Context: The efforts of the US and Western countries to bring a resolution against China on the situation of Uighur Muslims in the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) suffered a setback when 11 countries, including India and Ukraine, indirectly helped China by being absent at the time of voting.
Relevance:
- Prelims- Current Affairs of National and International Importance.
- Mains- GS-2; Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India's interests.
- Important International institutions, and agencies, and for their structure, and mandate.
Recent Global Examples of Diplomacy in Abstaining from UN Vote
Introduction:
- Abstaining from a UN vote could mean a lot of things.
- It could mean tacit support or opposition of one of the parties or a fairly neutral stance.
- It could also be a balancing act between two superpowers as in the case of the Russia- Ukraine war between the West and; Russia and China.
- It could also be a diplomatic act to stay aloof from the anger of both the participatory parties or an effort to balance the friendship between the two opposing parties.
- It could also mean some sort of ideological stance like non-alignment, non-interference, two-nation theory, etc.
- When a state abstains from a vote concerning a crisis at the United Nations, it may look like it is avoiding hard choices about the problem at hand.
- But U.N. diplomacy is rarely that simple.
- When diplomats cast an abstention in the Security Council or General Assembly, they are often sending subtler signals about their interests and priorities.
Recent Examples:
India and 10 other nations including Brazil and Ukraine, abstained from voting in the UN against China over the human rights situation in the Xinjiang region. Since 2017, there has been extensive documentation of China’s crackdown against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang carried out under the guise of fighting terrorism.
- This is only the second time in the UNHRC’s 16-year history that a US resolution has been rejected.
- It also explains the changing global equations.
- Most of the discussion after the UNHRC vote is about India’s stand.
- Given the current state of relations with China, the US expected support from India.
- However, India said that it has stuck to its policy of not voting against any country in institutions like the UNHRC.
- However, it is believed that India has taken this step due to the apprehension of a UN vote on Jammu and Kashmir in the future.
India, China, Pakistan, Srilanka, UAE, and 30 other nations abstained on a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly adopted by a majority that criticized Russia for creating a “dire” humanitarian situation by its military invasion of Ukraine.
Similarly, in a previous resolution against Russia(Russia- Ukraine crisis), in the final tally, 141 countries supported the resolution, with just five voting against it and another 35 abstaining.
- In U.N. votes on the Ukrainian war to date, Kyiv and its supporters have enjoyed majority support.
- Of the organization’s 193 member states, 141 backed a General Assembly resolution condemning Moscow’s aggression on March 2.
- Only four countries—Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea, and Syria—backed Russia.
- But from the outset of the war, some big players have sat on their hands.
- The first notable abstentions on Ukraine came in late February when the U.S. tabled a Security Council resolution decrying Russia’s actions.
- This was a dead letter, as the Russians predictably vetoed it, but Washington hoped to show that Moscow was isolated in the council.
- Three members of the 15-member body—China, India, and the United Arab Emirates—complicated that narrative by abstaining.
- But Washington saw the trio’s decisions in different ways:
- U.S. officials had urged China not to join Russia in vetoing the resolution and watered down the text to make it palatable to Beijing. They saw China’s abstention as a win.
- They were less happy with the Indian and Emirati positions.
- India, with its close economic and security ties to Russia, was clearly trying to avoid a rift with Moscow.
- The Emiratis, meanwhile, needed Russia’s support for a Security Council resolution labeling Yemen’s Houthis—which launched missile and drone attacks on the UAE in January and February—as terrorists.
- The Russians let that text go through in a straightforward example of transactional U.N. vote trading.
- The U.S. was not pleased to see its Gulf partner abstain.
- President Joe Biden reportedly put in a call to Abu Dhabi to ensure that the Emiratis would support Ukraine in the General Assembly vote at the start of March, which they did.
- In the General Assembly, the 52 members that didn’t back the March 2 resolution condemning Russia had a variety of reasons to abstain:
- China continued to sidestep taking a stance for or against Moscow, to avoid alienating either the U.S. or Russia.
- African countries with growing security ties to Russia, such as Mali and the Central African Republic, abstained.
- Ethiopia, which Russia shielded from serious criticism in the Security Council over the war in Tigray throughout 2021, did not vote.
- This looked like a tacit show of support for Moscow, or at least a refusal to uncritically follow Western policy lines over Ukraine.
- But a number of Latin American countries that have often aligned with Russia and that have historically condemned U.S. and Western neocolonialism at the U.N.—namely Bolivia, Cuba, and Nicaragua—also cast abstentions, hinting at their discomfort with Russia’s own imperialist actions in Ukraine.
- In sum, it was possible for General Assembly members to use abstentions to send both pro- and anti-Russian messages without making them explicit.
- Some states also presented abstention in more principled terms. Uganda’s ambassador to the U.N. noted that he was obliged to abstain as the incoming chair of the Non-Aligned Movement, or NAM, the grouping of 120 states from the Global South that formed during the Cold War in order to chart an autonomous, alternative course amid the standoff between the Western and Soviet blocs.
Specific Case of India:
- India abstaining from voting on several resolutions passed at the UN Security Council (UNSC), UN General Assembly (UNGA), and United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) since the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine has drawn global attention, especially from its Western allies.
- India Abstained From These Votes and Resolutions at the UN in 2022:
- March 2: India abstained from voting on a resolution against Russia at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and also abstained at a meeting to convene an urgent debate at UNHRC.
- February 25: India abstained on a US-sponsored UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution condemning the ‘Russian aggression in Ukraine.
- March 4: India abstained on a vote at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva to set up an international commission of inquiry into Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
- March 24: India abstained on a draft resolution proposed by Ukraine that held Russia responsible for the crisis.
- March 24: India abstained from a procedural vote proposed by South Africa on actions to be taken to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
- March 25: India abstained from a Russia-sponsored humanitarian resolution in the UNSC on the Ukraine situation.
- April 7: India abstained from a draft resolution to suspend Russia from UNHRC over the Ukraine crisis.
- October 1: India abstained on a draft resolution at the UNSC condemning the so-called referenda organized by Russia across four regions of Ukraine.
- October 6: India abstained on a resolution at the UNHRC promoting human rights in Sri Lanka.
- October 6: India abstained from voting on a resolution at the UN High Commission calling for a debate on human rights concerns surrounding Xinjiang.
- Amid the ongoing Ukraine crisis, India abstained on a UN Security Council resolution for the second time in as many days, to convene a rare emergency special session of the UN General Assembly on Russia's aggression against Ukraine, with New Delhi asserting that there is no other choice but to return to the path of diplomacy and dialogue to settle the Ukraine crisis.
- When India abstained from voting in the emergency resolution presented in February in the initial phase of the war in Ukraine which condemned the Russian military operation calling it Russian aggression, the Western media as well as its Western allies subtly hinted that India is not vocally condemning Russian actions in Ukraine.
- Also, India's abstention at the UNHRC against China took many by surprise because India-China relations are going through a difficult phase following Chinese aggression at India’s borders in the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
- There were calls for India to seize the opportunity and criticize China but India’s foreign policy bats for neutrality.
- India has reiterated on several forums that public shaming of a nation at an international forum does not help resolve issues that are being raised.
- India prefers that dialogue and diplomacy should lead the way and country-specific resolutions often do not work.
- The US and its allies have condemned North Korea, Russia, Myanmar, and China among many other countries for their alleged violations of human rights but these have not yielded results on the ground.
- India also has very close ties to all parties involved in the Ukraine crisis. Moscow and New Delhi have a friendship that stretches way back to the days of India’s freedom from colonial rule. Moscow also helped India with defense supplies when its defense industry was at its elementary stage.
- Even with the West, India has close ties, mainly due to its people-to-people relations and the presence of a strong Indian diaspora. In the UK as well as the US, British Indians and Indian Americans have not only contributed to the economic growth but also remain an intrinsic part of their politics, economy, and culture.
- India has robust ties with Canada in North America and also has similar ties with France, Germany, and other nations of the EU, as also South Korea, Australia, and Japan in the Indo-Pacific.
- But India’s abstinence does not mean that India does not condemn acts of aggression.
- India’s neutrality not only stems from the fact that it has friends everywhere on this planet but also from the fact that public shaming of any nation fails to provide solutions that can have an impact.
Conclusion: While it is natural to look at U.N. vote counts to see who has voted for or against Ukrainian and Russian positions, all these abstentions matter, too. Countries large and small use them to send signals to one another about the war, and as tools to block diplomatic initiatives, they dislike.
U.N. diplomacy always involves a hefty dose of ambiguity, and abstaining meaningfully is an art that officials in New York and Geneva must master to do their jobs.
