The Legal Architecture Of Impunity: How Russia Stole Its Veto Power
By:Giorgio Provinciali
Live from Ukraine ????????
I have decided to gradually free articles like this, published over a year ago, from the paywall, as proof of the correctness and dramatic relevance of their content.
Lviv, Ukraine Who was the man who handed Russia the Soviet Unions seat at the United Nations Security Council and with it, a veto power it was never legally entitled to hold?
The answer, buried beneath decades of diplomatic inertia, is both astonishing and damning. But to understand it fully, we need to go back to the beginning.
In April 2022, the Russian Federationassumedthe presidency of the United Nations Security Council. This happened two months afterlaunchinga full-scale invasion of Ukraine an act built upona decade of progressive aggression and crimes against humanity serious enough for the European Parliament todesignateRussia a State sponsor of terrorism.Despite this designation, Russia not only held the UNSC presidency but also continues to exercise veto power, raising fundamental ethical, moral, and legal questions under international law.
How can this be?
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics wasestablishedon December 30, 1922, by four founding entities: the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic, the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.
The founding document of the USSRaffirmedthe principle of absolute legal equality among all republics and recognized each republics right to unilaterally sever ties and regain independence as a sovereign state.
Subsequently, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia wereincorporated. After World War II, all territories occupied by the Soviets including Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia were absorbed into the USSR, bringing the total number of republics to fifteen.
Throughout the entire existence of the Union, no founding member ever exercised its right to dissolve the 1922 pact.
The agreementsignedon December 8, 1991, in Bia?owie?a, which formalized the dissolution of the USSR, reiterated the text of the founding act in its entirety, with the following premise:
The USSR, as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality, ceases to exist.
This wasa consensual dissolution, subsequentlyvalidatedby the Supreme Council of Soviet Republics on December 26 of the same year. Under the terms of thatagreement,no single country could inherit the rights and obligations of the former USSR in its entirety.
Such inheritance would have been legally conceivable only if one or more republics had withdrawn from the Union while it remained in existence a scenario in which the USSR would have contracted but survived, with its international legal personality intact. This mechanism was explicitlyguaranteedby Article 72 of the USSR statute. The Baltic states successfully gained independence through precisely this procedure the previous year.
Russia and the USSR were two distinct legal entities that coexisted for a time.Russia was never granted the right to identify itself with the USSR in any legally recognized context.
The United Nationsgrantsno automatic right of succession allowing a country to inherit another states membership or permanent seat.
The procedural record is unambiguous.
When Czechoslovakiadissolvedin 1992, the Czech Republic and Slovakia each submitted independent membership applications. The dissolution of Yugoslaviaproducedthe same result: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Croatia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia each initiated separate accession processes. As for China often cited as a precedent the case is more instructive than it might appear. The Peoples Republic of China did not wait over twenty years for a standard procedural reason: it was the United States thatblockedthe PRCs recognition in the Security Council, using political leverage to preserve the Republic of Chinas seat on Taiwan. When that blockage finally collapsed, General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971 was required to formallytransferthe seat.
Even in the most powerful political organization in the world, succession required an explicit act it was never automatic.
The underlying legal framework confirms this.
The Vienna Convention on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties of 1978 the closest instrument international law possesses to a codified rulebook for state succession doesnotprovide for the automatic transfer of exclusive political status.
A permanent seat on the Security Council, with its attendant veto, is not a treaty obligation that passes by operation of law from one state to another: it is an intrinsic attribute of the original subject, inseparable from the legal personality that generated it. When that personality ceases to exist as the Bia?owie?a agreement explicitlydeclared the attribute ceases with it.There is no legal pipeline through which it flows to a successor.
Against this backdrop, on December 21, 1991, the leaders of the former Soviet republicssignedthe Almaty Declaration. Meeting as the newly formed Commonwealth of Independent States not as the USSR, which had ceased to exist they endorsed Russias admission to the United Nations as an independent state pursuing its own accession process,not as the heir to the Soviet Union.
Legally, the Almaty Declaration wassignedbyan entity with no authority to transfer the USSRs international legal personality.
It was, in strict terms,void as an instrument of succession.
Nevertheless, Boris Yeltsinusedit to formally request that the Russian Federation inherit the Soviet veto at the Security Council.
And, in a unique historical event, the President of the United Nations Security Council accepted that request.
Who was he?
Former USSR ambassador Yulij Vorontsov.
Born in Leningrad, died in Moscow. Heservedas the last Soviet Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1990 to 1991 and then, seamlessly, as the first Russian Permanent Representative from 1991 to 1994. The man tasked with ruling on Russias eligibility to inherit the Soviet seat was the Soviet diplomat who had just vacated it.
His successor in that roleisVasily Alekseyevich Nebenzya, who, as of this writing, stillservesin the position.
Defenders of Russias legal position sometimes invoke the doctrine of acquiescence: since no UN member state formally protested the 1991 transfer at the time, the argument runs, the international community tacitly ratified it, and that silence has since hardened into accepted practice. The argument is seductive but does not withstand scrutiny.
Acquiescence can cure procedural irregularities at the margins of international law. It cannot cure a structural defect at its core. The permanent seat and veto are not peripheral privileges they are the load-bearing architecture of the Security Councils enforcement function, the mechanism through which the UN Charters guarantee of collective security is either operationalized or paralyzed. When the beneficiary of that mechanism is itself the source of the threat to peace,a violation of such magnitude cannot be laundered into legitimacy by the passage of time or the silence of statesthat lacked, in 1991, both the political will and the institutional leverage to object.A foundational illegalitydoes not become legal simply because it goes unchallenged particularly when the organ whose integrity was compromised is the one responsible for adjudicating its own composition.
This point carries an additional dimension of legal weight when considered through the lens oflocus standi. Under Article 27(3) of the UN Charter, a party to a dispute isrequiredto abstain from voting on resolutions concerning that dispute under Chapter VI. The principle embedded in this provision that no state may be the judge in its own cause reflects one of the oldest maxims of procedural law. Russiaslocus standito vote on resolutions directly addressing its own acts of aggression is, at minimum,structurally compromised:
A state that obtained its seat through a legally defective transfer cannot invoke that seat to shield itself from the legal consequences of its conduct.
The circularity is total and not accidental.
So, two months after launching its large-scale invasion of Ukraine, a state formallydesignatedby the European Parliament as a State sponsor of terrorism presided over the only international body legally authorized to respond to threats against global peace.
The United Nations not only failed to suspend Russias veto, but it also handed Russia the rotating presidency.
Serious and repeated violations of the United Nations Charter have produced no structural consequence for Russias position within its principal enforcement organ. As the UN demonstrates its incapacity to address this impasse, the burden of preserving a member states peace, territorial integrity, and sovereignty has, by default, fallen on defensive coalitions operating outside the UN framework.
This is precisely why Putin persists in the legal fiction of the Special Military Operation.
The Kremlins calculus is deliberate.A formal declaration of war would have exposed the Russian Federation to a far more constrained legal position within the UN system, significantly amplifying international pressure to suspend or strip a veto that was never legitimately acquired and removingthe shield behind which Russia currently blocks every Security Council resolution aimed at stopping its own crimes.
The veto, obtained through deception and validated by a Soviet diplomat ruling on his own succession, is not merely a diplomatic privilege.
It isthe legal architecture of impunity.
In 1.516 days of war,we recorded over 250 videos from ground zero and wrote more than 1,500 articles.
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有罪不罚的法律架构：俄罗斯如何窃取其否决权
作者：Giorgio Provinciali
翻译：旺财球球
乌克兰前线报道????????
我决定逐步将本文这样一年前发表的文章从付费墙中解锁出来，以证明其内容的正确性和现实紧迫性。
乌克兰利沃夫是谁把苏联在联合国安理会的席位连同一个法律上它从未被赋予的否决权交给了俄罗斯？
这一答案被几十年的外交惰性掩埋，既令人震惊又令人愤慨。但要完全理解这一切，我们需要回到起点。
（图：一张1955年苏联的原版海报）
2022年4月，俄罗斯联邦出任联合国安理会轮值主席。此事发生在其发动对乌克兰全面入侵两个月之后这一入侵行动建立在长达十年渐进式的侵略与反人类罪行之上，严重到足以让欧洲议会将俄罗斯认定为支持恐怖主义的国家。尽管有此认定，俄罗斯不仅担任了安理会主席，还继续行使否决权，这在国际法框架下引发了根本性的伦理、道德与法律问题。
这怎么可能？
（图片插画来自IStock by Getty Images）
苏维埃社会主义共和国联盟于1922年12月30日成立，由四个创始实体组成：乌克兰苏维埃社会主义共和国、白俄罗斯苏维埃社会主义共和国、外高加索苏维埃联邦社会主义共和国和俄罗斯苏维埃联邦社会主义共和国。
苏联的创始文件确认了各加盟共和国间绝对法律平等的原则，并承认每个共和国有单方面退出联盟、并作为主权国家恢复独立的权利。
随后亚美尼亚、阿塞拜疆和格鲁吉亚加入。二战后，所有被苏联占领的领土包括爱沙尼亚、立陶宛和拉脱维亚均被并入苏联，加盟共和国总数增至十五个。
在联盟存在的整个期间，没有任何创始成员行使其解散1922年条约的权利。
（视频：Alla与我在帕夫洛格勒记录了这段影像，俄军轰炸了那里苏联时代的民用基础设施版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
1991年12月8日在比亚沃维耶扎签署的协议，正式确认了苏联的解体，并完整重申了创始文件内容，同时作出如下声明：
苏联，作为国际法上的主体和地缘政治现实，已不复存在。
这是一次经过一致协商的解体，随后在同年12月26日由苏维埃共和国最高委员会予以确认。根据该协议的条款，没有任何单一国家可以整体继承前苏联的权利和义务。
只有在一种情形下这种继承在法律上才是可能的：即一个或多个共和国在联盟仍然存在时退出在这种情况下，苏联缩小但继续存续，其国际法人资格保持不变。该机制由苏联宪章第72条明确保障。波罗的海三国正是通过这种程序在前一年成功获得独立。
俄罗斯与苏联是两个并存了一段时间的不同法律实体。俄罗斯从未被赋予在任何被法律认可的情况下等同于苏联的权利。
（视频：Alla与我在基辅记录了这段影像，就在俄军意图摧毁乌克兰的建筑、历史与国家性的一次空袭后不久版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
联合国并未赋予任何自动继承权，允许一国继承另一国的会员资格或常任理事国席位。
程序记录十分明确。
1992年捷克斯洛伐克解体时，捷克共和国和斯洛伐克各自提交了独立的入会申请。南斯拉夫解体结果亦是如此：波斯尼亚和黑塞哥维那、斯洛文尼亚、克罗地亚与南斯拉夫联邦共和国各自启动了单独的加入程序。至于常被援引为先例的中国案例，其教训比表面看起来更具启发性。中华人民共和国因为程序性原因并未等待二十多年才被承认：是美国在安理会上阻挠了对中华人民共和国的承认，利用政治杠杆保留中华民国（台湾）的席位。当这种阻挠最终被打破时，1971年联合国大会第2758号决议的通过，才正式完成了该席位的移交。
即便是在世界上最强大的政治组织里，继承也需要明确的法规从来不是自动发生的。
其背后的法律框架证实了这一点。
1978年《维也纳国家继承条约公约》国际法中最接近国家继承成文规则的文书并未规定专属政治地位的自动转移。
安理会常任理事国席位及其随附的否决权，并非可由法律效力自动从一个国家至另一个国家转移的条约义务：它是原始主体固有的属性，与产生它的法律人格不可分割。当该法律人格不复存在时如比亚沃维耶扎协议明确宣告的那样该属性亦随之消失。不存在将其传递给所谓的继承者的法律通道。
（图：照片插图来源Infolifefb）
在此背景下，1991年12月21日，前苏联各共和国领导人签署了阿拉木图宣言。以新成立的独立国家联合体（CIS）名义会晤而非已不复存在的苏联他们支持俄罗斯作为独立国家加入联合国，遵循独立的入会程序，而非苏联的继承人。
在法律上，阿拉木图声明由一个无权转移苏联国际法人格的实体签署。
从严格意义上说，它作为继承文书是无效的。
尽管如此，鲍里斯叶利钦以此为依据正式请求俄罗斯联邦继承苏联在安理会的否决权。
而在一件独特的历史事件中，联合国安理会主席接受了该请求。
这位主席是谁？
前苏联常驻代表尤利沃龙佐夫。
生于列宁格勒，卒于莫斯科。他曾任苏联驻联合国最后一任常驻代表（19901991），随后无缝衔接地担任首任俄罗斯常驻代表（19911994）。正是这位刚刚离任的苏联席位外交官，负责裁定俄罗斯是否有资格继承苏联该席位，。
他的继任者是仍在职的瓦西里阿列克谢耶维奇内边兹亚。
（视频：Alla与我在乌克兰顿涅茨克多里纳拍摄了这段影像，俄军摧毁了当地一座古老修道院版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
为俄罗斯的法律立场辩护者有时援引默许原则：既然当年没有联合国成员国正式抗议1991年的转移，论者认为，国际社会即以默许方式予以追认，而这种沉默随后固化为惯例。此论点看似诱人，但经不起推敲。
默许或可弥补国际法边缘上的程序瑕疵，但不能弥补其核心的结构性缺陷。常任席位与否决权并非边缘特权它们是安理会执行功能的承重构架，是联合国宪章所保障的集体安全得以实施或陷入瘫痪的机制。当该机制的受益者本身就是对和平的威胁来源时，如此严重的违规不能仅凭时间流逝或当时缺乏政治意愿与制度杠杆而未提出异议的国家之沉默，被洗白为合法。一个根本性的非法行为不会因无人抗辩而变为合法，尤其当被破坏完整性的机构正是负责裁定其自身组成的机构时。
（视频：Alla与我在诺沃格里霍里夫卡拍摄了这段影像，俄军在当地摧毁了那些现在其政权用于自我崇拜的苏联时代纪念碑版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
从诉讼资格的角度审视，这一点具有额外的法律分量。根据联合国宪章第27条第3款，争端当事国在就该争端作出决议时，应在第六章框架下回避投票。该条款体现的原则即无人可作己案之裁判反映了程序法中最古老的格言之一。俄罗斯对直接涉及其侵略行为的决议行使表决权的诉讼资格，至少在结构上已被削弱：
通过法律瑕疵的转移取得席位的国家，不得以该席位为庇护，规避其行为所应承担的法律后果。
这种循环是彻底的且并非偶然。
（视频：Alla与我在乌克兰顿涅茨克斯拉维扬斯克拍摄了这段影像，俄军在当地摧毁了那些其政权现用以自我崇拜的苏联时代纪念碑版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
因此，在对乌克兰发起大规模入侵两个月后，一个被欧洲议会正式认定为支持恐怖主义的国家的政权，主持了唯一有法律权限应对全球和平威胁的国际机构。
联合国不仅未暂停俄罗斯的否决权，反而将轮值主席交到俄罗斯手中。
对联合国宪章的严重且屡次违反未对俄罗斯在其主要执行机构中的地位带来任何结构性后果。随着联合国在应对这一僵局方面表现出无能，维护成员国和平、领土完整与主权的重担，默认地落在了联合国框架之外运作的防御联盟身上。
（图片插图作者Ben9683。原始照片来源Skymods）
这正是普京坚持使用特别军事行动这一法律虚构概念的原因。
克里姆林宫的算计是深谋远虑的。正式宣战会使俄罗斯联邦在联合国体系内处于更受约束的法律地位，显著增强国际社会暂停或剥夺那一从未合法获得的否决权的压力同时移除如今俄罗斯用以阻挡每一项旨在制止其自身罪行的安理会决议的保护伞。
通过欺骗取得并由一位审理自身继承问题的苏联外交官予以确认的否决权，不仅仅是一个外交特权。
它是有罪不罚的法律架构。
***
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