From Israel to nuclear weapons, here’s how Malaysia has voted on past UN resolutions

On the international stage, Malaysia is hardly seen as a superpower when it comes to military might; sure, we’ve got one of the most competent militaries in the world (we’ve sent troops to peacekeeping operations all over the world, and we actually train US/UK soldiers in jungle warfare), but technology and superweapon-wise, we still rely on a number of other allied countries to provide us with additional firepower.

But Malaysia does exercise its voice more often on the diplomatic stage, especially at the United Nations; we’ve actually served four separate terms on the rotational non-permanent Security Council. But what stances have we taken on various world issues, and how strong has our voice been when speaking out on those issues? Here are a few from recent times, as well as from years past:

1) The war in Ukraine (2nd March 2022)

Considering that Malaysia is pretty much friends with everyone except Israel, it’s rare that we step in between two countries in direct conflict with each other. But step in we did, and Malaysia voted in favor of UN General Assembly Resolution ES-11/1 , titled ‘Aggression against Ukraine’, demanding a full withdrawal of Russian troops.

The vote was called during the 11th Emergency Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly, following Russia’s veto of the US-drafted resolution to end Russian military action in Ukraine.

And although Malaysia voted ‘despite not agreeing to every single word in the resolution’, Wisma Putra gave their justification for the vote as:

“It is in line with Malaysia’s longstanding position on the need to consistently uphold the principles of sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of States – principles which are sacrosanct to Malaysia.” – Wisma Putra

It’s a pretty big statement from a country that mostly stays neutral on international matters of conflict, but of course no one likes war, and calling for peace is probably the least we could have done (although we did stop short of imposing sanctions on Russia like our neighbors Singapore did).

Also worth noting is the fact that because this was a procedural vote, Russia could not exercise its veto power, and the resolution was eventually passed and adopted by the UN.

2) Illegal Israeli settlements (23rd December 2016)

… and not only did we vote on this, we actually drafted it. 

Now, we won’t go too much into the Israel-Palestine conflict itself as it’s been done to death by now. But the resolution, tabled by Malaysia, New Zealand, Senegal, and Venezuela called for ‘the cessation of all Israeli settlement activities’. The UN holds that Israeli-established settlements in Palestinian territory since 1967 has no legal validity.

What was most surprising was the text was actually allowed to move to the voting stage by the United States, despite the pro-Israel Trump administration pressuring their UN rep to veto it. And it ultimately passed with 14 ‘yes’ votes (the US abstained), and the UN adopted it as Resolution 2334, thus reaffirming their stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

In a later statement, then-Malaysian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ramlan Ibrahim called the resolution his ‘crowning experience’, especially considering Malaysia’s ‘underdog’ status and the common expectation that the US would veto (since they’ve vetoed Israel-Palestine resolutions several times before).

Despite all this, it doesn’t seem to have had much impact on the situation, as Israel continued to expand into Palestine even up until last year. But of course, the Israel-Palestine conflict is an incredibly complex one, and no one is quite sure how it will ever be resolved, if at all.

3) MH17 international tribunal (29th July 2014)

We all remember this. When MH17 was shot down, the mess that followed in the international community was astronomical. Understandably, everyone wanted to know who was responsible, and so Malaysia pushed for the establishment of an international tribunal into the disaster. It was supported by the Netherlands, Ukraine, Belgium, and Australia.

But of course, the UN is what the UN is, and this proposal was vetoed by Russia because a tribunal would be, in the Kremlin’s words, ‘counter-productive’ and ‘counter-intuitive’.

Four men have been charged in absentia with the downing of the plane, but they remain at large, and Australia and the Netherlands have launched legal proceedings against the state of Russia. The case remains unresolved to this day.

4) Nuclear disarmament (23rd December 2016)

Malaysia has been a consistent advocate of nuclear disarmament, and recently we’ve played a big role on the world stage when it comes to anti-nuclear voting. In 2016, we voted ‘Yes’ on a historic resolution to begin negotiations on a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. It was eventually adopted by the UN as Resolution L.14.

Besides that, Malaysia also chaired the third and final preparatory committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which imposes a legal obligation on the five Nuclear Weapon States (US, UK, Russia, China, France) to basically rid the world of nuclear weapons one day.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bad enough. Let’s hope we never get to see another nuclear weapon being used in our lifetimes.

5) Bonus: How the UN voted for Malaya’s membership into the UN (17th September 1957)

Ok, a bit of a throwback here, but we’d thought it’d be interesting to go back to the start of it all, when Malaya was first accepted into the UN. And as it turns out, even back then we were the popular kids at school; EVERY single UN Security Council member voted us in. 

Thus, through Resolution 1134(XII), we were accepted into the UN as their 82nd member, and so began a beautiful friendship that lasts to this day.

We might not have the largest military, but we’re sure as heck good at diplomacy

Founded after WWII to prevent future wars, the UN isn’t doing a perfect job of that at the moment (as the Russia-Ukraine conflict is showing), but at the very least it gives us a platform to voice our views on the international stage in a civil manner. Malaysia are known internationally as the good guys on the block, adopting a ‘friend-to-all’ policy (unless you’re Israel, of course). And we’ve stuck to that policy to this day.

Because say what you want about our government, but at the very least, we’re in the good books of nearly every other country. Which is a  good thing cos, you know, it reduces the chance of people imposing sanctions on us, or worse: attacking us.

In any case, the relative peace Malaysia has domestically and internationally is something we’d like to see continued, and we sure as heck wouldn’t trade that for the world.