Progress made on UNSC reform

UNITED NATIONS—UN Member States have paved the way to identifying the contentious elements that will form the basis of negotiations on reforming the Security Council, the General Assembly President said Wednesday.
Wrapping up a three-day debate on the issue, president Srgjan Kerim said the discussion “demonstrated the clear commitment of Member States to embark upon a new stage that offers the prospect of achieving the ultimate goal of comprehensive reform of the Security Council.”
He noted that nearly half of the UN’s membership had taken part in “a frank and effective dialogue” in which they all agreed on the importance and urgency of Council reform, even if they still differed on the precise formula for change and the process for achieving it.
Practically all member states agree on expanding the membership of Council, but they are sharply divided on the category in which the increase should take place and by how many. In July 2005, India, Brazil, Germany and Japan, the aspirants to permanent seats on the Council known as the Group of Four, called for boosting its membership from 15 members to 25, with six new permanent seats without veto power and two for the African region as well as four non-permanent seats. The Italy/Pakistan-led “Uniting for Consensus (UfC) group opposed any expansion of the permanent members on the Security Council. It sought enlargement of the council to 25 seats, with 10 new non-permanent members who would be elected for two-year terms, with the possibility of immediate re-election. The African Union’s called for the Council to be enlarged to 26 seats, one more permanent seat than the G-4 proposal. Its proposal for six new permanent seats was the same as the G- ’s, except that it would give the new members veto privileges.
But none of the three proposals had the required twothird majority in the 192-member Assembly and therefore were not pressed to a vote last year. In his closing remarks, the 192-member assembly president said the process “will require our combined efforts based on pragmatism, political courage, mutual faith and respect, as well as flexibility and the political will to reach the broadest possible agreement.” Kerim warned that the world “cannot afford to undermine this collective political momentum by calculating to imbibe it with hesitation in order to derail or disrupt the process.”
But for intergovernmental negotiations on the issue to begin successfully, the Assembly President said Member States should be guided by a series of principles that have emerged during the long-running debate on Council reform. Those elements include: that Council reform must go hand-in-hand with transforming the wider UN system; that negotiations must be undertaken in good faith.—APP