United Nations: UN General Assembly President Dennis Francis has said it is “incongruous” that only five countries can exercise certain powers within the UN Security Council, underlining that the thrust of reform has to be to “democratise” the powerful UN organ, making it more fit for purpose in the 21st century.
“It’s not untrue that the architecture of the Security Council was designed a very long time ago, decades ago when geographically and geopolitically the world was a very different place,” Francis, President of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly, told PTI in an exclusive interview here.
Francis said many countries did not exist at the time when the UN Security Council was formed more than seven decades ago, particularly developing countries in the Global South and “countries like my own Trinidad and Tobago. We would at that time have been represented by the British.
“But the world has changed. Democratisation has spread across the globe. There are many more sovereigns at the table and the United Nations itself has realised that there is a need to rethink and re-engineer the Security Council,” Francis, a veteran diplomat from Trinidad and Tobago who was elected President of the General Assembly in June, said.
While the UNSC reform process is ongoing, Francis said “it is incongruous that only five countries can exercise certain powers within the Council”, referring to the five permanent members – China, France, Russia, the UK and the US – who have veto powers.
While 10 countries are elected for two-year terms to become members of the 15-nation Council on a rotating basis, only the permanent five have veto power.
Francis noted that there is a degree of “hope” currently in the sense that while the UN Charter assigns primary responsibility for peace and security to the Security Council, the General Assembly also exercises certain residual powers over peace and security. He referred to the General Assembly resolution adopted two years ago requiring that any permanent member of the Council that uses the veto explain to the Assembly why it was necessary to use the veto.
He noted that there has been “some good progress” because now, even though formal negotiations have not yet been initiated, “what is discussed has been committed to paper. So delegations have a context in which to speak, and the views and positions of delegations have been recorded on paper, which is an innovation and progress going forward.
“Bear in mind, however, that reform is not going to be an event. It’s a process and that process continues unabated even now,” he said.
To a question on India sitting as a permanent member in a reformed Council, Francis said “That determination will not be for the President of the General Assembly. That will be for the members at the appropriate time when those discussions come to a crescendo. I would say that whoever gets elected, the expectation would be that they would always act in the best interest of the system and of international peace and security. That’s the reason we have a (Security) Council, to defend and promote peace and security.”
PTI

Press Trust of India