Meeting in the General Assembly on Security Council Reform, 8 and 9 November 2011

By Mie Hansen

7 December 2011

On 8 and 9 November 2011 the 51st and 52nd plenary meetings of the 66th General Assembly session were held with a discussion of Agenda Item 122: Question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council and related matters. This article gives an overview of the debate and the statements made during the meetings, as well as an update on the developments in regard to Security Council reform leading up to the debate.

Background
The intergovernmental negotiation process, launched in 2009, is the official forum for Member States to discuss reform of the Security Council. Since 2010 the discussions have been based on a text, incorporating submissions from the various interest groups and individual Member States. (For more information on the intergovernmental negotiations, please go to the Center’s recent articles on Security Council reform).

The negotiations, chaired by Afghan Ambassador Zahir Tanin, went into their seventh round with a meeting on 2 March this year where the Member States discussed a third revision of the negotiation/compilation text, but it did not receive agreement from all Member States. As a result, negotiations seemed to be stuck and no meetings were held for over eight months. Only recently, on Monday 28 November 2011, were formal negotiations resumed.

The pause in the negotiations, though, did not signify a halt to the reform process. On the contrary, efforts and initiatives were just taking place outside the formal forum established for negotiations. Throughout the spring several workshops and conferences on Council reform were convened by varying Member States around the world to discuss ways to move the talks forward. At one of these workshops, held in Qatar on 12 and 13 May 2011, the organizers invited representatives from NGOs and academia to participate in the debate, among them Lydia Swart of the Center for UN Reform Education. The President of the 65th session of the General Assembly (PGA), Ambassador Joseph Deiss, also convened a series of meetings over the summer entitled the “Group of Friends of Security Council Reform”, in an effort to help Member States reach a compromise.

In addition, two proposals dealing with different aspects of Council reform where circulated during the spring by two different groups of Member States. The first group, the Small Five (S5), consisting of Costa Rica, Singapore, Jordan, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, presented a draft resolution in April (and later a revised version in June) on Improving the Working Methods of the Security Council, stating among other things, that reform of the Council needs to take place, whether or not the membership can agree on an expansion of the Council. The other, much debated proposal in regard to Security Council reform came from the group of countries aspiring for permanent membership on the Council, namely the G4 (India, Germany, Brazil and Japan). The G4 proposal called for a reform of the Council to include an expansion in both the permanent and non-permanent membership of the Council as well as improvements in its working methods. Reportedly the G4 countries were campaigning vigorously for support and some thought that the group would submit the proposal formally before the end of the 65th GA session and leave the question up to a vote.¹

However, the 65th session of the General Assembly ended in September 2011 and the 66th session begun, without the G4 formally submitting the proposal and with no agreement reached between the Member States on Security Council reform.

Efforts to bring about UN reform, however, continued, in the 66th General Assembly session where Ambassador Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser began his term as GA president by identifying “UN reform and revitalization” as one four main areas of focus for the session. In his remarks at the opening of the session, 13 September 2011, he stressed the importance of reforming the UN: “…there is no shame in recognizing that after 6 decades our organization needs reform. To remain relevant and legitimate, the UN must adapt itself to meet current global challenges”. Shortly after, on 16 September 2011, President Al-Nasser sent out a letter to the membership, reappointing Ambassador Tanin as Chair of the intergovernmental negotiations during the 66th GA session.


General Assembly Debate on Security Council Reform, 8 and 9 November 2011
During the debate on Security Council reform on 8 and 9 November 2011, Member States once again stressed the importance and urgency of reforming the Council, especially in regard to making it more representative. While some delegations complained about the deadlock of the negotiations and requested Member States to move away from entrenched positions, other delegations stressed that they thought a momentum had been reached during the past GA session and that negotiations should build on this momentum.

In general the Member States commended PGA Ambassador Al-Nasser for making Security Council reform a priority on the agenda of the 66th GA session, and for reappointing Ambassador Zahir Tanin as chair of the intergovernmental negotiations. There also seemed to be a broad satisfaction among the Member States with the President’s decision to hold a separate debate on reform instead of combining it with the debate on the Report of the Security Council.

One of the subjects touched upon during the debate, was the proposal of the G4, (outlined above), that called for expansion in both the permanent and non-permanent membership of the Council, as well as improvements in its working methods. The G4 itself took the opportunity at the debate to underline what they consider to be a broad support among the Member States for their resolution. In this regard India said: “The success of the on-going initiative is clear from the fact that an overwhelming majority of UN member-states have expressed their firm support [for the proposal], including more than 80 in writing.” Both Brazil and Germany emphasized that further negotiations on Council reform should build on, what Germany called, the “momentum achieved”, and Brazil said that the “strong support for the initiative should be considered as the basis for further discussion in the intergovernmental negotiations”.

Several countries, not belonging to any specific grouping on this question, expressed their support for putting the G4 proposal on the table to see if the necessary support for it is really there – and if not, to put other proposals on the table. Among the countries airing this view were Australia, The Netherlands (also speaking on behalf of Belgium) Slovenia and Hungary.

Contrary to the delegations that expressed their support for formally putting the G4 proposal on the agenda, the Uniting for Consensus group (UfC)² voiced their strong opposition against it. Unlike the G4, the UfC speaks only for an increase in the non-permanent membership of the Council. As Canada, one of the UfC countries put it during the discussion: “the Security Council cannot be effectively reformed by simply extending the privileges of a few, to a few more, through the addition of permanent seats.” Several UfC members, among them, Italy, criticized the G4 for creating unnecessary division and confrontation with their proposal and accused them of breaking off the intergovernmental negotiations.

The UfC members also emphasized the group’s own will to compromise while they criticized the lack of will from other groups. In this regard, Pakistan said: “Pakistan along with other colleagues of the Uniting for Consensus Group has put forward dynamic and flexible proposals”.

Finally, UfC member, Colombia, underlined that the all five reform issues --the size of an enlarged Security Council; the categories of membership; questions concerning regional representation; questions regarding extending the power of the veto to additional member states; and the working methods of the Security Council and its relationship with the General Assembly-- are interlinked and must be discussed together.

One point that most Member States seemed to agree on is the need to correct the “historical injustice” done to Africa and to provide the continent with better representation on the Council, although, it is harder for them to agree on how this increased representation should look. Sierra Leone, speaking on behalf of the African Group, reiterating the group’s position that Africa should be allocated two permanent seats in the Council with all the prerogatives and privileges of the current permanent members (including the right of veto), as well as five non-permanent seats on the Council. Several other African States spoke at the debate, associating themselves with Sierra Leone’s statement, among them Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Senegal, Zimbabwe and Egypt.

The permanent representative of Egypt, besides speaking in his national capacity, also spoke at the debate on behalf of the Non Aligned Movement (NAM). In the Statement it was stressed that any reform measure should take place through the intergovernmental process; that there should be no artificial deadlines; and that all the reform issues should be addressed at the same time. The statement also emphasized the importance of improving the working methods of the Security Council in order to make it more transparent, open and accountable, along with mentioning the need for the Council to stop, what the movement calls the “encroachment” on the functions and powers of the GA and the ECOSOC.

Among the other groups putting forward their statements at the debate was the S5 group (previously defined) who focuses on improving the working methods of the Council and who has distributed a draft resolution on the subject. At the debate, Singapore delivered the statement on behalf of the group saying that while the S5 supports a reform in all of the five aspects covered by the intergovernmental negotiations, it believes that a reform of the Council’s working methods is urgent and necessary and needs to take place whether or not the Member States can agree on an expansion of the Council. In this regard, Singapore urged not to “let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” The group welcomed the steps the Council has already taken in order to improve its working methods and encouraged the Council to take further steps as suggested by the group in the draft resolution.

S5 member Liechtenstein also touched upon the issues of enlargement of the Council, suggesting a creation of a new category of non-permanent longer term seats, eligible for immediate re-election. This would allow Member States to serve for a much longer time period, “perhaps up to as many as ten (years)”, Liechtenstein said.

Another interest group in the question of Security Council reform is the L.69 group, named after draft resolution A/61/L.69, from 2007. It calls for an expansion of the Council in both the permanent and non-permanent category, bringing the total number of SC members up to around 25. Jamaica, speaking on behalf of the group, stressed the need for better representation of developing countries on the Council. The L.69 Group also called for improvements in the working methods of the Security Council, as well as in the relationship between the Council and the GA. In addition, the group expressed its support for making the G4 proposal the basis for further discussions in the intergovernmental negotiations.

Finally, all of the five Permanent Members of the Security Council delivered statements at the debate. Both France and the United Kingdom reiterated their support for permanent membership on the Council for the G4, as well as permanent representation for the African countries. The UK also stated its support for the Council working in an open, effective and transparent manner and declared itself to be “at the forefront of efforts to improve Council working methods”.

China voiced its opposition against “setting an artificial time limit for the reform or pushing through any solution over which Member States still have serious disputes”, and also stated that all five clusters of Security Council reform should be dealt with together, avoiding “piecemeal” approaches. Both the United States and Russia declared themselves open to a modest expansion of the Council (no more than 20 members, said Russia). The US reiterated its position that an expansion must be country specific, and that the current veto structure cannot be changed. Likewise, Russia declared itself against changing the veto structure, saying that it was an important factor that moved the permanent members and others to seek balanced decisions. Russia further stated that achieving desired reforms meant that it was politically necessary to ensure the support of many more Member States than the two-thirds majority legally required of the General Assembly.

Looking Ahead: Will the 8th Round of Negotiations Bring Member States Closer to Agreement?
Even though the GA debate on 8 and 9 November primary offered a steady stream of repetitions of statements made earlier, it also served to reaffirm the strong commitment by Member States to Security Council reform. But the key question is still whether this commitment will turn into a compromise proposal that can gather the necessary support to bring about actual reform. With the recent resumption of the intergovernmental negotiations on Monday 28 November, time will tell if the eighth round of negotiations will bring the Member States any closer to an agreement.