Security Council reform remains divisive

The 35-page final document that world leaders are set to adopt at the end of a UN summit devotes just one paragraph to the issue that consumed the 191 UN member states for months but proved so divisive that it had to be shelved - expanding the powerful Security Council.

After 10 years of seemingly endless debate, Secretary-General Kofi Annan had urged members in March to decide on council enlargement before their leaders arrived for this week’s three-day summit.

But it proved impossible and left the United Nations so polarised that it affected negotiations on the final document, which was watered-down significantly before an agreement was reached on the eve of the summit.

There is strong support for enlarging the Security Council to reflect the world today rather than the global power structure after the Second World War when the United Nations was created. But all previous attempts have failed because national and regional rivalries blocked agreement on the size and composition of an expanded council – and the latest effort fell into the same trap.

Nonetheless, the so-called Group of Four – Brazil, Germany, India and Japan - that aspire to permanent seats on an expanded council haven’t given up.

After a meeting of their foreign ministers yesterday on the sidelines of the summit, India’s External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh told reporters the group had support from almost 100 countries.

The group has already introduced a resolution with its expansion plan in the General Assembly but Singh said it will be reintroduced, “possibly with some changes, or even with some new additions.”

“So we feel after this meeting to be very confident, and plan to work very tirelessly towards our goal,” the Indian minister said outside his country’s UN Mission where the meeting was held.

The Security Council currently has 15 members – 10 elected for two-year terms and five permanent members with veto power – the US, Russia, China, Britain and France.

The Group of Four had hoped it could make a deal with the 53-member African Union which proposed a very similar expansion plan. But the Africans insist that new permanent members must have veto power – which the G-4 says will mean a veto of the expansion by the current permanent members.

“It’s up to the African countries and the G-4 to talk to each other,” French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, whose country backs the group’s proposal, told reporters yesterday. “This will be under way in the next few months, and, of course, what we all hope is that an agreement will be achieved by the end of the year.”

Asked when a new resolution might be introduced, Brazil’s Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said: “We will talk to the African countries, either as a group or individually, and at the right time, we will reintroduce our proposal – at a time when we can win.”

The one paragraph in the final document awaiting summit approval says the world leaders support early reform to make the Security Council “more broadly representative, efficient and transparent.”

The leaders also make a commitment to achieve a decision and review progress on the reform efforts by the end of the year.

While there’s a chance that the Africans and Europeans could agree on a joint resolution, the odds are low that either group could reach agreement with Uniting for Consensus, which opposes any additional permanent seats and just wants more rotating seats.

A resolution needs support from two-thirds of the 191 UN member states to win approval. But the toughest step is a second resolution to change the UN Charter because that not only requires two-thirds approval in the General Assembly but also support from the five current permanent members with veto power.

For the African Union and the G-4, this would likely be a major hurdle because China opposes a permanent seat for Japan and the US says it wants just two or so new permanent seats – not six.

China’s President Hu Jintao reiterated Beijing’s long-standing position yesterday that council reform should “as a priority” increase representation from developing countries, especially from Africa, to bring in more small and medium-sized countries.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi countered that over the last 60 years Japan has made “a unique and significant contribution to the peace and prosperity of the world” – and “the composition of the Security Council must reflect these fundamental changes.”