The United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, leading to a wave of dissent from the international community. The veto followed UN Secretary General António Guterres’s invocation of Article 99 of the UN Charter, which brought an obligatory consideration of the humanitarian disaster currently in progress in the region.
The ensuing devastation has resulted in 18,000 deaths, largely civilians, inclusive of 7,000 children, and displacement of 80% of the population. The US justified its veto due to the disregard of most of its recommendations and the resolution’s failure to condemn the Hamas attack on Israel in October, which resulted in more than 1,200 Israeli fatalities, most of them civilians.
Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu expressed gratitude for US’s stance in the UN Security Council. Meanwhile, Article 99 of the UN Charter empowers the Secretary-General to inform the Security Council of any issue in his opinion that may threaten international peace and security. This marked the first such invocation of Article 99 since the Lebanon conflict in 1989.
The US’s veto sparked outrage from the international community. Amnesty International criticized the decision as it evidenced a “callous disregard for civilian suffering in face of staggering death toll“. Lawyers and scholars globally deemed the action as immoral and depraved, indicating that the US had lost its moral authority to criticize other states for neglecting to support resolutions in other war zones.
The story came to light in a recent article on the JURIST – News