuclear powers to talk to each other. Everything else is secondary. If it's enough to avoid WW3, I don't know, but it's all we have.

This has always been my opinion: by definition the UN can't really have enforcement power...but a huge problem in international politics is that you have to actually have protocols and procedures by which the various world powers can communicate with each other at the correct levels of government.

It's the physical action problem: when a government makes policy, how does that go from words to actions? In the international relations business it's the same issue: the prime minister or president or whoever wants to communicate a message reliably to other nations - but who exactly do they talk to do it? (this problem was why the hotline system between the US and Russia was setup after the Cuban missile crisis - a major issue driving the decision making was 6 to 12 hour communication delays trying to go through embassies and hoping messages were being accurately sent).

What? North Korea, india, Pakistan are not on the security council, and most mitigation of nuclear war probably happens via things that are less public (red phones). Hell. The US and Russia even collaborate - to this day - on a space station, that's independent of and does more for preventing nuclear war than the UN security council

These powers can't (yet, maybe) fight WW3.

If they become a credible force in the future, I fully expect them to be accepted in the security council.

North Korea isn't even worth mentioning, their weapons are a joke except as leverage enough to get free UN food from time to time.

You just moved the goalposts and did not address the point I made, which is that the bulk of security council work is not discussing nuclear issues, and that the powers with nukes have other ways of talking to each other.

Okay, let’s put it this way. The security council is a way to lessen the risk that the most powerful countries destroy the world. I think this is the most important piece of the UN. This is my opinion.

Even the Security Council has limited usefulness in a confrontation like this, because decisions are so politicized. The case of Bucha is a great example. When reports of atrocities first came out, it was Russia who requested the UN to launch a commission of inquiry into Bucha, and it was the UK, who held the presidency of the Security Council at the time, that blocked it. This was reported in Ukrainian news. (https://frontnews.eu/en/news/details/25750)

1. No wonder. The UN is the epitome of “politicised”. It is it’s main function.

2. No wonder the UK blocked an inquiry into how the Ukrainians blatantly massacred themselves to provoke Russia.

Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council and will veto anything holding it accountable. The Security Council is already lost.

And under the UN Charter, Russia can't be removed. The Soviet Union were expelled from the League of Nations after invading Finland in 1939.

The General Assembly can and should do more. Or the UN system will defacto collapse into irrelevance.

This is mostly for internal consumption. All legal question aside in say Zaporizhzhia region the russian occupied area has less than 200K people while the whole region has 1.7 mil. There are no optics you can put on this to make it look even remotely meaningful.

"I'm skeptical the UN system avoids defacto collapse if it refuses to strangle the Russian regime at this point"

Maybe it simply lacks power? What can they do, except declare the referendum illegal?

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