UNSC Reforms Gain Momentum With Consensus on Increasing Size

Despite opposition from Russia and US, UNSC has gained consensus on increasing the size of the UN body.

Members of the Security Council vote during a meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York in 2014. (Photo: Reuters)

Security Council reforms have gained momentum, with a consensus emerging on increasing the size of the currently 15-member UN body to a number somewhere in the mid-20s, despite opposition from Russia and the US at the recent negotiating session, according to diplomatic sources.

While the issue of adding permanent members was not on the session’s agenda and was supposed to be scheduled for later, Pakistan and a group of countries served notice that they would oppose any such move.

Despite these differences, the “momentum of convergence is gaining speed” for reforms, said a diplomat who was at the 22 February meeting. The diplomat cited the overwhelming support for increasing the total number of Council members from 15 to the mid-20s as well as for other reforms.

These reforms include making the Council’s working more transparent, emphasising mediation over military force, and more involvement of non-member countries in its activities.

This was the second session of the Intergovernmental Negotiations on Security Council Reforms (IGN) after the General Assembly overcame stiff opposition last year to adopt a text to base the discussions on.

Who Endorsed What Side

The US and Russia wanted the size of the Council restricted to 20, asserting that anything more would undermine its efficiency.

Limiting it to 20 would make it virtually impossible to add permanent members because there would then be no room for any non-permanent members, which would be the priority of most countries to broaden the representation on the UN’s highest decision-making body.

Washington and Moscow have, however, endorsed adding permanent members, with India being one of them. But a 20-member limit on the Council could nullify this.

The other permanent members, Britain and France, backed the mid-20s number, while China did not take a stand.

India supported going up to 27 and Permanent Representative Syed Akbaruddin said:

Efficiency is not merely an issue of numbers but stems from a broader set of factors such as credibility, equitability, legitimacy and representativeness.

Russia also opposed proposals coming from the Inter-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) on reforming the working of the Council – the other item on the agenda –claiming that it was an internal matter that only the Council should decide upon.

The IGN is to discuss the veto issue on 9 March, including whether new permanent members should have veto powers and if they should voluntarily forgo them.

But in a preview of differences expected at the session, African nations said they wanted two permanent members from their region with veto powers and all other privileges that the current five have.

While China spoke of greater role for developing countries it avoided saying anything on adding permanent members so as not to publicly antagonise the African countries, even as it lobbies against more permanent members.

Pakistan’s Permanent Representative Maleeha Lodhi said categorically: “There should be no additional permanent seats.”

File photo of Brazil President Rousseff, German Chancellor Merkel, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Abe. (Photo Courtesy: Twitter/@MEASpokesperson)

How to Allot the Permanent Seats

Pakistan belongs to a 13-member United for Consensus (UfC) group led by Italy that campaigns against adding permanent members and held up the reform process for several years by preventing the adoption of a negotiating text for the talks.

Italian Permanent Representative Sebastiano Cardi, speaking on behalf of UfC, suggested adding 11 seats to the Council, but said:

UfC countries are convinced that we cannot afford to allocate seats permanently to a few countries at the expense of the rest of the membership.

Cardi examined the current distribution of seats in the Council to various groups, which gives five seats to the Europe and North America group and only three each to the Asia-Pacific and Africa groups and two each to Eastern Europe and Latin America groups.

This resulted in one Council seat for every 26 Asian-Pacific countries and one seat for every 18 African nations, he said. To right the imbalance, the majority of the added seats should go to Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America, he said.

German Permanent Representative Harald Braun, who spoke on behalf of the four-nation group, the G4, that includes India, Brazil and Japan, said he was “gratified” that the UfC supported his group’s proposal on enlarging the Council and added that this “indicated the group’s willingness to consolidating this point accordingly”.

The G4 nations lobbied for adding permanent seats and mutually support each for them.

(Arul Louis is an International Affairs correspondant for IANS. Louis can be reached at [e-mail]. This article has been published in a special arrangement with IANS.)