CAN THE SECURITY COUNCIL BECOME EFFECTIVE AND REPRESENTATIVE?

As the United Nations General Assembly met for its 65th Session in September 2010, the U.N. as a whole faced the risk of slowly fading onto the sidelines, unless the Security Council was reformed in keeping with the realities of the 21st century.

The U.N. needs an effective, representative and transparent Security Council. Many argue that the Security Council in its present form is no longer legitimate. A reformed Security Council must let major stakeholders, on which the implementation of Security Council decisions depend, participate in its decision-making. It must ensure that rising powers and developing countries can have an adequate say in Security Council matters. It must commit to meaningful reform of its working methods.

As one example, Japan is the second largest financial contributor to the UN regular budget and to the UN peacekeeping operations and is actively engaged in climate change, peace-building, human security, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation. As such, Japan is willing to play a larger role as a permanent member of the Security Council.

But Security Council reform is much broader than just one country. It should entail expansion of both the permanent and non-permanent membership categories, in order to reflect today’s global political reality. An enlarged Security Council should include – on a permanent basis – those Member States which have demonstrated well the readiness, capacity and resources to carry through implementation of Security Council decisions.

In recent years, various collections of U.N. member states have proposed different types of Security Council reform. In 2005, Japan, Germany, India and Brazil submitted to the UN General Assembly the “G4 Resolution” (LINK: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/g4draft.pdf),   which would expand the membership of the Council by six permanent seats and four non-permanent seats, with ‘self-restraint’ on the veto for the new permanent members – meaning those states would restrain from vetoing a resolution, unless it specifically engaged their national interest.

The African Union Resolution proposed the addition of six permanent members with veto and a similar number of non-permanent members. (LINK: http://www.reformtheun.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&Itemid=278&gid=3156). And the “Uniting for Consensus” Group (Italy, Canada, Pakistan, Republic of Korea and others) proposed a resolution that would add only ten non-permanent members.

Some of the five permanent Security Council members have themselves advanced options for Security Council reform.  France and the United Kingdom have supported Japan, Germany, India and Brazil as future permanent members, and have proposed permanent seats for Africa as well. The United States, however, does not appear eager for change because of its insistence on effectiveness and efficiency. China jealously guards its position as the ‘champion of Asia’ and of the developing world.  Russia also appears anxious to retain its privileged position.

Although none of the these proposals have gained the necessary support of two-thirds of the U.N. General Assembly necessary to become policy, the debates have clarified some options for Security Council reform that the U.N. should now take seriously. One option, combining the principles of the African Union proposal and the ‘Uniting for Consensus’ proposal is to simultaneously expand the number of permanent and non-permanent Security Council members. A second option is to simply expand the non-permanent membership. A third option may be to create an intermediate category of Security Council members – whose term on the Council would last longer than a non-permanent member’s does today, but will nonetheless be limited in time.

It is, in any event, high time to give a political impetus to the efforts to resolve the debate. Allowing the geopolitical impasse to fester would only impair the credibility and legitimacy of the UN system.

By Sadaaki Numata
Former Ambassador of Japan to Canada

 

RELATED MATERIAL FOR THE WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 20

BACKGROUND

The United Nations was established in 1945, by the victorious powers following the conclusion of the Second World War. The UN’s founding members held to the principle that an international body might serve to diffuse interstate conflict through peaceful means rather than war. The UN Charter divided the United Nations into three separate branches: the Security Council, whose permanent members had veto power; the General Assembly, made of representatives from all member states; and the Secretariat, which consists of a permanent staff and a Secretary General.

Over the years, a number of factors have come to pose threats to the institution’s legitimacy and effectiveness. The UN Secretariat faces charges that its work has been hamstrung by bureaucratic inertia. The emergence of new “great powers” and the decline of old ones has led many to suggest that power be redistributed among members of a new enlarged Security Council. Meanwhile, states have opted to focus their international efforts on bodies other than the United Nations, turning instead to bodies like NATO or the informal leadership clubs of the Gx or numerous regional organizations in Asia, Latin America and Africa. Those shifts reflected changes in global power structures during and after the Cold War, including: the collapse of colonial empires, the fall of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the United States as a predominant global leader.

Current UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has pledged to enact reform within the UN, declaring  that he is “determined to breathe new life and inject renewed confidence into a strengthened United Nations firmly anchored in the twenty-first century, and which is effective, efficient, coherent and accountable.”The agenda for the upcoming General Assembly, taking place from 20 September to 1 October, calls for discussion on equitable representation and increased membership on the UN Security Council, as well general “strengthening the UN system.”

RELATED SITES AND MATERIALS

  • The Center for UN Reform Education, a non-partisan body, specializes in research and analysis of UN reform commitments. The Center’s website contains reports on recent developments in UN reform, analytical reports, and interviews with relevant UN officials and academics.
  • Fairleigh Dixon University holds an annual series of video conferences on issues relevant to the United Nations, as part of their United Nations Pathways program. A March 2009conference featured speakers from the Center for UN Reform Education, who discussed the role of civil society and NGOs in UN reform.
  • Thomas Weiss, Richard Jolly, and Louis Emmerij collaborated in April 2009 on a United Nations Intellectual History Project, which highlighted five future challenges facing the UN. The authors propose a greater role for the UN in the field of research and analysis on pressing global issues.
  • Bruce Jones of New York University and the Brookings Institution,in a publication for the Stanley Foundation, notes the role that newer multilateral institutions like the G20 can play in UN reform.
  • David Bosco, writing for the Multilateralist on foreignpolicy.com, expresses concern at the Obama Administration’s attitude toward UN management reform, in light of the fact that the Administration has yet to assign a permanent ambassador to the post of UN Ambassador for management reform.
  • Japanese Ambassador to the UN Yukio Takasu, in a video presentation to the Japan Society entitled “The Complex Politics of UN Security Council Reform,” discusses the political considerations that must be taken into account in any discussion of UN Security Council reform.