Pakistan has voiced its opposition to any move to create a new category of permanent members "without veto" on the UN Security Council, and reiterated its stand for increasing the number of non-permanent members as talks continued on the ways to reform the 15-member body.
"There is neither a comprehensible criterion nor a definitive logic" in the UN Charter for adding "Permanent Members without Veto" to the Security Council, Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon told a closed-door session of the General Assembly on reforming and expanding the council aimed at making it more representative and more effective.
India, Germany, Japan and Brazil are aspiring to become new permanent members in an expanded Security Council. But during the discussions over the past few days, the existing five veto-wielding permanent members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States have ruled out the possibility of extending veto power to new permanent members.
"It is obvious that the existing 'Permanent-5' cannot be clumped in a single category, with the individual aspirants of this permanent seat category," Ambassador Haroon noted. As the main allies against Germany and Japan in World War Two, the five major powers received permanent seats on the Security Council with veto rights. The five later acquired special status as official nuclear weapons states under the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Full-scale negotiations to restructure the Security Council began in the General Assembly in February last year on five key areas, the categories of membership, the question of veto, regional representation, size of an enlarged Security Council, and working methods of the council and its relationship with the 192-member assembly. Despite the general agreement on enlarging the council, as part of the UN reform process, member states remain sharply divided over the details.
In July 2005, the so-called Group of Four - India, Germany, Japan and Brazil - made a bid for permanent seats without veto rights on a 25-member council, with six new permanent seats without veto power, including two for the African region, and four additional non-permanent seats.
In the same year, the Italy/Pakistan-led "Uniting for Consensus" (UfC) group opposed any expansion of the permanent members on the Security Council. 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. In April 2009, Pakistan also backed a proposal, tabled by Italy and Columbia, which would create a new category of members not permanent members - with three to five years duration and a possibility to get re-elected. It envisages the Security Council's enlargement by 10 seats to make it a 25-member body.
On its part, the African Union's has 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 power.
Outlining Pakistan's reasons against having "Permanent Members without Veto", Ambassador Haroon said addition of permanent members would undermine the leverage of non-permanent members to keep the veto-power in check. He pointed out that in an enlarged Security Council, a higher number of affirmative votes would be required to pass a resolution- 16 affirmative votes in a council of 26.
"Addition of permanent members would further tilt the equation away from electable non-permanent seats, thus eroding the democratic and accountable credentials of the Council," the Pakistan envoy said. "The cause of the wider UN membership would not be served if a select few countries become invulnerable to the Council's elections by addition of permanent seats," he added.
Ambassador Haroon said the best way to balance the power of veto was to increase the number of elected members of the Security Council. "For the sake of progress," he said, "expansion in non-permanent category offer a real scope that must be further explored." Stating that Africa's aspiration for permanent presence in the council was "legitimate", he said the continent's position was the result of consensus and thus different from those who seek seats for themselves. "That is why we have expressed our continuously understanding and respect for the African common position". Pakistan's principled position on the issue of categories was that "regular elections in the Security Council make it accountable and accessible where membership is earned as a privileged responsibility and not granted as a permanent right," Ambassador Haroon added.-PR