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THERE has been no dearth of feeling around the horseshoe table of the Security Council in recent days.
最近，联合国安理会的马蹄形会议桌上不乏各种情绪。
The American ambassador, Samantha Power, choked up as she spoke of infants who perished in the Malaysia Airlines crash in Ukraine. The Dutch foreign minister, Frans Timmermans, could barely contain his anger as he recalled seeing pictures of “thugs” snatching wedding bands off the fingers of the victims. The Palestinian envoy, Riyad Mansour, grew quiet in the middle of a long recitation of names and ages — all belonging to children killed in the latest Israeli offensive in Gaza.
提到在乌克兰坠毁的马来西亚航空(Malaysia Airlines)客机上丧生的婴儿时，美国驻联合国大使萨曼莎·鲍尔(Samantha Power)几度哽咽。在回忆自己看到“暴徒”抢走遇难者手上的结婚戒指的照片时，荷兰外交大臣弗朗斯·蒂莫曼斯(Frans Timmermans)几乎怒不可遏。在朗读一长串姓名和年龄——它们都属于在以色列对加沙的最新攻击中遇难的儿童——的过程中，巴勒斯坦常驻联合国观察员里亚德·曼苏尔(Riyad Mansour)沉默了片刻。
The conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, not to mention the war in Syria, have presented diplomats with emotional testimonies of civilian suffering, even alleged crimes against humanity. Yet the 15-member Council has been unable to end these conflicts.
乌克兰和加沙的冲突，更不用提叙利亚战争，给外交官们提供了一份份情绪激动的关于平民苦难、乃至所谓的反人类罪行的证词。然而，拥有15个成员国的安理会却一直无法让这些冲突划上句号。
安理会成员国经常在利益攸关的冲突上行使否决权。
The problem is not that the major world powers don’t care. It is that they care too much.
问题不在于世界大国不在意这些问题，而是他们太过在意。
Russia and the United States have a great deal at stake in each conflict, and the rules of diplomacy enable them, as well as the other three permanent members — Britain, China and France — to veto any Security Council action. The United States has vetoed 14 draft resolutions, most of them involving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; Russia has vetoed 11 concerning its allies, like the government of Syria.
每场冲突都与俄罗斯和美国的利益息息相关，而外交规则使得它们，以及其他三个常任理事国——英国、中国和法国——有权否决安理会的一切行动。美国共否决了14份草案，其中大多与巴以冲突有关；俄罗斯否决了11份与其盟友——比如叙利亚政府——相关的草案。
“When you have a crisis where a major power has a national interest involved they will try to block interference by the Security Council,” said Gérard Araud, the French ambassador to the United Nations, who finished his term here on Friday. “The U.N.,” he said, ends up being “in charge of crises that are of no interest to anybody.”
“如果某场危机与某个大国的国家利益有关，他们就会试图阻止安理会进行干涉，”于周五结束任期的法国驻联合国大使热拉尔·阿罗(Gérard Araud)说。结果，“联合国负责处理对任何人都没关系的危机。”
Or, occasionally, mainly of interest to France, such as the conflict in the Central African Republic, where France corralled the world powers to authorize a United Nations peacekeeping mission.
或者，偶尔会处理主要与法国的利益相关的事务。比如在中非共和国的冲突中，法国曾把世界大国聚集起来，批准了一项联合国维和任务。
Not so in the case of Gaza. As the death toll in the fighting climbed past 800, no swift movement was expected on a draft resolution circulated to Council members last week on behalf of Arab countries calling for the protection of civilians. Late last week, Council members said they were waiting for Secretary of State John Kerry’s cease-fire efforts to bear fruit before taking action. In the case of Ukraine, the Council seems equally incapable of devising a political solution to the crisis, which has become what Richard Gowan, an analyst at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, calls a proxy war between Russia and the West. And with Syria, Russian support for President Bashar al-Assad’s government has led to four successive vetoes of resolutions on the conflict.
然而，加沙问题并非如此。虽然武装冲突中的死亡人数已攀升至逾800人，但是，安理会预计不会就上周代表阿拉伯国家提出的呼吁保护平民的一份决议草案采取迅速行动。上周晚些时候，安理会成员国称，在采取行动之前，他们要等美国国务卿约翰·克里(John Kerry)为达成停火协议所进行的努力奏效。至于乌克兰，安理会似乎同样无力拿出一个能解决这场危机的政治解决方案。纽约大学国际合作中心(Center on International Cooperation at New York University)的分析人士理查德·高恩(Richard Gowan)称，乌克兰危机已经演变成了俄罗斯和西方之间的一场代理人战争。而在叙利亚问题上，俄罗斯对巴沙尔·阿萨德总统(Bashar al-Assad)领导的政府的支持，已经导致有关该国冲突的决议连续四次遭到否决。
The right of veto has long enabled the permanent members to reject anything that threatens their strategic interests, despite the organization’s lofty principles, notably its mandate to protect civilians when their own state authorities cannot.
尽管安理会有崇高的原则，尤其是有权在一地的权力机构无力保护平民时为其提供保护，但长期以来，否决权使得常任理事国能够反对一切危及自身战略利益的事情。
France and Britain both support the idea of limiting veto power in cases of mass atrocities. The proposal, first floated several years ago by several small countries, has been ignored by China, Russia and the United States.
法国和英国均支持在发生大规模暴行时限制否决权的提议。这个主意最初是由几个小国在几年前提出的，但一直遭到中国、俄罗斯和美国的无视。
The Council’s most vociferous critics wasted no time last week reminding the permanent members of their responsibility.
上周，最为严厉抨击联合国的人士争分夺秒地提醒常任理事国，不要忘记自己的职责。
“The commendable emphasis placed by the Security Council on the protection of civilians in other items of its agenda cannot be sidestepped when it comes to the responsibility to protect Palestinians, who bear the brunt of the violence,” said Brazil’s deputy permanent representative, Guilherme de Aguiar Patriota, in an open debate in the Council on Tuesday.
“在安理会日程中的一些项目里，对保护平民的强调值得称道，但在说到保护承受最多暴力的巴勒斯坦人的职责时，不应予以回避，”巴西常驻联合国副代表吉列尔梅·德阿吉亚尔·帕特里奥塔(Guilherme de Aguiar Patriota)周二在安理会的公开辩论中说。
The Council has in recent months proved to be more effective in cooling tempers than stopping warfare, Mr. Gowan pointed out.
高恩指出，在近几个月里，安理会证明，和终结战争相比，它在让各方保持冷静上更为有效。
After the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, and accusations of Russian support for the separatist rebels whom the West considers responsible, the Council managed to pass a modest resolution to send international investigators to the crash site. Likewise, the Council passed a measure that authorized humanitarian aid delivery to rebel-held areas in Syria; the first convoys began moving Thursday.
马航MH17航班被击落后，西方认为应对事件负责的是分裂主义叛军，并谴责俄罗斯对他们予以支持。安理会随后设法通过了一项温和的决议，以派遣国际调查人员前往坠机现场。同样地，安理会还通过了一项决议，授权人道主义救援物资进入叙利亚被反对派占领的地区；第一批车队已于周四启程。
Mr. Gowan called such gestures “a pressure valve” that postponed a broader political solution to the conflicts.
高恩称，这类姿态是“一种减压阀”，推迟了在相关冲突上更广泛的政治解决方案的最后期限。
“Sometimes you go to the Council to show how angry you are,” Mr. Gowan said. “Sometimes you go to the Council because it buys time to get a deal.”
“有时候去安理会是为了表明自己的愤怒之情，”高恩说，“有时候去安理会则是因为它可以为达成协议争取时间。”
The Ukraine resolution to send investigators did not contain any threat of enforcement, though — nor, crucially, any path to peace. On Wednesday, two days after the measure passed, two Ukrainian jets were shot down. The Ukrainian government quickly accused Russia.
然而，乌克兰问题的决议尽管规定派出调查人员，但并不具备任何强制约束力——至关重要的是，也不包括任何通往和平的途径。在决议通过两天后的周三，乌克兰的两架喷气式飞机被击落。乌克兰政府立即把矛头指向了俄罗斯。
Somini Sengupta是《纽约时报》驻联合国记者
翻译：陈柳、陈亦亭
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