Revamping of the UN Security Council
THE UN Charter was signed on June 26, 1945 in San Francisco. Since almost all developing countries in Asia and Africa were at that time under colonial rule, only 51-member countries participated and signed the Charter.
The UN is 64 years old and the number of member states currently stands at 192. Bangladesh was the 136th member of the UN in 1974. East Timor is the last country to be admitted into the UN in September 2002.
The UN was set up by the victors in the Second World War, and the world has changed since then. The Group of Seven countries, with the exception of Japan, hailed from the Atlantic. And that group, save for Germany and Japan, was collectively a group of debtor states. Some of the nations that contribute most funds to the UN are not represented at the Security Council.
The structure of the organisation has remained the same since 1945. Time and again many nations have spoken out for restructuring to meet the economic and political realities of the time, but nothing has come of it.
A serious attempt was made in 2005 by former Secretary General Annan. He appointed a task force with sixteen "wise individuals" led by former Thai Prime Minister Dr. Anand Panyrachun to recommend necessary reforms of the UN. The task force suggested many reforms including the expansion of the Security Council, the most important institution of the UN.
The call for expansion of the Security Council is justified by the need for greater credibility, representation, effectiveness and enhanced capacity for maintenance of international peace and security.
Two models were suggested. Model A would see an expansion of the Council from the existing fifteen to twenty four members -- six each from Asia and Pacific, Africa, Europe and the Americas. The additional nine members would be divided into six permanent members and three non-permanent members.
That means one member-country from a region would become a permanent member. The countries which lobbied for the position were Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, Egypt/Nigeria and South Africa.
Model B would see eight an additional members -- two from each region for four-year terms and one non-permanent member.
However, opposition to the expansion of the Security Council comes from three groups: (a) those countries with a vested interest in the status quo, particularly the permanent five members with veto-powers, (b) the regional rivals of each of the leading candidate countries, and (c) a large group of countries who would see their status diminished with the expansion of permanent members in the Council.
The lobbying in 2005 by Brazil, Japan, India and Germany, as a group, for being accepted as permanent members was opposed by many regional members. As a result, no formal discussion took place for the expansion of the Council at the UN in 2005. The expansion of the Council as recommended by the task force was simply aborted.
Italian proposal in 2009:
Italy has taken the initiative to break the impasse in 2009 with regard to the expansion of the Security Council with an innovative proposal. To remove regional rivalries, it has proposed regional representation in the Council that may rotate among regional countries. This means every South Asian country would become a member of the Council by rotation. The seats should reflect genuine regional representation, not of an individual state acting in a national capacity. Furthermore, the regional groups should be empowered by getting greater weight in the Council's decision-making process relating to a situation within the region. Italy has also proposed reservation of seats in the Council for small states having populations between one million to ten million. On March 24, the Permanent Representative of Italy in the UN, New York, Ambassador Terzi argued: "On one fundamental point we all agree: the Security Council that we are trying to create has to be updated to be more in tune with contemporary reality. Regionalism, which is interconnected to multilateralism, is perhaps the greatest new development of our time. In 1945, in San Francisco it was an embryonic phenomenon. Today it is a fully developed reality." The UN remains the one and best hope for unity in diversity in a world in which global problems require multilateral solutions. It is the embodiment of the international community and the custodian of world conscience. However, the restructuring of the Security Council has been a graveyard for almost all previous reform proposals. Since 1945, the "conceit" prevailed that the world could be run essentially by the victors of the Second World War. The Group of Twenty meeting in London in April to tackle global economic meltdown finally nailed that "conceit." Against this background, it is time now to seriously consider the expansion of the Security Council.
Italy has taken the initiative to break the impasse in 2009 with regard to the expansion of the Security Council with an innovative proposal. To remove regional rivalries, it has proposed regional representation in the Council that may rotate among regional countries. This means every South Asian country would become a member of the Council by rotation. The seats should reflect genuine regional representation, not of an individual state acting in a national capacity. Furthermore, the regional groups should be empowered by getting greater weight in the Council's decision-making process relating to a situation within the region. Italy has also proposed reservation of seats in the Council for small states having populations between one million to ten million. On March 24, the Permanent Representative of Italy in the UN, New York, Ambassador Terzi argued: "On one fundamental point we all agree: the Security Council that we are trying to create has to be updated to be more in tune with contemporary reality. Regionalism, which is interconnected to multilateralism, is perhaps the greatest new development of our time. In 1945, in San Francisco it was an embryonic phenomenon. Today it is a fully developed reality." The UN remains the one and best hope for unity in diversity in a world in which global problems require multilateral solutions. It is the embodiment of the international community and the custodian of world conscience. However, the restructuring of the Security Council has been a graveyard for almost all previous reform proposals. Since 1945, the "conceit" prevailed that the world could be run essentially by the victors of the Second World War. The Group of Twenty meeting in London in April to tackle global economic meltdown finally nailed that "conceit." Against this background, it is time now to seriously consider the expansion of the Security Council.
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