United Nations, Jan 15 : Declaring that reforming the Security Council is a priority for the organization to meet its global challenges, General Assembly (UNGA) President Sam K. Kutesa Wednesday called for moving ahead next month towards document-based negotiations on the reforms.
India considers expanding the Council to give it a permanent seat a matter of great importance and has campaigned for it.
Briefing the UNGA, Kutesa said that as the UN celebrates its 70th anniversary this year "it is critical that we consider how we can reform and strengthen the organisation to meet the world's increasingly complex global challenges" and for this Security Council reform is a "priority."
"I would like to reiterate the need to move the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) on Security Council reform forward," he said. "The on-going informal consultations by the (IGN) Chair are critical to finding a way toward text-based negotiations, with the next round of negotiations scheduled to begin in February."
Although the current initiative for council reform began at the World Summit in 2005 it has made little progress. The lack of a negotiating document has been a major roadblock and, therefore, Kutesa is calling for text-based negotiations.
The issue of having such a text has been caught in a Catch-22 situation with some countries insisting on a consensus on reforms before a document can be produced, while talks for a consensus have not been able to proceed without a written framework for the discussions.
A reason why some countries oppose the creation of a negotiating text is that they fear it would give some countries seeking permanent seats an edge by putting their names out there and handicap others.
Last year Kutesa appointed Jamaican Ambassador Courtenay Rattray as the chairman of the IGN, succeeding Afghanistan's Ambassador Zahir Tanin.
During an UNGA debate on Council reform last November, India's Permanent Representative Asoke Kumar Mukerji appealed to Kutesa to act on the matter. "We now look to you, as the President of the General Assembly, to truly empower our Chairman by giving him, under your authority, a text on the basis of which all of us can begin to engage in actual negotiations," he said.
A group known as L69 and comprising 42 countries from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean region had also backed the appeal to Kutesa to "mandate the (IGN) Chair to conduct negotiations immediately on the basis of a text, which is tabled with your full authority and backing."
Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, which were then considered the leading powers on the winning side in World War II, have been the permanent members of the Security Council with powers to veto its resolutions since the founding of the UN in 1945.
Originally, Taiwan held the China seat and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics the Russia seat, and other than that there have been no changes in the permanent membership to reflect the vast global changes since its founding although the UN's total membership has risen from 51 to 193.
There are in addition members who are elected to two-year terms to the Council based on a system of regional representation and their number was raised from six to ten in 1965, the last time there was any change in the composition of the council.
India's candidacy for a permanent seat in the Council is backed by four of the five permanent members, Britain, France, Russia and the United States. Brazil, Japan and Germany, along with India, are considered the leading candidates for permanent seats in an expanded Council.
Uniting for Consensus (UfC), a 13-member group that includes Pakistan, Italy and Canada, opposes adding permanent members to the Council.
(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in)
