By Syed Qamar Afzal Rizvi.
Much has been negotiated and is being debated about reforming the United Nations Security Council. And many reforms proposals have been tabled and discussed by different quarters inside the UN. But forming a unified consensus on the reforms proposals, yet remains a gigantic challenge for the reformists.
Council reform is a process for the long haul, not a quick fix. It must be based on ideas for a more democratic global future, not outworn concepts from the past like permanency and great power oligarchies. In the midst of the present diplomatic furor, it is time to take a more calm and long-term view. What kind of world do we want and how can we patiently find the way there?
In a new gallop, recently organised by The Debate Organisation indicates that 56% voters say no to the expansion- strategy while 44% voters say yes to it. In sum, there appears to be genuine problems with further expanding the UNSC.
A multitude of proposals have been put forward since 1993, when the General Assembly authorized an ‘Open Ended Working Group’ to study expansion of the Security Council. Yet the debate regarding its expansion has remianed much active since the Kofi Annan proposal of its expansion in 2005. They are mainly the three groups that have have been projecting the reforms proposals: the group of four( G4); the uniting for consensus (UFC); and the third group of accountability, coherence and transparency (ACT), urging for the working methods of reforms in the UN’s system and its allied institutions.
Recent claims for greater representation and power in the Security Council are based on geographical/regional representation and monetary contribution to the UN. Although these claims for greater participation and representation in the Security Council seem to have a logical justification, they do not necessarily guarantee the improvement of an already flawed system.
There are broadly ‘divergent positions’ on various key issues, which mainly include 1) key criterion for UNSC expansion, 2) size and structure of the reformed council, 3) possible processes towards reform and modalities, 4) question of categories of membership and their clout, 5) issue of veto power and so forth and so on.
It has also been suggested that the UNSC, ‘a transnational body with supranational powers’, may be expanded without vesting the veto power in the new members. Thus the Council will have three types of members: permanent members with veto power, permanent members without veto power, and non-permanent member. However, if the UNSC is to be expanded, then it is better to have more non-permanent, elected members Enlargement of permanent membership will give rise to questions as to its basis. Should it be contribution to UN budget? Should it be contribution to UN peace keeping operations? Should the new permanent members be picked on the basis of their economic and commercial strength — present or potential — or because of their pre-eminent regional position?
While all these considerations are important, what is more important is that no permanent member (with or without veto) can be admitted to the club without the consent of P-5 or H-5, ‘the hereditary five’, each of which will consider its own interest while giving a green signal to the admission. Hence, in the end the interest of the P-5, rather than the ‘collective will’ of the international community, will define the enlargement of the UNSC. Au contraire, expansion of non-permanent membership will be more in accord with principle of democracy as well as give a larger number of countries the opportunity to serve on the UNSC. Changes to the ‘constitutional charter'(a heritage of Winston Churchill’s political legacy) would require the support of two thirds of the General Assembly and ratification from two-thirds of all member states including, crucially, the P-5.
The G4 group (Brazil, India, Germany and Japan) has specified that the contribution a state makes to peacekeeping operations should play a determining role in P5 membership. Yet if economic power is to be a determinant of membership, financial imperatives could drive the organisational agenda—meaning richer nations would benefit. It would also sideline states whose balance sheets are unhealthy but whose need for help with security is desperate and it would put them at the mercy of more powerful, wealthy nations.
Nominally though, the major advantage of the G4 candidates’ case rests on its trajectory towards a fairer representation of regional interests. Adding its proposal of India, Brazil, Germany and Japan would bring the totals on the UNSC to Asia three, Europe (including Russia) four, South America one and North America one.
But the veto– so strategically and centripetally guarded by the P5– may not be granted to ‘new members’. So although permanent seats for them would be an improvement on the present state of affairs—the longer term would enhance the collective institutional memory—it does not appear to be materially different from having a seat on the current ‘rotating Security Council membership’.The pro P-5 thinkers view the concept of veto acts as the ‘safety valve’ to keep balance of power in the UNSC.
Since the establishment of the Security Council, permanent members have used their power of ‘veto’ in accordance with their national interests. The use of that power rapidly distanced from the initial reason for which it was included in the UN Charter’s articles-27,108-109, namely preventing the UN from taking direct action against any of its principal founding members. One can argue that after the end of the Cold War and because of the elimination of ideological divisions among the superpowers, the veto has been cast more sparingly. However, a look at the use of veto in the last two decades reveals that although being cast less often, the veto is still exercised for self-interest or the interests of allies. Over the last 20 years out of a total of 24 vetos, 15 have been used by the USA to protect Israel.
Moreover, on many occasions permanent members managed to keep an issue off the Council agenda or soften the language of a resolution without actually casting a veto by mere threats of using that power via’ pocket veto’.Some critics view that the P-5 is a club within the club since three members of the Security Council,USA,UK and France are the members of Nato-mostly influencing the decisions taken by the UNSC.
However, it is not merely the P5’s veto- idee fixe that obstructs reform. Efforts at expansion are further complicated by regional rivalries. Japan and Germany quickly realised that in order to gain broad support for their bids they would need to back other permanent seats in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Yet each call for a new permanent seat incites a chain of rivalries that makes reform even less attainable.
The argument regarding giving Germany a permanent seat seems hardly a step forward in an endeavour for a more ‘equitable distribution’ of seats in the Council. The UK and France hold a ‘veto power’ over any amendments and aren’t willing to give up their seats, so adding Germany would mean that the EU would have three permanent seats in the Council. That wouldn’t be a ‘fair geographical distribution’.
Neither Germany or Japan is as ‘deserving’ as has been suggested; although both are rich they have been struggling economically for a decade while other countries (including the UK and France) have continued to grow. Compared to other nations, both Germany and Japan are military insignificant. This is important as the Permanent 5’s status currently reflects great power realities – they are the states(en block), most able to project power abroad and so have the ability to implement or block UN’s security decisions.
As for India’s bid, there are sufficient indications to prove that India’s reputation– regarding its human rights record as the ‘occupying power in the Indian held Kashmir’ and its devious role in maintaining ‘regional peace’ and most significantly India’s indifference to signing the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of the Nuclear Weapon(NPT) –creates a big question mark in the eye of the international community.
There has also been a pleading urge regarding the much needed representation from the developing world. Yet there is a lack of consensus among developing countries themselves on who should get permanent seats. Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa all claim their right to an African one. The most desirous candidate for an Asian seat – India – is logically opposed by the Muslim world who wants a permanent seat for themselves. Spanish speaking neighbours oppose Brazil’s candidacy because it speaks Portuguese. The Small Five Group (S5)– consisting of Costa Rica, Jordan, Liechtenstein, Singapore and Switzerland, presented a draft resolution(in May-2011) for ‘Improving the Working Methods of the Security Council– whose efforts crumbled in 2012 under the joint pressure exercised by the permanent five (P-5) members of the UN Security Council.
ACT –a group of 22 states formed in 2013, arguing for the reforms regarding the working methods of the UNSC — views that expansion is not the ‘right way’ to increase transparency, as the number of informal consultations of smaller groups (such as permanent members or only industrialised permanent members) would probably rise.
Reforms to enhance transparency and improve working methods are already taking place. As the bulk of operations approved by the Security Council is financed by industrialised nations, they should have the main role in deciding on action; the developing countries already have a voice in the Council but should not have a veto power over decisions that they do not finance. Simultaneously, the African Group started to demand ‘two permanent seats’ for themselves, on the basis of historical injustices and the fact that a large part of the Council’s agenda is concentrated on the continent. Those two seats would be permanent African seats that rotate between African countries chosen by the African group
On the otherhand, the Western Europe and Other Group (WEOG) now accounts for three of the five permanent members (France, the United Kingdom, and the US). That leaves only one permanent position for the Eastern European Group (Russia), one for the Asia-Pacific Group (China), and none for Africa or Latin America.
UK and France have also supported G-4, but interestingly are conflicting to extension of veto to ‘new permanent members’. Pakistan, Italy and other like-minded countries of the Uniting for Consensus support a comprehensive and democratic reform corresponding to the interests of all the states and regional groups, but cannot support an idea of any addition of new individual permanent member not because India is aspiring but on principles of its legitimacy and difficulties of consensus.
As for Pakistan, being a leading and proactive member of the UfC, Islamabad has always been enduring positive efforts towards forging a coherent, sound and credible strategy to reform UNSC against Indian desires to coerce and exploit it.Pakistan has played an instrumental role in UN’s peacekeeping missions abroad.Pakistan is reasonably of the view that the agenda of the UNSC’s reform must be based on the motive of a ‘viable betterment’.It rightly and gravely espouses the view that there must be no haste in concluding the ‘agenda of change’.
In a recent move of the ‘Intergovernmental Negotiations’ initiated by the General Assembly’s president Sam Kutesa, the P-5 block of the UNSC has shown its ‘intrinsic reservations’ about the negotiations on expanding the Council (a setback to India’s bid). The US, along with Russia and China, has opposed negotiations to reform the powerful UN body, refusing to contribute to a text that will form the basis for the long-drawn reform process.
US is ‘open in principle’ to a ‘modest’ expansion of both permanent and non-permanent members but the condition that “any consideration of an expansion of permanent members must take into account the ability and willingness of countries to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security and to the other purposes of the United Nations”.
Russia, which has apparently supported India’s candidacy as permanent member, said in its letter to Mr Kutesa that the “prerogatives of the current Permanent Members of the Security Council, including the use of the veto, should remain intact under any variant of the Council reform”.
China said UNSC reform is ‘multifaceted’, covering not only issues such as enlarging the Council’s membership and strengthening representation, but also increasing efficiency and improving working methods. It added that Member States are still seriously divided on the Security Council reform and no general agreement has been reached on any solution so far. India has received support from France and the UK, the two remaining permanent members of Security Council. The two nations along with Kazakhstan and Romania have specifically named in the negotiating text Brazil, Germany, India, Japan and an African representation to be included among the permanent members of a reformed UNSC.
Member states often argue that added members will make the Council ‘more representative.’ But this is only marginally the case. Adding members adds more states, with their own state interests. Such members only weakly ‘represent’ their region or state-type (poor, island, small, etc.), since there is no system of accountability. Instead, they act primarily on the basis of their own national interest. If they are large regional hegemons, they may seek to increase ‘their hegemony’ at the expense of other regional states. Five or six new permanent members would exclude many more matters.
Indeed, eleven permanents might exclude virtually all topics from the Council’s agenda, making effective Council action all but impossible. The aspirants claim that they are ready to agree not to use their veto for fifteen years and presumably this would reduce the problem of blockage – but only partially. Since their votes would be important in Council deal-making, they could still exercise powerful blocking action and impose their national interests in a manner not altogether different from their veto-wielding colleagues. Changes in the UN Charter, like all constitutional changes, must command a very high degree of support in the international community.
Proponents of any Charter-based reform plan will face great difficulty in winning the necessary two-thirds vote in the General Assembly and still more difficulty obtaining ratifications from two-thirds of all member states, including the mandatory endorsement of the five permanent members. Assent and ratification by the P-5 will be the most difficult (and unlikely) of all.
The ‘head-on’ tactics of reform (shown by the two prominent members of the G4, Germany and India ) in the form of ‘expansion’ will prove fruitless if consensus is not reached with a motive- ‘faude mieux’ .Even if consensus is reached, proposals need to focus more on attainable solutions that are acceptable to the P-5 club, since Article 108 of the United Nations Charter stipulates any amendment to the charter must have their concurrent vote. The pragmatists are of the view that pragmatically only a ‘quasi-permanent status of membership’, without a veto power, can only be a logical beginning to ‘negotiate’ the reform process. They also argue that the yardstick of the ‘geographical representation’ in the UNSC, must be given a justifiable consideration,thereby giving the quasi membership status for those deserving countries that belong to ‘African ,Australian and the Latin American regions’.
Despite reformists’ logical urge for reshaping the UNSC in accordance with today’s geopolitical realities, many reform critics and analysts view that any future move of changing the ‘present configuration’ of the UNSC (disturbing the present balance of power) may pave the way for brewing a ‘vertical and horizontal polarization’ in the UN’s body politic.
While current ‘chances for Security Council reform are unrealistic keeping in view the ongoing rift between UNSC’s adopted doctrine of ‘realist utilitarianism’ backed by its ‘supranationalist’ or transnationalist forces and the GA’s advocated approach of ‘democratic egalitarianism’ espoused by its ‘intergovernmental dynamics’ ’, member states can only exert ‘moral pressure’ to reform the old institutions in a new world. Essentially, the idea of Security Council reform is nice in principle, but in practice, it does not work.Therefore the argument for maintaining the ‘status quo’, gets a more ‘viable conviction’ than the idea of change.
