United Nations: The UK has called for the expansion of the UN Security Council’s permanent seats to include India, Brazil, Germany and Japan as well as African representation, underlining that it is high time the powerful UN body entered the 2020s.
Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations and President of the Security Council for the month of July Ambassador Barbara Woodward’s comments came as she briefed UN correspondents on the programme of work of the Security Council for the month.
On reform of the UN Security Council, “we want to see the expansion of the Council’s permanent seats to include India, Brazil, Germany and Japan and African representation. It’s high time the Council entered the 2020s,” Woodward told reporters here on Monday.
Woodward referred to remarks by British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly last week in which he announced the UK’s ambition to drive forward reform of the multilateral system.
Woodward said the UK’s presidency of the Security Council in July marks the first step in that process.
Responding to a question on the reason behind UK’s support for permanent UNSC membership for India, Brazil, Germany and Japan, Woodward said: “Our thinking behind the four countries that we supported was partly to do with geographical balance.
“Introducing India and Brazil would bring a wider geographical representation into the Council, but also to bring in countries that have more influence than they had when the original Security Council was put together in 1945 for obvious reasons,” she said.
“There’s a sort of combination of recognising the world as it is today, alongside geographical balance, and that’s behind our position too on Africa,” she said.
Last week, the UN General Assembly adopted a draft oral decision to continue Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) on the Security Council reform at the 78th session of the UN General Assembly that will commence in September. The rollover decision marked the end of the IGN for the current 77th session.
India’s Permanent Representative at the UN Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj underscored that the roll-over decision of the IGN simply cannot be reduced to a mindless technical exercise.
“We see this technical rollover decision as yet another wasted opportunity to instil a breath of life into a process that has shown no signs of life or growth in over four decades,” Kamboj had said.
Kamboj had stressed it is now apparent that the IGN could well go on for yet another 75 years without any progress whatsoever in the direction of genuine reform in its current form and modalities – that is, without application of the GA Rules of Procedure, and without a single negotiating text.
Responding to a question by PTI on India’s criticism that IGN could well go on for another 75 years without any progress, Woodward said “I recognise that it has been a very frustrating process”.
The UK has set out its position on UNSC reform more than a decade ago, emphasizing the need to broaden the representation and bring the Security Council up to date, she said.
Woodward said she had good contacts with the IGN co-facilitators this year, who “have tried very hard indeed, but there is such a wide range of views that it seems very difficult indeed to make progress.
