By Nandini Jaoli
The President of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Abdulla Shahid, has called for formalization or ‘text-based negotiations’ regarding reforms at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). It is for the first time that any president of the UNGA has specifically mentioned text-based negotiations so clearly to expedite the process of reforms at the key UN body, which have been halted since 1965.
How the UN body is functioning and how serious the members are towards reforms can be gauged from President Shahid’s focus on TGNs and the fact that these are already opposed by China and the Uniting for Consensus (UFC) group, led by Italy, which has Pakistan and Turkey as its members. The slow pace of reforms is even undermining the pre-eminence of the UN as a world body. In 1963, the General Assembly had decided to expand the Security Council by creating four additional non‑permanent seats; this reform came into force in 1965. The Security Council has existed in its present format since 1966.
The current composition of the Security Council does not reflect the present geopolitical situation and is not representative of a world that has seen 142 new countries join the United Nations since 1945. Among its five permanent members, one of the members, China, is posing a threat to a number of countries in Asia and the Asia-Pacific region. All major powers are readjusting their security policies and entering into alliances to counter the threat China poses. The UN as an international community’s principal organ for peacekeeping and conflict management needs to introspect, is it effective in dealing with the expansionist Chinese policies? The Security Council’s makeup has to be adapted to suit the new geopolitical realities, which is the demand of the Group of 4- India, Brazil, Japan and Germany and also of Africa that does not have a representation.
As the centrepiece of the international security architecture and global rules’ based order, it is important that the resolutions of the UN are respected and implemented by all countries. For this the Security Council needs to have the necessary authority and legitimacy and that can come if it’s truly representative.
It was in 2005 that the G-4 drew up a draft resolution for Security Council reform and proposed to add six new permanent members to the Security Council; two seats each for Asia and Africa and one seat for the Western European and Others Group and the Latin American and Caribbean Group respectively. Adding four or five non‑permanent members to the Security Council was also proposed.
There has been no progress since and even in decades the UN General Assembly is stuck at having TGNs or verbal negotiations. India expressed its dismay at the slow process at the UN.
The issue of ‘text-based negotiations’ or TGN has been discussed among the UN member nations for several years, and India is the main proponent of the same. Earlier in September 2015, the UN General Assembly had adopted a negotiating text by consensus for the Security Council reforms, which set the stage for talks on the long pending process at the 70th session of the global body held that year. Prior to the UNGA’s 70th session, the Inter-Governmental Negotiations were conducted without the basis of any text.
India had welcomed the move in 2015 and the spokesperson in the External Affairs Ministry had said, “This is a significant development as after more than two decades, we can now commence text-based negotiations so that the long-pending reforms of the UN Security Council can be achieved”.
New Delhi has been consistently opposing that negotiations on the council reform have been conducted without the basis of any text, with nations making statements, repeatedly of known positions, without any effort to narrow differences or find a compromise language. New Delhi has also maintained that the process to expand the powerful UN body “cannot be seen to be an exercise ad infinitum” and a results-based timeline is crucial to achieve a concrete outcome.
China has been stalling any move towards reform of the Security Council, supported by its allies including Pakistan.
Now for the first time, the President of the United Nations General Assembly, Abdulla Shahid in his address on 12 July 22 at the inter-governmental negotiations (ING) meet said, “Would encourage all delegations to work tirelessly to further narrow down the divergences and gradually move the process towards text-based negotiations.”
What is significant this time is that he has also written a letter to member nations for the first time since the commencement of the IGN, making a strong emphasis on the process to “gradually move” to “text-based negotiations using the Co-Chairs Elements Paper and the Framework Document of 2015.”
Intergovernmental Negotiations Framework (IGN) is a group within the United Nations that looks into UNSC reforms but has made no significant progress since 2009 when it was formed. The group’s conversations are considered “informal” in nature, due to the lack of single text and thus, UNGA rules of procedure don’t apply. But in 2015, a framework document was agreed when it comes to the reform which can be the basis for future talks.
The IGN during the 76th session ended with all member states joining consensus on the UNGA President’s oral decision to roll over the text to the next session. During the address, President Shahid highlighted the need to “make the Security Council efficient, effective, representative and accountable” and member countries have a “collective responsibility to demonstrate that the IGN is working and not let the process turn into a Sisyphean exercise.”
The Group of 4- India, Brazil, Japan and Germany have been calling for a time bound reform of the Security Council. The four countries that are seeking permanent membership of the UN Security Council have stressed delivering concrete outcomes, in writing and within a time frame.
India has long sought a permanent seat at the Council and is a proponent of other UNSC reforms — such as increasing the number of permanent (currently five) and non-permanent (currently 10) seats and ensuring greater representation for Africa. The G-4 has been emphasising that there is a clear need for an enhanced role of developing countries and of major contributors to the UN to make the Council more legitimate, effective and representative.
The nations that are resistant to UNSC reform including China are hesitant to have text-based negotiations for intergovernmental negotiations on the grounds that the matter is too sensitive for text.
The G4 nations had even warned in 2020 that without reform the UNSC would become obsolete. These countries had emphasised that it was time to leave behind debates based solely on general statements, without substantive text based negotiations actually taking place in an intergovernmental setting.
The Uniting for Consensus (UFC) group, led by Italy, has Pakistan, Turkey as its members and it aims to counter bids by the G4 countries. Now after UNGA President Abdulla Shahid’s speech and letter for text based negotiations, China, Pakistan, Italy, South Korea and Iran in their interventions in the General assembly targeted President Shahid for emphasising on TGNs.
As of now, the 193-member UN General Assembly on 12 July 22 has adopted a draft oral decision on Security Council reform, rolling over the Inter-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) process to the 77th session of the UN General Assembly that begins in September this year. India has criticised this decision, as a “wasted opportunity” to instill a breath of life into a process that has shown no signs of life or growth in over four decades.
Charge d’Affaires at the Permanent Mission of India to the UN Ambassador R Ravindra said India has been consistent in its position that the roll-over decision of the IGN simply cannot be reduced to a “mindless technical exercise.”
He asserted that it is now apparent that in its “current form and modalities – that is, without application of the GA Rules of Procedure, without an official record of proceedings, and without a single negotiating text – the IGN could well go on for yet another 75 years without any progress whatsoever in the direction of genuine reform.”
In their statements, China, Pakistan, Italy and South Korea mentioned President Shahid’s letter and said that Shahid’s reference to moving to TGNs in his letter reflects the PGA’s “personal view” and is not endorsed by other groups such as Uniting for Consensus (UfC) and other individual member states.
The UFC includes Italy, Canada, South Korea, Turkey, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Malta and Pakistan as its members. The group supports expanding the Security Council only in the non-permanent category and opposes increasing the Council’s permanent members and veto powers. Under the leadership of Italy, the UFC aims to counter the bids for permanent seats by G4 nations.
Any reform of the Security Council must be ratified by two-thirds of member states and all of the permanent members of the UNSC having veto rights must also agree. The way reforms at the UNSC are stalled by China, especially India’s bid for a permanent seat at the UNSC, it would require change in the procedure and rules of ratification for a positive outcome in India’s or G-4’s favour. As of now, the pace of UN reforms is progressing as slowly as a snail with China and UFCcreating obstacles on every possibleground, with the aim of thwarting the entire reforms process.
(Nandini Jaoli is a senior journalist, was head of ETV Bharat bureau in Delhi, the Pioneer’s correspondent in London, UK and Editor with Radio Deutsche Welle, Germany)
