Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar has said that the United Nations no longer commands “global representation” as it should, affecting the overall credibility of the post-World War II-era institution.
“My sense is that the sentiment is growing with time. Recent events, if anything, underline that the UN’s credibility has come under challenge because it doesn’t command the representation that makes it credible as it should be,” Jaishankar said at an Indian diaspora event at the Indian mission in Georgetown, Guyana.
He said that the UN Security Council was decided in the 1940s which was 80 years ago. "Nobody can deny the fact that the world has changed in those 80 years,” the Indian FM stated.
He contended that there was a strong case for member states to evaluate the role and functioning of the UN in the face of global challenges in the post-COVID era.
Jaishankar is on a four-nation visit to the Latin American and the Caribbean region to augment India’s business ties as well as forge greater multilateral coordination on key issues facing low and middle-income nations, including food and fuel prices, climate change, debt burden and multilateral governance reforms.
“This (UN reforms) is not just about India. The whole of Latin America is not represented on the UN Security Council. The whole of Africa is not represented in the UN Security Council,” Jaishankar underscored in his remarks.
For its part, he said, India was a “deserving candidate” for a permanent seat at the Security Council as it was the world’s fifth biggest economy and makes its share of “contributions” to various global causes.
UN: To Reform or Not to Reform
New Delhi has blamed Beijing for blocking its permanent seat at the UN Security Council.
The negotiations on UN reforms are being carried out under the banner of Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN), an intra-UN group tasked with the process.
India, along with Brazil, Germany, and Japan (known as the G4), has said that the UN will be “superseded” by other multilateral organizations unless it reflects the realities of the contemporary world.