Britain must back calls for countries in the United Nations Security Council to give up their veto on cases of alleged mass atrocities, genocide and war crimes, the former foreign secretary David Miliband said.
Miliband, now the president of the New York-based NGO, International Rescue Committee, said he supported a proposal from France that would suspend the power of the US, China, the UK, France and Russia to block action in these cases. He called for the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, to back the measure.
He said there was now a system failure in the international humanitarian system that had combined with the Covid epidemic and climate change to fuel unprecedented rises in global hunger, poverty and refugee numbers.
Miliband told the Observer that he supports the French proposal. The UK veto in the security council is a very powerful tool for the UK and the other permanent members of the security council. But in debates involving mass atrocity, the veto and threat of veto prevents diplomacy and fuels dangerous conflicts.
I think the UK should support the French proposal, now supported by 100 other countries, to abandon the veto in the Security Council in cases of mass atrocity. The threat of veto and the threat of veto do more harm than good in these cases. China prevented UN action against Rohingya genocide in Myanmar, and Russia tried to block UN investigations into chemical weapons attacks in Syria. Mexico has co-signed the French proposal.
Russia has also used its veto in other areas. It used its veto against a UN Security Council resolution last week, which cast the climate crisis as a threat to international peace and security.
The vote sank a long effort to make global heating more central to decision-making in the UN's most powerful body, which had been championed by Ireland and Niger.
Miliband said the use of the veto must be limited in the most serious cases.
Miliband said that the veto is unjustifiable in cases of mass atrocity, and the threat of the veto strangles effective diplomacy in these cases.
The sidelining of the UN is a threat to global peace and security, and encourages the rise of impunity. If the UN Security Council was created today, the veto would not be granted to the five permanent members.
We can't rewrite the past. We need a more effective security council today, not a thought experiment about yesterday.