Russia’s Presidency of the UN Security Council — how States and Civil Society should respond

An arsonist is (once again) presiding over the international firefighting institution. However, there are steps states and civil society can take to push back during Russia’s Presidency of the UN Security Council in April.

Originally published by Foreign Policy Centre, 30 March 2023

On 24 February 2022, Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya from Ukraine called upon his peers at the table of the United Nations Security Council to do the right thing: “Call [President] Putin, call [Foreign Minister] Lavrov to stop aggression!”[1] It would have been the right thing to do for any President of the Security Council on that day. But the Security Council was not presided over by anybody; Russia’s Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya was the chair in February 2022.

Ambassador Nebenzya will once again take over the rotating presidency of the Security Council in April 2023, the very institution tasked to safeguard “the maintenance of international peace and security.”[2]

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