[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 267 Introduced in House (IH)]
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118th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. RES. 267
Finding that the Russian Federation's presence in the United Nations
Security Council violates the purposes and principles of the United
Nations.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
March 30, 2023
Mr. Cohen (for himself and Mr. Wilson of South Carolina) submitted the
following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign
Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Finding that the Russian Federation's presence in the United Nations
Security Council violates the purposes and principles of the United
Nations.
Whereas the Russian Federation has carried out an illegal, premeditated,
unprovoked, and brutal war against Ukraine;
Whereas the Russian Federation in its war against Ukraine has perpetrated
heinous atrocities against unarmed civilians, including pillage,
torture, rape, summary executions, the destruction of entire cities, and
other crimes, including crimes targeting women and children;
Whereas the Russian Federation in its war against Ukraine has repeatedly
threatened to use nuclear weapons;
Whereas the Russian Federation in its war against Ukraine has forcibly occupied
and taken deliberate actions that threaten to destroy civilian nuclear
power stations, facilities the destruction of which would place millions
of people in Ukraine and in other nations at risk;
Whereas the Russian Federation has carried out illegal so-called referendums in
Ukraine and adopted legislation purporting to annex regions,
notwithstanding that the overwhelming majority of nations unambiguously
recognize, and the Russian Federation itself had unambiguously
recognized, that those regions are sovereign territory of Ukraine;
Whereas the Russian Federation has indicated its intention to destroy Ukraine as
a nation and has used rhetoric calling for further illegal purported
annexations and violence against other nations;
Whereas the Russian Federation, under the Memorandum on Security Assurances in
Connection with Ukraine's Accession to the Treaty on the Non-
Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons signed at Budapest on December 7, 1994
(``Budapest Memorandum''), reaffirmed in accordance with the principles
of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
its commitments ``to respect the independence and sovereignty and the
existing borders of Ukraine'' and ``to refrain from the threat or use of
force against the territorial integrity or political independence of
Ukraine'';
Whereas Ukraine, under the Budapest Memorandum in exchange for the Russian
Federation's commitments, voluntarily relinquished the nuclear weapons
in its territory and acceded to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons as a non-nuclear-weapon State;
Whereas the Russian Federation's flagrant violations of its commitments under
the Budapest Memorandum set a dangerous example, injurious to future
efforts to promote nuclear arms control and nonproliferation;
Whereas the Russian Federation, notwithstanding the commitment it made under the
Initiative on the Safe Transportation of Grain and Foodstuffs from
Ukrainian Ports adopted upon the proposal of the United Nations
Secretary-General on July 22, 2022, to enable the resumption of exports
of Ukrainian grain, other foodstuffs, and fertilizer through a safe
maritime humanitarian corridor, repeatedly threatens to obstruct that
corridor and the security of the world's food supply;
Whereas the purposes of the United Nations (``UN'') include--
(1) to maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to
take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of
threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression, and to
bring about by peaceful means adjustment or settlement of international
disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
(2) to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for
the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to
take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace; and
(3) to achieve international cooperation in promoting and encouraging
respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without
distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion;
Whereas the principles of the UN include--
(1) respect for the sovereign equality of all UN Members;
(2) good faith in the fulfilment of all obligations under the Charter
of the United Nations (``UN Charter'');
(3) peaceful settlement of international disputes; and
(4) refraining from the threat or use of force against the territorial
integrity or political independence of any State;
Whereas Article 4 of the UN Charter opens the UN only to countries that are
peace-loving;
Whereas Article 6 of the UN Charter allows the UN upon two-thirds vote of the UN
General Assembly and recommendation of the UN Security Council to expel
a member that has persistently violated the principles of the UN
Charter;
Whereas international aggression is a fundamental violation of the purposes and
principles of the UN Charter;
Whereas the United Nations General Assembly (``UN General Assembly'') meeting in
Emergency Special Session has acknowledged by overwhelming majorities
that--
(1) the Russian Federation's conduct constitutes aggression against
Ukraine;
(2) the Russian Federation's aggression against Ukraine is the cause of
a dire humanitarian crisis on a scale not seen in Europe in decades; and
(3) the illegal so-called referendums organized by the Russian
Federation in regions of Ukraine have no validity under international law
and form no basis for any alteration of the status of any region of
Ukraine;
Whereas the Russian Federation has ignored its responsibility to observe and
implement determinations by UN organs and officials, including
determinations by--
(1) the UN General Assembly, which has demanded repeatedly that the
Russian Federation immediately, completely, and unconditionally withdraw
all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within Ukraine's
internationally recognized borders;
(2) the UN Human Rights Council, which has called upon the Russian
Federation to immediately end its human rights violations and abuses and
violations of international humanitarian law committed in the course of its
aggression against Ukraine;
(3) the International Court of Justice, which has ordered that the
Russian Federation shall immediately suspend all military operations
against Ukraine, including the military operations that the Russian
Federation commenced on February 24, 2022, and refrain from actions
violating the human rights of the Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian communities
in the Crimean region of Ukraine, which region the Russian Federation has
illegally occupied by force since 2014 and illegally purports to have
annexed;
(4) the President of the UN Security Council, who has condemned the
continuous violations of the earlier cease-fire regime under the Minsk
Agreements and has called on the Russian Federation to facilitate the work
of the Special Monitoring Mission of the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Ukraine; and
(5) the UN Secretary-General, who has called on the Russian Federation
to stop its military offensive against Ukraine and who has declared that
Russia's illegal purported annexation of territory in Ukraine ``flouts the
Purposes and Principles of the United Nations'';
Whereas the Russian Federation's repeated threats to use nuclear weapons and
rhetoric about raising its nuclear alert levels are inconsistent with
and in flagrant disregard of the Joint Statement on Preventing Nuclear
War and Avoiding Arms Races that the Russian Federation, along with the
other four permanent members of the UN Security Council, adopted in
2022;
Whereas the Russian Federation has abused the power of the veto that it holds in
the UN Security Council under Article 23, paragraph 1, of the UN
Charter, including by exercising the veto in order to prevent the
Security Council from taking necessary actions and reaching appropriate
determinations in regard to the Russian Federation's aggression against
Ukraine;
Whereas the Russian Federation further has abused the procedures of the Security
Council, including--
(1) by attempting to prevent senior representatives of Ukraine from
addressing the Security Council;
(2) by exploiting the Security Council as a venue in which to make
patently false accusations, including false accusations that Ukraine has
committed genocide against Russians, that the President of Ukraine is a
Nazi, and that Ukraine is preparing a nuclear attack;
(3) by advancing a draft resolution that would attempt to portray
Ukraine as responsible for the humanitarian disaster resulting from the
Russian Federation's aggression, a draft resolution having no purpose
except to obstruct the orderly conduct of Security Council proceedings and
distract attention from the Russian Federation's aggression;
(4) by lodging repeated complaints in the Security Council under
Article VI of the Biological Weapons Convention (``BWC'') falsely accusing
Ukraine of hosting biological weapons programs involving birds, bats, and
mosquitoes and providing no evidence to support its complaints, while
ignoring statements by the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs that that
Office is unaware of any biological weapons programs in Ukraine, ignoring
that consultations with 89 countries convened under the BWC did not find
any BWC violations in Ukraine, and ignoring the damage that the Russian
Federation's baseless allegations have done to multilateral cooperation
under the BWC;
(5) by demanding that the Security Council convene in order to
entertain the Russian Federation's patently false and abusive claim that
the atrocities that the Russian Federation committed at Bucha in Ukraine,
which numbered among the worst atrocities up to that time in the Russian
Federation's aggression against Ukraine, were the result of a
``provocation'' by ``Ukrainian radicals'';
(6) by issuing false and groundless procedural complaints in the
Security Council, including false accusations against the President of the
Security Council that that Security Council officer had prevented the
Russian Federation from making the claim that atrocities at Bucha were
``provoked'', despite the clear and unambiguous indication in the verbatim
record that the President in fact had given the Russian Federation more
than one opportunity in which to make that claim notwithstanding its
falsity and the Russian Federation's abusive purpose in making it; and
(7) by demanding further Security Council meetings in order to continue
to abuse that UN organ by issuing from a permanent member's seat blatantly
false accusations, including accusations that it is Ukraine, not the
Russian Federation, that is responsible for the Russian Federation's
atrocities and aggression;
Whereas nations in international organizations, in light of the Russian
Federation's egregious violations of international law, have taken steps
to protect the integrity of those organizations and their procedures and
to hold the Russian Federation to account, including in--
(1) the UN General Assembly, which by Resolution ES-11/3 of April 7,
2022, suspended the Russian Federation from the UN Human Rights Council;
(2) the International Civil Aviation Organization, which on October 4,
2022, voted not to reelect the Russian Federation to that organization's
Governing Council;
(3) the Danube Commission, which by Decision of its 12th Extraordinary
Session, on March 17, 2022, declined to accept the credentials of the
Russian Federation and excluded those representatives from participation in
all meetings of the Danube Commission and its working bodies until
cessation of the Russian Federation's aggression against Ukraine;
(4) the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States, which
by Resolution CP/RES.1195 (2374/22) of April 21, 2022, suspended the
Russian Federation's status as a Permanent Observer of the Organization of
American States;
(5) the UN World Tourism Organization, which by Resolution of April 27,
2022, suspended the Russian Federation's membership in that organization;
(6) the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which by
Decision of February 25, 2022, suspended the Russian Federation from its
rights of representation in the Council of Europe and by Decision of March
16, 2022, declared that the Russian Federation has ceased to be a member of
the Council of Europe; and
(7) the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which by
Resolution 2463 (2022) of October 13, 2022, resolved that the Russian
Federation's threats to use nuclear weapons and threats to use civilian
nuclear power facilities as weapons are incompatible with the
responsibilities of a country holding a permanent seat on the UN Security
Council;
Whereas the Security Council is the principal organ of the UN having primary
responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security;
and
Whereas the Russian Federation, notwithstanding its war of aggression against
Ukraine, the heinous atrocities it has committed, its nuclear threats,
its threats to the world food supply, the further threats to
international peace and security it makes through baseless territorial
claims against Ukraine and other countries, its abuse of the rights and
privileges of permanent membership in the UN Security Council, and the
flagrant violations of the purposes and principles of the UN that these
actions of the Russian Federation entail, has continued to sit in the
seat of a permanent member of the Security Council under Article 23,
paragraph 1, of the UN Charter and to exercise other rights and
privileges in UN organs and specialized agencies: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) finds that the Russian Federation has repeatedly,
deliberately, and flagrantly violated the purposes and
principles of the United Nations;
(2) finds that the continued exercise of rights and
privileges by the Russian Federation in the Security Council of
the United Nations under United Nations Charter Article 23,
paragraph 1, further violates the purposes and principles of
the United Nations and is contrary to the interests of the
United States in the maintenance of international peace and
security;
(3) finds that the participation and membership of the
Russian Federation in other organs and specialized agencies of
the United Nations violates the purposes and principles of the
United Nations and is contrary to the interests of the United
States;
(4) urges the President of the United States--
(A) to direct the Department of State and other
relevant Federal departments and agencies to pursue all
appropriate steps with Allies, partners, and other
countries to limit, suspend, or terminate rights and
privileges that the Russian Federation exercises in the
Security Council of the United Nations under United
Nations Charter Article 23, paragraph 1; and
(B) to direct the Department of State and other
relevant Federal departments and agencies to pursue all
appropriate steps with Allies, partners, and other
countries to limit, suspend, or terminate the
participation or membership of the Russian Federation
in other organs and specialized agencies of the United
Nations; and
(5) supports the deployment by the United States of all
necessary diplomatic and other resources to ensure the success
of the steps that it herein urges the President to direct.
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