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POLITICS: U.N. Reform – Will Anyone Compromise?

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 13 2003 (IPS) - When he addressed reporters at a recent U.N. press conference in New York, visiting Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo was visibly annoyed when asked if South Africa should have a permanent seat in the Security Council.

Obasanjo, who is staking his claims for the same seat that South Africa is aspiring to, dismissed the question: ”If Africa is to have a permanent seat in the Security Council, it would be discussed by African states and not by the correspondent of the ‘Financial Times’.”

Obasanjo’s brusque remarks reinforce a fact of life in the United Nations: Security Council reform is still a politically sensitive issue among most member states, including some southern nations that have been loudly calling for changes in the months following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, when the Council appeared powerless to act.

Can reform fly this time around?

Jim Paul of the New-York-based Global Policy Forum, which has been in the forefront of an intense campaign to restructure and revitalise the United Nations, is sceptical.

”We have been negotiating for 10 long years,” Paul told IPS. ”I think it is very unlikely that we will have any reforms that involve changes in the U.N. charter.”

These changes relate to a proposed increase in both the current five permanent and the 10 rotating members in the Security Council, and also the abolition of veto powers.

All five permanent members – the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia – have strongly opposed the dilution or outright elimination of their tightly held veto powers.

”We would like to see a reduction in the veto powers,” Paul said. ”But nobody out there seriously thinks that is going to happen.”

Paul said there is strong support among most western nations that Japan and Germany, two major industrial powers, should be admitted as new permanent members.

”But will this happen? The answer is no, because nobody in the South will allow Germany and Japan to come on board because the Security Council will then be worse off than before.”

Developing nations in the South say the Council as it is now constituted does not truly reflect the membership of the world body because no developing nations are permanent members. Of the 191 U.N. member states more than two-thirds are from the developing world.

”So I think there is very strong resistance from every continent, including Europe,” Paul said, ”because the Italians hate the idea of Germany coming in as a permanent member.”

But developing nations have not been able to lobby in a single voice because of a strong division over which nations should represent Africa, Asia and Latin America in a restructured Security Council.

The contenders for a permanent seat in an expanded body are numerous: India and Indonesia (battling to represent Asia), Brazil, Argentina and Mexico (claiming a seat on behalf of Latin America) and South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt (seeking to represent Africa).

The 116-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which represents the developing world, has refused to take a collective stand on Security Council reform. ”Each man to himself – and God for us all,” says one NAM member sarcastically.

Since most of the contenders are members of NAM, the Third World political grouping thinks the issue is too divisive even for a meaningful discussion.

”Security Council reform is the thorniest challenge facing the international community,” Don Kraus, director of the ‘Campaign for U.N. Reform’ told IPS.

”The current structure, with its veto-wielding permanent members, is not perceived as representative or effective,” he added.

While there are many conflicting proposals on how to change the make-up of the Security Council, ”it is clear that the world doesn’t need another permanent member with a veto that can stop the Council from taking action when it should,” he argued.

Kraus said member states will need to look at ”new creative proposals” that will increase the Council’s legitimacy while providing enough benefits to induce the ”permanent five” to give up some of their prerogatives.

”Permanent members must realise that if the Council continues to lose legitimacy, their vetoes will become meaningless,” he added.

Several proposals – including weighted voting, re-defining regional representation and phasing out or modifying vetoes – could be seriously examined, said Kraus.

Providing additional resources could also increase the body’s legitimacy and effectiveness, he suggested.

”Along with examining the Council’s voting structure, serious look should be given to establishing a U.N. civilian police force and other means to increase its ability to protect U.N. employees and respond to threats to the peace,” Kraus said.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters last month: ”We have been discussing the reform of the Security Council for more than a decade.”

But he said the Iraqi crisis has brought the issue to the fore again. ”In tackling it this time," said Annan, "I hope we will be much more creative and much more daring, and look at the issue in a broader context and really try to make progress".

”My sense in my contacts with leaders around the world is that they seem determined to move forward. We should all put our thinking caps on and really make some creative proposals,” he added.

The secretary-general also believes that the composition of the Council – unchanged in its essentials since 1945 – ”seems at odds with the geopolitical realities of the 21st century”.

Last month Annan named a 16-member group, headed by former Thai Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun, to review the role of the United Nations and spell out new proposals to make it a more meaningful and effective world body for the 21st century.