India has called for a clear pathway to achieve the goal of reforming the United Nations by expanding the membership base of the Security Council, which it deemed as “absolutely essential”.
Addressing the ‘UNSC Open Debate on Working Methods’ at the UN headquarters, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ruchira Kamboj stressed that reforming the Council in a “time-bound manner” could only be achieved by “engaging in negotiations based on text and not through speaking at each other or past each other”.
The Indian diplomat underlined the need to expand the Security Council to better reflect the geographical and developmental diversity of the contemporary UN by making room in it for “unrepresented regions”.
“We can no more hide behind the smokescreen of the Inter-governmental Negotiations (IGN) in the UN General Assembly and continue to pay lip service by continuing to deliver statements in a process which has no time frame, no text and no defined goal to achieve,” said Kamboj.
She described the lack of representative character of the UNSC as a “fundamental flaw”.
“To continue to deny member states of the Global South a voice and role in Council’s decision making only lowers the Council’s credibility,” Kamboj remarked.
She noted that Africa, Latin America and “the vast majority of Asia and Pacific” weren’t part of the UN Security Council, the preeminent international institution responsible for global peace and stability.
“This (expanding permanent and non-permanent members of UNSC) is the only way to bring the Council’s composition and decision-making dynamics in line with contemporary geo-political realities,” reasoned Kamboj.
IGN Negotiations
The negotiations on expanding the UN Security Council are being carried out under the framework of IGN, which is essentially an intra-UN grouping.
New Delhi, along with its G4 partners comprising Brazil, Germany and Japan, has been critical of the slow progress at the IGN.
At the recent BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also appealed for a fixed deadline for UNSC reforms.
The BRICS Joint Statement, or Johannesburg II Declaration, backed an increase of the “representation of developing countries in the Council’s memberships”.