UNITED NATIONS: Reaffirming its commitment to work towards a “consensualpathway” for restructuring the UN Security Council, Pakistan said Tuesdaythat adding more permanent seats will compound the dysfuctionalities of the15-member body and not resolve them.
Speaking in the Inter-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) debate on SecurityCouncil reform, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UN, Dr. Maleeha Lodhi saidthat the advocates of permanent seats claim to address inherentdysfunctionalities of the Council but their proposal means more of the same.
This will in fact, she added, compound dysfunctionalities, by embracinganachronism, inefficiency and potential paralysis that has alreadydeadlocked the working of the Council.
“It undermines the democratic and representative nature of the reformprocess; it denies the larger membership their democratic right to holdCouncil members to account.”
Indeed, she pointed out, in an environment where the elected members arealready on the sidelines on some of the most important issues beingaddressed by the Council, doubling permanent members would further diminishthe role and standing of elected members”.
Full-scale negotiations to restructure the Security Council began in theGeneral Assembly in February 2009 on five key areas “categories ofmembership, the question of veto, regional representation, size of anenlarged Council, and working methods of the body and its relationship withthe 193-member Assembly”.
Despite a general agreement on enlarging the Council, as part of the UNreform process, member states remain sharply divided over the details.
Known as the “Group of Four” , India, Brazil, Germany and Japan ” haveshown no flexibility in their campaign for expanding the Security Councilby 10 seats, with 6 additional permanent and four non-permanent members.
On the other hand, Italy/Pakistan-led Uniting for Consensus (UfC) group saythat additional permanent members will not make the Security Council moreeffective and also undermine the democratic principle.
Ambassador Lodhi said that consensus only exists for enlarging the Councilby more elected, non permanent members while criticizing those memberstates seeking permanent seats.
“While some predicate their claim for permanent seats on the ostensibleimperative to address contemporary realities, they offer “fixed” solutionsto transient situations, she commented.
She also assailed the self-serving claims by some to represent theirregions, when the region in question, has neither bestowed that privilegeon them, nor does it enjoy the right to hold them to account.
Arguing in favour of adding non-permanent seats to the Council, she said,“As non-permanent members have usually championed greater inclusiveness andtransparency in the work of the Council, we believe that the issue of vetocan be counterbalanced by strengthening the voice of these elected members”.
This is why, she said, Pakistan and the UfC call for expansion only in thenon-permanent category, leading to an improved ratio of non-permanent topermanent members.
“Only this outcome can realistically change the nature of decision-makingin the Council, thus granting it greater legitimacy and effectiveness”. -APP