Stating that United Nation Security Council (UNSC) reform of vital interest to all states, Pakistan has stressed that the process should cover both its enlargement and working methods. "Security Council reform must be comprehensive," Pakistan's Acting Permanent Representative Ambassador Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry told the UN General Assembly on Thursday.
"Several smaller Member States have declared that improved working methods of the Council greater transparency and accountability to the general membership are more important for them than the issue of enlarged membership", he said in a debate on the question of equitable representation on and increase in the Council's membership.
In a letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the UN membership, General Assembly President Jan Eliasson (Sweden) called for the debate, recalling that, at the 2005 World Summit, world leaders stated their support for the early SC reform as an essential element in the overall effort to reform the UN. Practically all countries want an increase in the membership of Council but sharply disagree on which category the expansion should take place and by how many.
In July 2005, India, Brazil, Germany and Japan, the aspirants to permanent seats on the Council known as the Group of Four, called for boosting its membership from 15 members to 25, with six new permanent seats without veto power and two for the African region as well as four non-permanent seats.
The Italy/Pakistan-led Uniting for Consensus (UfC) group opposed any expansion of the permanent members on the SC. It sought enlargement of the council to 25 seats, with 10 new non-permanent members who would be elected for two-year terms, with the possibility of immediate re-election.
The African Union's called for the Council to be enlarged to 26 seats, one more permanent seat than the G-4 proposal. Its proposal for six new permanent seats was the same as the G-4's, except that it would give the new members veto privileges. But none of the three proposals had the required two-third majority in the 191-member Assembly and therefore were not pressed to a vote last year.
In his speech, Ambassador Aizaz Chaudhry said the SC reform should be the outcome of open and transparent negotiations, and should be accepted by the widest possible agreement. Any decision promoted through self-centred initiatives and artificial deadlines would be divisive and likely to be stillborn. The SC reform must cover both its enlargement and its working methods, he said.
The Pakistan representative said the Council should be enlarged to make it more representatives, but that should not be the result of merely adding a few self-nominated new powers as additional permanent members.
Without veto rights, such permanent membership would be unlikely to change the power realities in the Council, and the interests of the rest of the UN membership would continue to be underrepresented and ignored.
Moreover, he said the new power realities of the world were more complex. At least a score of States were now in a position to contribute more fully and actively to the maintenance of international peace and security. A host of smaller States had emerged, and they comprised the vast majority of the UN membership. Their adequate representation on the Council was essential, as their perspectives were often more closely aligned with the principles of the UN Charter than those of larger States with specific national interests.
The UfC reform proposal was an honest effort to secure a genuinely representative enlargement of the SC, Ambassador Aizaz Chaudhry said. Under the plan, each region would be able to devise its own arrangements for ensuring the representation of large, medium and small States. It could also accommodate the representation of regional and sub-regional groupings of states.
The African position of creating permanent seats for the African region was more in concert with the United for Consensus proposal, he said. Pakistan was ready to work with Africa and Member States of other regions to promote an equal and non-discriminatory approach for all regional groups with regards to their representation on the Council.