Fact check: Refuting the lie that "Russia can't be kicked out of the UN" - "KickRussiaOut" is a disinformation site.
The facts, the law, and the resolution to expel Moscow impostors from the UN.
There is a lot of highly sophisticated, expensively funded disinformation from bought and/or “useful idiot” “experts” on the internet.
This is one of the biggest.
This web site is designed to capture all people who want Russia out of the UN, and convince them that it is impossible.
https://kickrussiaout.info/
It’s been promoted through Time magazine, referred to by UATV, and runs the lie propagated by corrupt US, Nato administrations and the Secretary-General of the UN.
Why believe me, against so many “experts”?
1. I am a lawyer. You don’t have to be a lawyer to understand the facts and law below, but it does help to locate the information, and isolate the issues.
2. I noticed that, despite all the erudite sounding pronunciations, not a single piece of analysis is to be found on this web site. (Nor any links to voluminous research on the net.)
3. I also noticed that there are not so many “experts”. More like a hand-picked few. No women. This heightened my suspicion as I would expect a cause like this to have hundreds or thousands of named sponsors, if it were genuine.
4. So, I stepped through, researched each of the questions and fact checked each of the propositions on the web site, searching for the original sources. My findings are below, with the sources.
5. You can verify each of these steps and confirm for yourself. You don’t need to be a lawyer to understand them. All images are links to their original sources.
The lies that the lie is based on
“Problem information” is not problem information. In the classic technique of disinformation, this statement is a mixture of truth and lies. It Identifies the correct questions, then provides no, or false, answers.
It creates a problem by hiding the solution, then says it is impossible to solve.
It pretends that they are working to resolve the non-existent “problem”.
(Making submissions to an organisation which has nothing to do with the solution to the issue; “planning” research which has already been done elsewhere, which has apparently not been “done” in the however many years this organisation has been in existence, and which is nowhere to be found on it’s web site.)
It creates false facts - for example a “seat” - which support Russia’s claim, while creating complications that don’t exist.
Not a single authority for any statement is given.
So, let’s go through them.
1. “In order to consider what legacy Russia has illegally appropriated for itself, ‘it is necessary to consider the history of the creation and liquidation of the Soviet Union’”
This history is not shown on the web site. So I re-did the research:
The history of the creation and liquidation of the USSR is completely irrelevant.
There are only 3 questions:
is there a provision for succession by Russia that is valid under the UN Charter,
was there some way Russia can claim it “became” the USSR,
is there any other way Russia could “inherit”?
Was there some provision by the USSR giving it’s UN membership (or anything else) to Russia when it ceased to exist? Answer: Nope.
Not in the Constitution of the USSR.
Not in the agreement to create the USSR.
Not in the documents ending the USSR
Not in any other document created by the USSR.
Did Russia “become” the USSR? Nope. It left the USSR on 12 December 1991 when it ratified the Belavezha Accord signed by Yeltsin on 8 December 1991. 2 weeks before it claimed the USSR’s UN memberships.
2. “UN Security Council demonstrated a precedent of requiring a special resolution of the "General assembly to confirm the succession of a permanent member in the case of a state/constitution change.”
This is a complete lie. It is straight out of the Kremlin propaganda copybook. It is also the dream of the Kremlin.
What is “succession”? My distillation of the various legal definitions: “The transfer of property, rights and/or obligations when the owner dies or ceases to exist”.
What the history actually shows is that there is no “succession” of either permanent or other memberships of the UN. There is no provision for succession in the UN Charter. There have only ever been 2 attempts to seek succession, and only one of those has been been acknowledged.
That is the claim by Serbia and Montenegro to succeed to the membership of the former Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia, after the complete disintegration of the Federation into 5 states warring each other. That attempt was dismissed by the UNSC in A/RES/777 1992, on the ground that the Former Republic had ceased to exist.
Note the word “consider”. It is not a decision, it is an interpretation. Note further the word “recommends”: the SC does not have delegated authority in the Charter to make decisions on whether a membership claim is valid.
At the insistence of Russia (unlawfully participating), the words “and it has not been generally accepted” were added. However these words add nothing legally, because nothing in the UN Charter allows succession at all. To permit transfer of a membership by “general acceptance” would require an amendment to the Charter under Article 108.
The KickRussiaOut website, however, fudges the concept of “succession“, by implying that succession occurs in the case of “changes” to an existing state which hasn’t ceased to exist, a false premise which allows it to argue that succession is allowed. That is obviously not the case. Existing members cannot “succeed” to themselves.
A further convenient consequence of this fudging leads to the scare tactic of suggesting the UK would cease to be a permanent member if Scotland seceded, if Russia was not allowed to grab the USSR’s membership. That is a based on a false premise. The UK would not cease to exist, like the USSR did. Likewise the secession of Taiwan would not cause China to cease to exist.
There has not been any ‘“succession” of a permanent or other UN member “in the case of a state/constitution change.”
The US changed it’s constitution in 1962, 1965 and 1971. No “special resolution of the General assembly to confirm the succession” is required in the case of a “constitution change”.
It appears that this statement has twisted the expulsion of unlawful representatives of a government which had changed, out of all recognition. A/RES2758 in 1971 was simply recognising the valid government of an existing member, there was no “succession”. There was no change of the state member. It did not cease to exist. It was exactly the same as if Trump had claimed the US membership rights after he lost the election.
3. “the process of restoring justice will not be easy.”
The ultimate total lie of this organisation and web site. It is very easy to out impostors, because 2 important decisions have already been made. It could have been passed instead of the pathetic handwringing “condemnation” resolution by 143/192 (74%) member states on 2 March 2022, or any one of the resolutions since then. 6 says after the “veto” on 25 February 2022.
“the former USSR’s seat”
seat meaning - Legal definition - World Law Dictionary: “an official position as a member of a committee, council, board of directors or legislative body etc.”
“Seat” can give the impression that it remains after someone got out of it. So. let’s call it membership, to save confusion.
The UN Charter provided for 15 members of the Security Council.
4. “Given the fact that the UN Secretary General did not ignore Boris Yeltsin’s letter and asked the President of the Security Council to inform all members of its content;
This is hilarious. Who is supposed to circulate material in the UN? The Secretary-General. And who was the President of the Security Council? The person who delivered Yeltsin’s letter to the Secretary-General, the traitor USSR representative, Yuli Vorontsov. Who the Secretary-General forthwith accepted as the permanent Representative of a state which was not a member of the UN. And approved a name change of a member country which never requested it, to the name of said non-member state.
How tacky can you get: “Asked the President to inform the members”? More like the said President saying “don’t worry about the required procedure of circulating the letter and tabling it in the General Assembly, I’ll “advise” everyone. Trust me, bro”.
What this site doesn’t point out is apparent on the UN web site: the letter was never circulated, it was never considered, and Vorontsov, the Secretary-General, and the representatives of US, UK and France simply pretended it was a change of name. Moreover, the annual report of the Security Council to the General Assembly required by the UN Charter itself states “the Secretary-General wrote to the President” asking him to circulate Yeltsin’s letter. Well, there is a letter from the Secretary-General to the President that day. But none about Yeltsin’s letter.1
This became apparent gradually. But was easily ascertainable by the writer.
“that none of the Security Council members raised any objections to Yeltsin’s request to confirm the authority of the Russian Federation in UN structures as well as change the representatives of the USSR at the UN into representatives of Russia”
Other lies
“Russia inherited the UN memberships and veto from the USSR”
“Russia paid all the USSR’s debts”
“Russia can veto any attempt to throw it out” [Russia doesn’t have a veto, remember?]
“China would veto any attempt to throw Russia out” [There is no power to veto expulsion of impostors.]
“It would throw the world into chaos” [Ahhhhahahaha… throw it out of chaos.]
“Russia has nukes” [So… it’s going to nuke the world, for complying with the UN Charter??? Who’s Putin going to nuke? And where’s he going to hide, after he’s been kicked out of the UN and nuked everyone?]
“It would
The facts
These are the relevant facts:
x
The law
x
The resolution
x
Why can’t it be vetoed?
x
Post script:
I haven’t finished this. What I have pointed out above so far is enough to vindicate the title of this article.
This was my first article, which propelled me into my research.
The disinformation pointed out above has been fully canvassed and corrected in a series of subsequent articles, feel free to make the comparisons yourself:
Notification of Yeltsin's Letter "Continuing" USSR United Nations memberships??? - Knowledge is Power
There was no agenda item on any meeting relating to the letter. 18 months later it was confirmed it had not been considered, hidden in the annual report which the UN Charter itself requires Security Council to make to the General Assembly.
For details of full extent of the concealment of the letter, see
