POLITICS-UN: More to Reform than Expanding Security Council

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 19 1997 (IPS) - Plans to expand the U.N. Security Council have run aground for now but, there is a general feeling among diplomats that this does not mean that reforms of the Council – or of the United Nations in general – also have ended.

Pakistani Ambassador Ahmad Kamal, an opponent of the endeavor to expand the permanent membership of the Security Council, told IPS that the recent collapse of plans to add Germany, Japan and three developing nations as permanent members is one that “should have been stillborn, and was cock-eyed when it was originally presented.”

By contrast, he said, there is an urgent need to make the Council’s work more open, and to question the current privileges of Security Council’s members holding the power of veto.

These five permanent members of the 15-nation Council – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States – were voted to that status in 1945 as a “hangover” from World War II, Kamal argued. Global changes since then should compel a re-examination of their powers, and not simply result in calls for new additions, Kamal contended.

“There is no justification today for the fact that Europe, which is becoming increasingly united today…should have two permanent seats in the Council, and should aspire to a third,” Kamal said. In fact, he added, the current concentration of power among the five permanent members at the expense of the 180 other U.N. member states begs the question: “Do we need permanent membership at all?”

Just weeks ago, several nations were asking a quite different question – seeking to include more, not fewer, permanent members. A plan developed by former General Assembly president, and current Malaysian ambassador, Razali Ismail was intended to increase support for a ‘framework’ in which permanent membership would be given to Germany, Japan, and one seat each for Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Several countries upset by the expansion plan – notably including Italy, a longtime opponent of the Germany-Japan inclusion plans, and Pakistan, which has been concerned by the possibility that India could hold Asia’s seat – were successful in forging a bloc opposed to a quick vote on the Razali plan. Conceding that “we haven’t got our act together,” German Ambassador Tono Eitel noted recently that the pro-expansion nations were unable to secure enough votes to push any ‘framework’ resolution this year.

The pro-expansionists’ failure, Kamal argued, resulted from concerns that a few nations were trying to expand the Council by a simple majority vote among members present in the 185-nation Assembly. But any vote on changing the Security Council’s make-up, even one on the desirability of that goal, inmplies a change in the U.N. Charter and therefore must be passed by two-thirds of all members, or 124 nations, Kamal said.

“It is common knowledge that, whenever sensitive or controversial issues are voted on at the United Nations, more than a few countries act like Pontius Pilate: they wash their hands of the matter,” Italian Ambassador Francesco Paolo Fulci said recently. “They just abstain, or happen not to be present at a crucial time.”

The plans for a simple majority vote, said Kamal, could have allowed relatively few nations to push through an expansion plan – even though 114 countries in the Non-Aligned Movement committed themselves to seeking only non-permanent Council expansion if no agreement on permanent seats could be reached. “The whole game was tendentious,” Kamal said. As a result, he added, the bloc opposing quick Council expansion grew to its present size of 43 nations.

“I hope that (the Razali-derived plan) is dead,” Kamal said. “Obviously, the group to which I belong is a large group, an ever- expanding group … We will see what happens next year.”

Razali himself concedes that the plan to add five new permanent members is all but over. “The Razali group is defunct, is non- existent, and I have no intention of reviving it,” the Malaysian ambassador told a workshop organised by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation last week. His expansion package, Razali added simply, is “dead.”

Some of the credit, Razali added, went to the success of the anti-expansion nations in rallying support for their case. But the failure to secure a viable expansion plan also stems at least in part, he argued, from the United States’ unwillingness to add more non-permanent seats, which rotate every two years and do not carry a veto.

U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson this summer said that Washington would only allow as many as 21 Council seats – the additions coming from the five new permanent members and at most one non-permanent seat. Razali, who had earlier called that plan “absurd” and pushed for between 24 and 26 seats overall, noted last week, “The Americans have not moved one inch on the numbers.”

With expansion plans now largely blocked, however, there is much reform work that needs to be done, Kamal argued. The Non- aligned Movement’s efforts to increase non-permanent membership should be considered, he said, as should efforts to open up the Council’s work.

“There has been a progressive shift of the centre of gravity from the General Assembly to the Security Council,” he said. If the Council continues to decide a wide range of affairs, Kamal added, “there should be more participation in it.”

Meanwhile, other reforms continue apace. On Friday, the General Assembly approved a decision to create a new position of deputy secretary-general, which Kamal added “would be an assistant to the secretary-general … (rather than) a separate layer of decision-making.”

An announcement on the deputy – expected to be Canadian Deputy Defense Minister Louise Frechette – will be made next week, U.N. sources say.