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UN dysfunction: Medvedev sees organization in disarray

There are states that actually try to dictate their will and impose some ideas of their own atop the international law system, some of which have no legal dimension at all, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman said
Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev Yekaterina Shtukina/POOL/TASS
Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev
© Yekaterina Shtukina/POOL/TASS

MOSCOW, December 12. /TASS/. The UN fails to do its job because its member states cannot agree on anything, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said during a meeting with students.

"Take the UN. The most important, central institution of the international relations system fails to do its duty, because [member] states have very different positions. And there are states that actually try to dictate their will and impose some ideas of their own atop the international law system, some of which have no legal dimension at all," Medvedev said.

He provided the US rule doctrine, "which is unwritten, and the order, based on those rules," as an example.

"When we ask them: what is it, show us, they say - there’s nothing to show. In the imagination of the US and its allies this is how it is: what we say is international law, what we feel is the right order."

He noted that the colossal crisis of the last-century international law system is obvious now.

"International law has not died, but we see a colossal crisis in international law. Everything that was is now being challenged because life has changed and institutions do not operate the way they should," Medvedev believes.

Medvedev noted that the law is flexible and it can change.

"If we [do not] want to talk to each other in the language of guns, and this is the most difficult way that is sometimes impossible to avoid, then we will have to improve the international law system," Medvedev said.