In terms of simple considerations of equity, this situation is unjust to those countries whose financial contributions to the United Nations outweigh those of four of the five permanent members — Japan and Germany have for decades been the second and third largest contributors to the UN budget, at 19 per cent and 12 per cent, respectively, while still being referred to as ‘enemy states’ in the United Nations Charter (since the UN was set up by the victorious Allies of the Second World War). And it denies opportunities to other states who have contributed in kind (through participation in peacekeeping operations, for example) or by size, or both, to the evolution of world affairs in the six decades since the organization was born. India and Brazil are notable examples of the latter case.
So the Security Council is clearly ripe for reform to bring it into the second decade of the twenty-first century. The UN recognized the need for action as early as 1992, when the Open-Ended Working Group of the General Assembly was established to look into the issue, in the hope — or so then secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali declared — of having a solution in time for the fiftieth anniversary of the world organization in 1995. But the Open-Ended Working Group soon began to be known, in the UN corridors, as the Never-Ending Shirking Group. Instead of identifying a solution or moving towards compromise, the group remains in existence, having missed not only the fiftieth anniversary of the UN, but even the sixtieth and now the sixty-fifth. Left to their own devices, they will be arguing the merits of the case well past the UN’s centenary.
For a decade now, the ‘Group of Four’—Brazil, Germany, India and Japan, or ‘G4’—have been in the forefront of an attempt to win the passage of Security Council reform, fully expecting to be the beneficiaries of any expansion in the category of permanent members. They have been repeatedly thwarted.
The problem is quite simple: for every state that feels it deserves a place on the Security Council, and especially the handful of countries that believe their status in the world ought to be recognized as being in no way inferior to at least three if not four of the existing permanent members, there are several that know they will not benefit from any reform. The small countries that make up more than half the UN’s membership accept that reality and are content to compete occasionally for a two-year non-permanent seat on the Council. But the medium-sized and large countries which are the rivals of the prospective beneficiaries deeply resent the prospect of a select few breaking free of their current second-rank status in the world body. Some of the objectors, like Canada and Spain, are genuinely motivated by principle: they consider the existence of permanent membership to be wrong to begin with, and they have no desire to compound the original sin by adding more members to a category they dislike. But many of the others are openly animated by a spirit of competition, historical grievance or simple envy. Together they have banded together into an effective coalition — first called the ‘coffee club’, and now, more cynically, ‘Uniting for Consensus’—to thwart reform of the permanent membership of the Security Council.
Let us remember that the bar to amending the UN Charter has been set rather high. Any amendment requires a two-thirds majority of the overall membership, in other words 129 of the 193 states in the General Assembly. An amendment would further have to be ratified by two-thirds of the member states (and ratification is usually a parliamentary procedure, so in most countries this means it’s not enough for the government of the day to be in favour of a reform; its Parliament also has to go along with a change). In other words, the only ‘prescription’ that has any chance of passing is one that will both (a) persuade two-thirds of the UN member states to support it and (b) not attract the opposition of any of the existing permanent five (or even that of a powerful US senator who could block ratification in Washington). That has proved to be a tall order indeed.
After all, who would countries want to see on an expanded Security Council? Obviously, states that displace some weight in the world and have a record of making major contributions to the UN system. But when Japan and Germany began pressing their claims to permanent seats, the then foreign minister of Italy, Susanna Agnelli, wisecracked, ‘What’s all this talk about Japan and Germany? We lost the war too.’ (Other historical factors intrude: neither China nor South Korea is keen on Japan, with its record of atrocities seven decades ago, being rewarded today.) Even assuming such objections (notably from Italy, Spain, Canada and Korea among OECD countries) could be overcome, adding these two to the Council would, of course, further skew the existing North — South imbalance. So they would have to be balanced by new permanent members from the developing world. But who would these be? In Asia, India, as the world’s largest democracy, its third largest economy and a long-standing contributor to UN peacekeeping operations, seems an obvious contender. But Pakistan, which fancies itself India’s strategic rival on the subcontinent, is unalterably opposed, and to some extent Indonesia seems to feel diminished by the prospect of an Indian seat. In Latin America, Brazil occupies a place analogous to India’s in Asia, but Argentina and Mexico have other ideas, pointing to Portuguese-speaking Brazil’s inferior credentials in representing largely Hispanic Latin America. And in Africa, how is one to adjudicate the rival credentials of the continent’s largest democracy, Nigeria, its largest economy, South Africa, and its oldest civilization, Egypt?
No wonder the search for a reform prescription — a formula that is simultaneously acceptable to a two-thirds majority and not unacceptable to the permanent five — has proved so elusive. Composition is the central challenge, but not the only one. There is also the question of the eventual size of a reformed Counciclass="underline" once additional permanent members are joined by additional non-permanent ones (to give more representation to regions like Latin America and Eastern Europe, which would otherwise be marginalized in the new body), would it become too large to function effectively? Is there a danger it would become more of a conference than a council, more of a debating chamber than a decision-making body? What about the veto? Permanent membership currently comes with the privilege of a veto, but there is less support across the UN membership for new veto-wielders than there might be for the abolition of the veto altogether. The G4, sensing the mood, announced they would voluntarily forgo the privilege of a veto for ten years. It did not noticeably add momentum to their cause.
But I do still believe the Security Council has to change sooner or later. The best argument for reform is that the absence of reform could discredit the United Nations itself. Britain and France have become converts to this point of view. I remember the late British foreign secretary Robin Cook saying in 1997 (on his first visit to the UN in that capacity) that if the Council was not reformed without delay, his own voters would not understand why. Cook, a fine statesman and a man of principle, did not realize that he was not destined to see any Council reform in his lifetime, let alone during his term of office. And yet he understood that reform was essential, because what merely looks anomalous today will seem absurd tomorrow. Imagine in 2020 a British or French veto of a resolution affecting South Asia with India absent from the table, or of one affecting southern Africa with South Africa not voting: who would take the Council seriously then?
There is perhaps another reason why the British and the French are genuinely keen on seeing the Council reformed right now. Currently, everyone is only speaking of expanding the permanent membership of the Council, not replacing the existing permanent members. If reform is delayed by another decade, there is a real risk that the position of London and Paris will not be so secure then; the clamour for replacing them with one permanent European Union seat would mount, and could prove irresistible.