The Veto vs. Justice: Can the UN Expel Russia?
Imagine an organization created to stop wars — yet one where the chief aggressor of the 21st century holds a veto over any decision to hold it accountable. This is the reality that exists today within the United Nations: the Russian Federation — a state waging a full-scale armed invasion against sovereign Ukraine, destroying cities, killing civilians, and openly defying the norms of international humanitarian law — continues to hold a permanent seat on the Security Council and paralyzes any collective response to its own crimes. The question “Can Russia be expelled from the UN?” is not an academic abstraction or a rhetorical provocation. It is a question about whether the international system is capable of protecting itself from being destroyed from within. I believe that the legal mechanisms to remove an aggressor state from the UN do exist, but their implementation runs up against systemic legal and political barriers — barriers whose removal requires both a creative interpretation of the UN Charter and an unprecedented degree of diplomatic will from the international community.
What the UN Charter Says About Expelling Member States
Before considering the possibility of expelling Russia, it is necessary to consult the primary source — the Charter of the United Nations. Article 6 states that “a Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.” At first glance, this appears to be a clear and effective mechanism. Yet a closer look at this construction immediately reveals its fundamental flaw: Russia, as a permanent member of the Security Council, holds a veto and can therefore block its own expulsion.
In my view, this is the most dramatic paradox in contemporary international law: a norm designed to protect the system from violators contains, within its very structure, a mechanism that makes it impossible to apply against a permanent member of the Security Council. Imagine a court where the defendant is simultaneously the presiding judge and holds the power to block any verdict against themselves. That is precisely the situation in the UN today. This architectural flaw was no accident: the drafters of the 1945 Charter proceeded from the assumption that permanent members of the Security Council would be guarantors, not violators, of international peace. They simply did not anticipate a scenario in which an aggressor would be one of the founders of the collective security system.
It is also worth noting Article 5 of the Charter, which provides for the suspension of the rights of participation in the Organization — again, upon the recommendation of the Security Council. This means that even this “softer” measure runs into the same procedural barrier. Summing up the analysis of the legal framework, an intermediate conclusion is clear: the expulsion mechanism formally exists, but it is structurally unreachable for permanent members of the Security Council due to the veto.
The Question of Russia’s Succession to the USSR’s Seat
Yet here a different — and, in my view, far more legally promising — argument emerges, one that is attracting increasing attention in international law scholarship. It concerns the question of Russia’s succession to the USSR’s seat in the UN.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian Federation unilaterally declared itself the “state continuator” of the USSR and automatically inherited its permanent seat on the Security Council. Critically, the UN General Assembly never formally confirmed this decision — it simply remained silent. But silence in international law is not the same as legal recognition.
If one turns to the established principles of international law on state succession, codified in the 1978 Vienna Convention on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties, it becomes apparent that membership in an international organization is a strictly personal right of a state and does not pass automatically to a successor state without a separate decision by that organization. The USSR and Russia are different subjects of international law. Logically, the USSR’s seat should have “lapsed” with the state itself, and Russia should have joined the UN as a new state — without an automatic right of veto.
I believe this argument is not legally watertight, but it cannot be dismissed as purely rhetorical. It has already been discussed in academic literature and is reflected in the positions of certain states and legal scholars. Its practical application would mean that the General Assembly could raise the question of the legitimacy of Russia’s presence on the Security Council — a question that does not require a recommendation from the Security Council itself, as it concerns the interpretation of original membership rather than an expulsion procedure.
Alternative Legal Mechanisms to Restrict Russia in the UN
Alongside direct expulsion, there are other legal mechanisms that allow Russia’s role in the UN to be curtailed without having to overcome the veto barrier. The best known is UN General Assembly Resolution 377 (V) of 1950, known as “Uniting for Peace.” This resolution provides that when the Security Council, owing to the lack of unanimity among its permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, the General Assembly may convene an emergency session and recommend collective measures.
This mechanism has already been applied in practice. It was on this basis that the General Assembly adopted Resolution ES-11/1 in March 2022, condemning Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine. 141 states voted in favor — a convincing majority that demonstrated broad international support for Ukraine. In my view, this is an extremely important precedent: it shows that the UN system is not entirely paralyzed even when the Security Council is blocked. However, this mechanism only permits “recommendations,” not expulsions — and that is a fundamental difference between moral and political condemnation and legal exclusion.
Article 19 of the UN Charter also deserves particular attention: it provides for the deprivation of voting rights for a member that is in arrears in the payment of its financial contributions. While Russia does not currently have critical arrears, a similar mechanism suggests that the Charter permits certain restrictions on states’ rights without going through the full procedure under Article 6. This can serve as an argument for a creative interpretation of the Charter in search of new instruments of pressure.
Why the International Community Has Yet to Act on Expulsion
Even granting that a legal mechanism for expelling or substantially restricting Russia in the UN exists, the question of political will remains. In the entire 80-year history of the UN, Article 6 of the Charter has never been invoked. This testifies not only to the complexity of the procedure, but also to the fact that expulsion from the UN is regarded by the international community as an extreme measure to be avoided even in the most acute situations.
This raises a question I consider genuinely central: is this caution not itself a form of institutional impunity? If the United Nations proves incapable of responding to a gross violation of its own Charter, this calls into question not only the effectiveness of a specific norm, but the legitimacy of the entire collective security system. It is telling that even partial steps — such as Russia’s exclusion from the UN Human Rights Council in April 2022 — required considerable diplomatic effort and encountered resistance from a number of states. This vividly demonstrates how real geopolitics complicates the application of even less radical legal tools.
It is also important to understand the broader context: Russia’s expulsion from the UN would not automatically resolve the conflict. A state outside the UN is not bound by its resolutions and may act with even less accountability. This is precisely why some states — even those critically disposed toward Russia — fear the expulsion precedent, arguing that it is better to keep an aggressor inside the system under some pressure than entirely outside it. This argument, however, strikes me as vulnerable: the “pressure” on Russia within the system is minimal, while the damage caused by its presence on the Security Council is maximal.
Delegitimization Through the General Assembly as a Realistic Path
Summarizing the above, one can conclude that the question “Can Russia be expelled from the UN?” has no unambiguous answer — and it is precisely in this ambiguity that its deepest significance lies. Legally: yes, mechanisms exist — Article 6 of the Charter, the doctrine of state succession, the “Uniting for Peace” resolution — yet each runs up either against the procedural barrier of the veto or against a deficit of real political will. Practically: it is extremely difficult today, but not absolutely impossible.
I believe the most realistic path is not to attempt to circumvent the veto through a direct expulsion procedure, but rather to pursue a consistent delegitimization of Russia’s presence in the UN through the General Assembly, the parallel development of the succession doctrine, and sustained international pressure. Each new General Assembly resolution condemning the aggression, each judgment of an international court, each step toward reforming the Security Council — these are bricks in the edifice of a new architecture of international accountability.
Ultimately, international law is a living system that develops through practice, precedent, and the will of states to give norms new meaning in response to new challenges. If humanity was able to build the UN on the ruins of the Second World War, it is capable of reforming it in response to the challenges of the 21st century. The only question is whether there will be sufficient will — the same will that was so lacking in 1945, when the architects of the new world order naively believed that the permanent members of the Security Council would never become a threat to the very system they were meant to protect.
For Ukraine, this question is not academic but existential. That is precisely why it demands not only diplomatic but also legal reflection — and why, as a student, I am glad to contribute to this discussion, building the arguments that will form the foundation of future decisions.
As we reported previously, the student essay competition “Can Russia Be Expelled from the UN?” gathered submissions from across Ukraine, and the winners were announced in Kyiv.
