UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations General Assembly has decided that intergovernmental negotiations (IGN) on enlarging the UN Security Council will continue during its upcoming 78th session, noting that the negotiating process this year has made progress towards an agreement on reforming the 15-member Council.
“After so many years, we have seen positive momentum in this session,” the 193-member Assembly’s President Csaba Koroi said ahead of the unanimous adoption of a draft oral decision to rollover the IGN process to the upcoming session which begins in September this year.
“Measurable progress has been achieved,” Korosi said.
That progress, he added, also helped to enhance the transparency, inclusivity and institutional memory of this important process.
Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram concurred with assembly president’s assessment about the progress achieved.
“The IGN has held constructive discussions this year on all the five interlinked ‘clusters’ of issues on Security Council reform,” Ambassador Akram said, adding: “As evident … the areas of convergence have been broadened, and divergences have been further reduced…”
Full-scale negotiations to reform the Security Council began in the General Assembly in February 2009 on five key areas — the categories of membership, the question of veto, regional representation, size of an enlarged Security Council, and working methods of the council and its relationship with the General Assembly.
Despite a general agreement on enlarging the Council, as part of the UN reform process, member states remain divided over the details.
The so-called Group of Four — India, Brazil, Germany and Japan — who seek for themselves permanent seats on the Council have shown no flexibility in their push for expanding the Council by 10 seats, with six additional permanent and four non-permanent members.
On the other hand, the Italy/Pakistan-led Uniting for Consensus (UfC) group, which firmly opposes additional permanent members, has proposed a new category of members — not permanent members — with longer duration in terms and a possibility to get re-elected.
The Security Council is currently composed of five permanent members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — and 10 non-permanent members elected to serve for two years.
In his remarks, Ambassador Akram said the UfC continues to believe, together with other Groups, there is a need to reach agreement on the “principles” of reform in all five clusters in order to begin formulating a text on the Security Council reform which has a chance of securing the “widest possible acceptance of member states”.
Pakistan, like other UfC members, he said, looks forward to continuing its constructive participation in the IGN process at the next session. “This is the only agreed and accepted modality to promote Security Council reform; It would be unwise to disrupt the IGN process by advancing new modalities and precipitate initiatives.”
“We have all certainly agreed to breathe ‘new life’ in the process for the reform of the Security Council,” the Pakistani envoy said, adding that the objective could be achieved through patient negotiations, reciprocal flexibility and mutual accommodation.
“But,” he added, “the need for Security Council reform should not become an alibi to explain the current global tensions and great power rivalries, or serve as the avenue to build new political and military blocs, or become a vehicle to satisfy the national egos of a few large States.”
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