Malta’s permanent representative to the UN Vanessa Frazier has one of the most delicate roles in her long career. She speaks to Bertrand Borg about Russia’s war, the Middle East and sticking up for Malta.
If the United Nations Security Council has been toothless in responding to Russia’s war in Ukraine, its five permanent members are probably to blame.
That is the view of Malta’s permanent representative to the UN, Vanessa Frazier, who has spent the past month spearheading the country’s presidency of the UN’s top organ – a 15-country forum whose decisions are legally binding.
“The Security Council could work better than it does. The veto too,” Frazier acknowledged in her office at UN headquarters in New York.
Malta is currently one of 10 countries serving a two-year term as non-permanent members of the Security Council. It is a privilege it earned last year after securing the overwhelming endorsement of 97.3 per cent of UN member states and a career highlight for Frazier, a highly accomplished career diplomat who makes no bones about her fierce patriotism.
“I become a lioness if anyone talks badly about my country,” she smiled.
But while the Security Council’s 10 non-permanent members are expected to represent the interests of the broader international community, its Big Five members – the US, UK, France, Russia and China – have a very different perspective.
“Permanent members only represent themselves,” Frazier said. “They are only focused on their national interest. It’s normal. If Malta had a permanent seat, we would be exactly the same.”
That is not exactly the role that the UN’s founders had in mind for Security Council members when they drafted the UN Charter in 1945. And that distorted interpretation of their role extends to their use of their veto powers.
Article 27 (3) of the UN Charter explicitly states that a country which is involved in a dispute “shall abstain from voting” on decisions concerning the settlement of that dispute. In theory, that means Russia should keep quiet during votes concerning its invasion of Ukraine. In practice, it has used its veto to block several resolutions condemning the war, starting with a February 26, 2022 resolution presented immediately after its soldiers marched into Ukraine.
“Russia should not have participated in that vote,” Frazier sighed, as she pulled a well-thumbed copy of the UN Charter from her bag. “But the other council members think that could be used against them [if they object].”
Frazier – a career diplomat whose 30-year career has seen her represent Malta in Italy, Brussels, NATO as well as coordinate Malta’s humanitarian response to Libyan crisis – is quick to note that this is not a purely Russian problem.
“It’s not the first time that a party involved in a conflict has participated in a Security Council vote,” she says. “It’s happened in past conflicts too.”
It just suits permanent members to reinterpret their veto-wielding responsibilities in this way.
The result is a Security Council which, despite over 50 meetings about the war in Ukraine, has been unable to agree on a single resolution about the conflict. Instead, most substantive UN debate about Ukraine has taken place during an emergency session of the General Assembly, free from the shackles of veto-wielding big powers.
Despite their evident – and very public – differences, the UN Security Council Big Five are bound together by their exclusive permanent membership of the council.
“They might not agree on certain topics, but they all agree that they are the ones that are there forever and have more power than anyone else,” Frazier noted.
That power extends to the nuts and bolts of diplomatic work. Big Five diplomats have decades of council experience and know its bureaucracy inside-out, giving them an implicit advantage over the non-permanent members who have a brief time window in which to get up to speed.
"What is certain is that you only win if you stick to your principles"
But Malta has proven up to the task, Frazier believes, with its diplomatic team in New York fully grasping their briefs and ensuring the country has been up to the tall task of guiding the Security Council’s agenda throughout February.
The Security Council’s most recent success, a presidency statement that expressed “deep concern and dismay” over Israel’s settlement activity, endorsed by all council members, including the US – was only possible thanks to Maltese diplomacy, Frazier argued.
The United Arab Emirates initially wanted to table a resolution condemning Israel for its settlements. In Malta’s view, that was a bad idea.
“I knew that a resolution would most likely end up getting vetoed [by the US]. And a veto shuts the door on an issue. There’s no room for manoeuvre,” Frazier recalled from her office at UN headquarters in New York.
To complicate matters further, the UAE raised the matter just days before all focus was due to shift onto the one-year anniversary of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Under new UN rules, a vetoed resolution triggers an automatic notification to the General Assembly.
“UN member states would have had two major issues to juggle within the same week,” Frazier said.
In the end, Malta’s diplomatic efforts paid off, and the UAE dropped its resolution in favour of a joint statement issued by all Security Council members – including Israel’s historic ally, the US.
It was the first Security Council statement about the long-running crisis in the Middle East in more than six years.
“This was a big deal,” the ambassador said.
The flurry of unexpected activity just ahead of the Ukraine war anniversary did not end there. On February 18, North Korea launched a long-range missile, fuelling concerns of its regional neighbour and current Security Council member Japan.
Frazier said Maltese diplomats immediately assured Japan that they would be convening a Security Council meeting tomorrow [Monday], to discuss the issue.
All the while, work on Malta’s two major areas of concern – sea level rise and the use of child soldiers – proceeded unabated.
“On the Security Council, you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” Frazier reflected. “But what is certain is that you only win if you stick to your principles.”
It’s an attitude that Malta will be carrying with it to April 2024, when it will once again assume the Security Council’s rotating presidency for one month.
“Coming into the presidency so early in our tenure we had no idea what we would be facing, but we discovered how well prepared we were for everything that came our way,” she reflects. “In April, we’ll have more confidence.”
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Frazier on Malta at the UN: “Malta has a great reputation at the UN. Our brand is very strong here. We have had very important UN initiatives in our history, and we are seen as a very principled country.”
Frazier on Malta’s UN push to address sea level rise: “This married our two most important UN initiatives – UNCLOS [The United Nations Conference of the Law of the Sea] and placing climate on the agenda of the General Assembly in the 1980s…. We wanted to open a conversation about this and give small island states the Security Council’s platform. We promised this to SIDS [Small Island Developing States] and Malta is not a country that doesn’t keep its word.”
Frazier on Malta’s focus on children in armed conflict: “The issue has nothing to do with migration. It’s not why Malta chose the topic. It’s been one of our UN priorities for years, and it’s about supporting our African neighbours, though it’s not just African states with this problem.
Frazier on her job and being a role model: I am one of those lucky people who found their ideal career. I am doing what I was meant to do. My mother and grandmother were homemakers, but they always encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to. And I want to encourage other girls to do the same.