UN General Assembly
2017

I am proud that we have used the full weight of our diplomacy to ensure that we have not had to exercise our veto in a generation. We seek to foster international cooperation, not frustrate it. But others have not done so. One country in particular has used its veto as many times in the past five years as in the whole of the second half of the Cold War. In doing so they have prevented action against a despicable regime that has murdered its own people with chemical weapons. As a result, in Syria, the United Nations has been blocked. That has undermined the values that we hold dear and the international rules-based system that is the basis of security and prosperity around the world.