Reform of Security Council eludes the UN

UNITED NATIONS – Like the weather, everyone talks about reforming the UN Security Council but no one seems able to change it.

This year’s UN summit was no different. The closest the United Nations came to expanding the 15-member council was considering a plan by Germany, Japan, India and Brazil last spring.But the moment came and went without a vote.National rivalries across and within each regional group run high, although the prime ministers and presidents at the summit pledged to do something by the end of the year.”What we see at the UN today is an orgy of posturing on Security Council reform, most countries having adopted a fairly self-interested position on the subject,” said David Malone, a former Canadian UN ambassador.Leaders from the four candidates, known as the Group of Four or G-4, met in New York last week and decided to put their resolution back on the table.But participants at the session said there was no strategy of how or when to do this.”Reform is always a challenge, as it requires us to confront the status quo.But that is no justification for inaction,” said Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.But Italy’s Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini, who opposes the G-4 plan, told the UN General Assembly on Sunday that the Security Council could not be reformed through “artificial” deadlines “aimed at creating new positions of privilege.”Secretary-General Kofi Annan, after a decade of debate, urged UN members in March to come to a decision world leaders could endorse, arguing that the council, which decides on war and peace, sanctions and peacekeeping, still reflected the balance of power at the end of World War Two.Months of divisive debate ensued in the UN General Assembly earlier this year.But the 35-page document world leaders endorsed on UN reforms had only one sentence on the need for the 15-member council to become “more broadly representative, more efficient and transparent.”On this issue, compromise was nearly impossible as council seats meant winners and losers, with each candidate having drawn enough opposition to prevent a resolution from gaining a two-thirds vote in the 191-member General Assembly.The council currently has 10 nonpermanent seats, rotating for two-year terms, and five permanent members with veto power – the United States, Russia, Britain, China and France, considered World War Two victors.To begin council expansion, the 191-member General Assembly must approve a framework, without names of candidates, by a two-thirds vote, with each member casting one vote.The last step in the process is a UN Charter change, which must be approved by national legislatures, and here the current five permanent members have veto power.- Nampa-ReutersThe closest the United Nations came to expanding the 15-member council was considering a plan by Germany, Japan, India and Brazil last spring.But the moment came and went without a vote.National rivalries across and within each regional group run high, although the prime ministers and presidents at the summit pledged to do something by the end of the year.”What we see at the UN today is an orgy of posturing on Security Council reform, most countries having adopted a fairly self-interested position on the subject,” said David Malone, a former Canadian UN ambassador.Leaders from the four candidates, known as the Group of Four or G-4, met in New York last week and decided to put their resolution back on the table.But participants at the session said there was no strategy of how or when to do this.”Reform is always a challenge, as it requires us to confront the status quo.But that is no justification for inaction,” said Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.But Italy’s Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini, who opposes the G-4 plan, told the UN General Assembly on Sunday that the Security Council could not be reformed through “artificial” deadlines “aimed at creating new positions of privilege.”Secretary-General Kofi Annan, after a decade of debate, urged UN members in March to come to a decision world leaders could endorse, arguing that the council, which decides on war and peace, sanctions and peacekeeping, still reflected the balance of power at the end of World War Two.Months of divisive debate ensued in the UN General Assembly earlier this year.But the 35-page document world leaders endorsed on UN reforms had only one sentence on the need for the 15-member council to become “more broadly representative, more efficient and transparent.”On this issue, compromise was nearly impossible as council seats meant winners and losers, with each candidate having drawn enough opposition to prevent a resolution from gaining a two-thirds vote in the 191-member General Assembly.The council currently has 10 nonpermanent seats, rotating for two-year terms, and five permanent members with veto power – the United States, Russia, Britain, China and France, considered World War Two victors.To begin council expansion, the 191-member General Assembly must approve a framework, without names of candidates, by a two-thirds vote, with each member casting one vote.The last step in the process is a UN Charter change, which must be approved by national legislatures, and here the current five permanent members have veto power.- Nampa-Reuters