Debate on Cooperation between the UN and the CSTO, the CIS, and the SCO*
Tomorrow morning (19 July), the Security Council will hold a debate on cooperation between the UN and regional and subregional organisations, focusing on the role of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in maintaining international peace and security. Russia, a founding member of these three organisations, is convening the debate as a signature event of its July Council presidency, and its Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin will chair the meeting. Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support Elizabeth Spehar*, CSTO Secretary General Imangali Tasmagambetov, CIS Secretary General Sergey Lebedev, and SCO Secretary General Zhang Ming are expected to brief.
Strengthening cooperation with regional and sub-regional organisations—as envisioned in Chapter VIII of the UN Charter—has become an increasingly prominent theme for the Security Council. The AU, the EU, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) are some of the organisations that have developed more institutionalised relationships with the Council.
In recent years, Russia has sought to promote greater cooperation between the UN and regional organisations operating in the Eurasian region. Tomorrow’s debate will be the fourth meeting organised by Russia on this topic. During its October 2016 presidency of the Council, Russia organised the first Council meeting on cooperation between the UN and the CSTO, the SCO, and the CIS. In September 2019, Russia initiated a ministerial-level debate on the role of these organisations in countering terrorist threats. Most recently, on 16 February 2022, Russia convened a debate focusing on cooperation between the UN and the CSTO. Tomorrow’s debate will be the first meeting on this topic since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
According to a concept note (S/2024/538) circulated by Russia ahead of tomorrow’s meeting, the objective of the debate is to offer an opportunity for member states to “share their vision for enhancing security in Eurasia through existing regional mechanisms”. Delegations participating in the debate are encouraged to offer insights in this regard, including on the nexus between security and development.
The concept note describes the roles of the CSTO, the CIS, and the SCO, and outlines the framework governing cooperation between these organisations and the UN. It highlights that cooperation has progressed across several different tracks, including counter-terrorism, drug trafficking, and combatting organised crime. The concept note poses several questions to help guide the discussion at tomorrow’s meeting:
- How can regional organisations contribute to further strengthening the UN and promoting its goals?
- How can the potential of regional organisations such as the CSTO, the SCO, and the CIS to complement the UN’s efforts in maintaining peace and security be enhanced?
- What new areas of cooperation between the UN and regional organisations may appear in the future?
Council members are generally supportive of efforts to enhance cooperation between the UN and regional and subregional organisations. There are, however, apparent divisions among Council members in their positions about the CSTO, the CIS, and the SCO. Some members—including the P3 (France, the UK, and the US)—have been critical of these organisations, viewing them as a vehicle for some of their most dominant members to enhance their influence in the region. On the other hand, Russia has argued that certain Council members have sought to downplay the role of these organisations.
These divisions have been evident during Council discussions on the UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA). Until early 2015, Council members routinely issued a press statement after each biannual briefing on UNRCCA, encouraging increased cooperation and coordination among the Central Asian countries, UNRCCA, and “relevant regional organisations”. In recent years, however, Russia (the penholder on UNRCCA) proposed including specific references to the CSTO, the SCO, and the CIS alongside the OSCE and the EU. The P3 members have opposed these additions, and a press statement on the UNRCCA has not been issued since January 2018.
Divisions among member states regarding cooperation between the UN and the CSTO, the CIS, and the SCO have become more pronounced following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. As a result, discussions in the General Assembly on this topic, previously non-controversial, have become increasingly contentious. An illustrative example occurred on 21 November 2022, when the General Assembly voted on separate draft resolutions on cooperation between the UN and various regional organisations. Typically adopted by consensus without a vote, a recorded vote was requested for resolution A/RES/77/13 on cooperation between the UN and the CSTO. Prior to the vote, Russia expressed regret over a letter from Ukraine indicating its intention to vote against the draft resolution, and described it as an attempt to project the “difficult bilateral relations onto a regional organization that is in no way involved” in the conflict. Russia further warned that putting a technical draft to a vote could open the door for reconsideration of “any agreed language in similar resolutions”.
Russia also criticised what it described as attempts to politicise resolutions on cooperation between the UN and regional organisations, citing resolution A/RES/77/19 of 21 November 2022 on cooperation between the UN and the Central European Initiative (CEI). This resolution included both preambular and operative paragraphs referencing the CEI’s efforts to alleviate the “serious consequences caused by the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine”. Notably, a request was made to conduct a vote on both paragraphs.
Several delegations—including Council members France, Guyana, Japan, Malta, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Slovenia, Switzerland, the UK, and the US—abstained from voting on resolution A/RES/77/13, saying that they are unable to support a resolution endorsing UN-CSTO cooperation in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Pointing out that the Russian armed forces constitute a core component of the CSTO, some member states argued that the war in Ukraine has hampered the CSTO’s credibility and presented a substantial barrier to effective cooperation with the UN.
The work of the UNRCCA is a likely topic of discussion tomorrow. The cooperation between the regional centre and the CSTO, the CIS, and the SCO is highlighted in the concept note as a “positive example” of cooperation between the UN and regional organisations. The role in Afghanistan of regional organisations might also be discussed. The concept note says that the CSTO, through its working group on Afghanistan, is actively contributing to efforts aimed at countering threats emanating from the country.
The debate will also provide an opportunity for Council members to discuss cooperation between the UN and regional organisations more broadly. In this regard, some Council members are expected to highlight initiatives throughout the region by other regional organisations, such as the EU, the OSCE, and the C5+1 diplomatic platform, which is a summit held annually since 2015 among the foreign ministers of the five Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, together with the US Secretary of State.
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Post-scrip: An earlier version did not list Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support Elizabeth Spehar as one of the briefers for the meeting. The story was amended to reflect that Spehar also briefed at the meeting.
