Legitimacy, credibility of UN must be preserved by updating it: India

United Nations: India has cautioned against “smokescreen” efforts towards a "mere tinkering" of the existing UN Security Council framework, saying this could indefinitely postpone significant elements, such as expansion in permanent membership and addressing under-representation of Asia, Africa and Latin America to a "very distant future".

These remarks were made by India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador P Harish at the annual UN General Assembly plenary on ‘Question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council’ on Monday.

He said that in spite of several decades of collective reiteration of the urgent need for the UNSC reform, it is “disheartening that we have had no results to show in this regard since 1965, when the Council was last expanded in the non-permanent category alone.” The Council’s membership was expanded from six elected members to 10 in 1965.

Pointing to the nature of the process of the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN), Harish said 16 years since its inception, the IGN remains largely confined to exchanging statements, “speaking at, rather than with each other. No negotiating text. No time frame. And no defined end goal.” India underlined that while it seeks real tangible progress in the IGN, including with regard to the development of a new ‘model’ of reform of the Security Council as a precursor to text-based negotiations, Delhi urges caution on two counts.

Harish said the first is that the search for a minimum threshold of input from member states should not lead to an indeterminate period of waiting for them to present their model.

Further, the development of a consolidated model based on “convergences” should not lead to a race to the bottom to trace the lowest common denominator.

“Convergences are not consensus! There is every danger that the search for such a lowest common denominator might be used as a smokescreen to attempt a mere tinkering of the existing framework of the UN Security Council and terming it as a major reform,” Harish said.

He cautioned that this could indefinitely postpone significant elements, such as expansion in the permanent category and addressing under-representation of Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, to a “very distant future.” India also voiced concern that there is an argument pushed by a few select countries who favour the ‘status quo’; of ‘consensus’. They argue that even before beginning text-based negotiations, “we must all agree on everything! Surely, we cannot have a more extreme case of putting the ‘cart before the horse’,” Harish said.

He noted that as a member of the Global South, India believes that ‘representation’ stands as the unassailable prerequisite for both ‘legitimacy’ and ‘effectiveness’ of not just the Council, but the UN as a whole.

“Younger multilateral frameworks have been much more adaptive and nimbler on their feet. An example is the G20, which under India's presidency last year, welcomed the African Union as its member. This is proof that with political will, change is indeed possible,” he said.

He expressed hope that the UN member states work constructively to ensure a concrete outcome on UN Security Council reforms.

“An outcome that respects the sentiments of the majority through the time-tested manner of negotiations. The legitimacy and credibility of the UN must be preserved by updating it. That should indeed be our resolution for the UN’s 80th anniversary,” he said.

India has been at the forefront of years-long efforts calling for reform of the Security Council, including expansion in both its permanent and non-permanent categories, saying the 15-nation Council, founded in 1945, is not fit for purpose in the 21st Century and does not reflect contemporary geo-political realities.

Delhi has underscored that it rightly deserves a permanent seat at the horse-shoe table.

India last sat at the UN high table as a non-permanent member in 2021-22.

A polarised Security Council has also failed to deal with current peace and security challenges with Council members sharply divided on conflicts such as the Ukraine war and the Israel-Hamas conflict.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has also noted that the United Nations had 51 Member States when it was established nearly 80 years ago, and today it is made up of 193 nations.

In his address to the UN’s landmark Summit of the Future this September, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had emphasised that for global peace and development, reforms in global institutions are essential and underlined that reform is the key to relevance.

World leaders had adopted by consensus the Pact of the Future in which they promise to “reform the Security Council, recognizing the urgent need to make it more representative, inclusive, transparent, efficient, effective, democratic and accountable.” UN officials have described the language in the Pact of the Future on the long-pending Security Council reforms as “groundbreaking”.

In the Pact of the Future, world leaders agreed to redress the historical injustice against Africa as a priority and, while treating Africa as a special case, improve the representation of the underrepresented and unrepresented regions and groups, such as Asia-Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean.

They also agreed to “enlarge" the Security Council in order to be more representative of the current United Nations membership and reflective of the realities of the contemporary world.

The pact speaks about intensifying efforts to find an agreement on the question of the categories of membership, taking into account the discussions held in the intergovernmental negotiations process.

“The total number of members of an enlarged Council should ensure a balance between its representativeness and effectiveness.”