Japan, Germany, Brazil and India on Wednesday submitted a draft resolution on the controversial expansion of the UN Security Council for an early vote in the UN General Assembly, the German and Japanese UN missions said.
The draft, submitted by the so-called Group of Four to the UN Secretariat, provides for an expansion of the UN Security Council from the current 15 members to 25, with the creation of six new permanent seats without right of veto and four non-permanent seats.
"The G4 intends to request that debate begin on this framework resolution in the UN General Assembly as early as next week," the Japanese mission said in a statement. "Japan intends to direct its efforts toward adoption of the draft resolution during the month of July." The German mission for its part said the president of the UN General Assembly had been asked to schedule a formal introduction of the draft as next Monday, followed by a debate.
"Due time will be given to member states to discuss the proposal with a view to an adoption of the draft by vote later next week," it added.
The formal submission signals that the text is in its final form in English and must be translated in all the other UN official languages before being distributed to the 191 member states.
The draft does not spell out which countries would secure the new council seats but diplomats said the six new permanent seats would go to the G4 and two African countries yet to be selected.
At present, Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States are the only permanent and veto-wielding members of the powerful UN body, which also has 10 rotating non-permanent members without veto power.
Changing the makeup of the Security Council requires a two-thirds majority vote in the General Assembly, meaning 128 votes out of 191.
The G4, which initially wanted to act before the end of June, decided to wait only for the African Union summit July 4-5 in Libya and the Caribbean Community (Caricom) summit July 3-6 in St Lucia to submit their draft to the UN General Assembly.
During the AU summit, African countries decided to seek two permanent Security Council seats with the right of veto and five non-permanent seats, which is slightly different from the G4 plan.
The G4 plan "gives Africans 95 percent of what they asked for...So I think the Africans will realise the only way to get what they want is by supporting our resolution," said Germany's UN envoy Gunter Pleuger.
He said he was "confident" that the G4 proposal would receive the necessary support.
"Some members asked us to postpone (submitting the draft) but we think we must grab this opportunity, so as not to lose the momentum," said Yoshifumi Okamura, a minister at Japan's UN mission.
In addition to the G4 members, the draft resolution is being co-sponsored by between 25 and 30 countries, including France, said Pleuger.
But it is opposed by the so-called "United for Consensus" group led by regional rivals Italy, Pakistan and Mexico, as well as by China. Beijing has previously voiced support for seats for Brazil, Germany and India but rejects permanent membership for Japan, demanding that Tokyo first correct its attitude to its wartime history.
Washington is also highly sceptical toward the G4 plan, fearing that enlarging the council beyond 20 members would hurt the body's effectiveness. It favours adding only two new permanent seats with no veto power, including one for Japan.
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