Reforming the UN Security Council - Volume 11, Issue 4 - June 2005

 

The sharp divisions and, in the end, irreconcilable differences that emerged among key Security Council members over Iraq in early 2003 encouraged the now widespread belief that the UN is mired in a crisis that is deeper and qualitatively different to anything it has faced in its 60-year history. According to this view, while the organisation has been able to weather earlier storms – including over Angola in 1992–93, the former Yugoslavia in 1991–95, Rwanda in 1994 and Kosovo in 1998–99 – the war in Iraq exposed tensions and fault-lines among member states that cannot be papered over. Echoing and contributing to this perception, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in an address to the General Assembly in September 2003, called on governments to re-examine ‘fundamental policy issues’ and to embrace ’far reaching institutional reform’ of the organisation. To assist member states in reaching informed decisions on the necessary reforms, Annan, in the same speech, announced the creation of a High-Level Panel of ’eminent personalities’ whose task it would be to examine the ’threats, challenges, and changes’ facing the UN, and to provide recommendations on how these could best be met.

 

While the UN reform agenda and the work of the High-Level Panel, whose report was issued in December 2004, cover a host of issues, public attention, behind-the-scenes politics and the priorities of key member states, have all centred on the question of Security Council enlargement. An important reason for this is that Annan himself has repeatedly and publicly stressed, unusually for an incumbent secretary- general, the need for expansion. Addressing the assembled delegates in September 2003, he argued forcefully that ‘the difficulty of reaching agreement [on enlargement of the Council] does not excuse your failure to do so’, adding that ’if you want the Council’s decisions to command greater respect, particularly in the developing world, you need to address the issue of its composition with greater urgency’. This was needed, he maintained, because only ’by demonstrating its ability to deal effectively with the most difficult issues, and by becoming more broadly representative of the international community as a whole, as well as the geopolitical realities of today’, would the Council be able to ‘regain the confidence of States, and of world public opinion’.

 

Clearly, the sense that the Council suffers from a legitimacy deficit is widespread, and few member states oppose reform per se. The real issue is whether enlargement of the Council, given the political and procedural difficulties it poses, is the best way to proceed. Certainly, the views expressed by Annan in September 2003 and repeated since are laden with assumptions and implied causal connections – i.e., between the size of the Council on the one hand and the ’confidence of member states and world public opinion’ on the other; between the Council’s representative and ’democratic’ character and ’its ability to deal effectively with the most difficult issues’ – that are, to say the very least, questionable. Indeed, the case for expansion made by Annan would seem to imply that an enlarged Council would have ’dealt more effectively’ with the crisis over Iraq in 2002–03, the immediate source of present drive for reform. That argument is unsustainable.

 

For all this, the need for reform has acquired, in the words of one long-time observer, a ’mantra-like quality’ and even though some of the members of the High-Level Panel would have liked to downplay the issue and redirect Annan’s reforming zeal elsewhere, this was not an option. Tellingly, the High-Level Panel itself was unable to agree on the modalities of expansion and offered two models, neither of which, predictably, commands the required majority. Over the past six months, modifications to these options have been floated and proposed among member states, yet the subject has proved to be deeply divisive.  It is now clear, whatever the precise outcome of the current reform drive, that the Security Council enlargement debate has damaged the prospects for a successful summit meeting of heads of state and government in New York in September. But something may still be rescued by focusing on the working methods and procedures whereby the Security Council reaches its decisions.

 

Annan’s public advocacy of Security Council expansion is not the only reason why the subject has dominated the headlines and overshadowed the current reform debate. The creation of the High-Level Panel and Annan’s position on the subject were seen by Germany and by Japan, above all, as presenting them with an opportunity, possibly a final one, to secure permanent membership of the Council. Together with Brazil and India, they formed the so-called Group of Four (G-4) in an attempt to coordinate their campaigns, even though divisions have also existed among these countries (until mid-May Japan insisted on capping the size of Council at 24, while Germany wanted 25, the latter in order to win over Eastern and Central European countries). The G-4 would have preferred two African candidates to join their group, but agreement among African countries on suitable candidates has so far proved elusive. The formal G-4 position on Council reform was circulated in a draft resolution in mid-May and envisaged an expansion involving six new permanent members and four new non-permanent members, resulting in a grand total of 25.

 

One of the fears expressed about placing – whether intentionally or inadvertently – Council expansion at the centre of the debate about UN reform was always that it threatened to re-awaken rivalries and stimulate tension among states precisely at a time when the real need was for them to be brought closer together to confront common threats and challenges, many of which have so ably been identified by the High-Level Panel. Over the past six months, it has become clear that this fear was justified.

 

In China, the prospect of a Japanese permanent seat on the Council has led to a mobilisation of ‘grassroots’ anti-Japanese sentiment and distinct cooling of relations between the two countries. The mobilisation has taken the form of a petition to collect signatures through popular Chinese websites against Japan’s candidature – a campaign clearly condoned by the Chinese authorities. In April, in several Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, demonstrators attacked Japanese diplomatic and commercial properties while Chinese officials and police stood by. While the rampages were ostensibly sparked by the failure of a new generation of Japanese school textbooks to deal with Japan’s wartime record, few doubt that the prospect of permanent membership of the Security Council was also an underlying motivating factor.

 

The most direct response to the drive by the G-4 has come from a ‘group of like-minded states’ – led by Italy and Pakistan but also including Mexico, Argentina, South Korea and Spain – organised under the banner of ‘Uniting for Consensus’. The grouping is a direct descendant of the so-called ’coffee club’ which, led by Italy, was able to undermine plans for Council expansion in the 1990s. Not wishing to be viewed simply as spoilers, Italy and Pakistan, supported by others, have called for increasing the non-permanent Council seats from ten to 20, while stressing that, whatever happens, reform of the Council must proceed on the basis ’a negotiated and consensus formula’. A closer look at regional politics and rivalries provide a more prosaic explanation for the position taken by the leading members of the ’coffee club’: Italy and Spain are both opposed to German membership; Pakistan does not want India to have a seat at the table, and Argentina and Mexico resent Brazil’s claim to represent Latin America.

 

The US has also been less than enthusiastic about reform of the Council and, in particular, has let it be known that, unlike the Clinton administration, it does not actively favour Germany’s membership. Germany’s stand over the Iraq crisis in 2003 and the feeling that Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder played to anti-US sentiment in his election campaign have clearly influenced the position of the current administration on Germany’s bid. US President George W. Bush’s recent reassurance that the US does not ‘oppose’ any bid per se does not, according to those close to the president, alter the general scepticism that still exists towards Germany’s bid within the administration. In mid-June, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, speaking to reporters, stated that the US ‘will likely support adding two or so permanent members to the Security Council’, and noted that Japan was the only country it had positively endorsed. This position, left suitably vague on details, is clearly at odds with that of the G-4. Britain, France and Russia, their official statements notwithstanding, have been quietly content to see the drive for expansion run into sand. Whatever the outcome, the scramble for permanent seats by some and the reactions this has provoked in others have proved, if proof were needed, that pique, honour and prestige should never be dismissed as motivating factors in international politics.

 

In 1993, the General Assembly set up an ’Open-Ended Working Group on the Question of Equitable Representation and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council and Other Matters Related to the Security Council’. It soon became a joke that the operative phrase was ’open-ended’ and, indeed, as far as the question of membership, voting and the veto (so-called Cluster I issues) was concerned, no progress has been made since 1993. The working group was also charged, however, with the task of looking at how the deliberations, procedures and working methods of the Council – widely perceived to be characterised by secrecy and backstage wheeling and dealing among permanent members – could be made more transparent and relevant to the wider membership, and by so doing enhancing the legitimacy of Council. In this area, covering so-called Cluster II issues, the 1990s did see some real progress, made possible in part by the fact that the procedural hurdles in this area are less daunting. The changes to Council practices and working methods since 1993 include: the possibility, agreed under the so-called Arria formula, for the use of outside experts to brief and consult with the Council; the introduction of regular consultations between the Council and countries contributing troops to UN peacekeeping operations; greater use of Council missions and visits to area of special concern; and the issuance to non-members of draft resolutions and provisional agendas for Council business.

 

Partly because debate on Council expansion has run into predictable difficulties, attention has now turned to Cluster II issues and there are signs that, here at least, progress might be possible. A ‘non-paper’ circulated by the Swiss government in April, containing a series a concrete suggestions designed to improve accountability and transparency in Council proceedings, met with widespread support. Suggestions include, inter alia, measures to strengthen reporting lines between the Council and the General Assembly; measures to improve the quality and timeliness of reporting by the Council to member states; the possibility of creating a ‘lesson-learned unit’ within the Security Council Affairs Division; and, in line with the recommendations of the High-Level Panel, the institution of a system of ‘indicative voting whereby members of the Security Council could call for a public indication of positions on a proposed action’, thus increasing ‘the accountability of the veto function’.

 

On 16 May, the G-4 circulated a Draft Resolution on Security Council Reform ’aiming at the expansion of the membership … to better reflect the contemporary world realities’, and indicating that a formal resolution would be submitted for a vote by the General Assembly in ‘mid- to late June’. The draft resolution envisages six new permanent members. Formal tabling of the resolution has since been postponed until July – an indication that the two-thirds majority required before moving to the next stage of the process has proved difficult to secure. The G-4 is now looking to the outcome of the summit of the African Union in early July for agreement on the two African candidates for permanent seats, hoping that this will restore the flagging momentum of the G-4 campaign. It is unclear, however, whether the African states will endorse a common position in support of the current ’frontrunners’, South Africa and Egypt. If the draft resolution is put forward and carries the day – a big ‘if’ at the moment – the next step would be to ’proceed … through a secret ballot, to the designation of the States that will be elected’. To succeed, this will require a two-thirds majority of the members of the General Assembly, and it is difficult at this stage to see how this will be achieved. China’s clearly stated position on Japan’s membership, US reluctance to see Germany acquire a permanent seat, the high number of middle-range and smaller countries that stand to lose from an expansion; all or just even one or two these factors look likely, as in the past, also to thwart this round of expansion.

 

If, against all odds, the Council were to be expanded, it would still leave open the critical question of whether or not its primary role in the ’maintenance of international peace and stability’ has been strengthened or irreparably weakened as a result. Those who have advocated expansion, including Kofi Annan, have failed to dispel the suspicion that an expanded Council may prove more unwieldy and less effective than current arrangements, however imperfect and unsatisfactory these are generally acknowledged to be.