Cutting-edge ideas must to earn UNSC place

Apart from India and other countries’ claim to a permanent UNSC seat, the question of veto remains most contentious. Will the original P5 allow the future inductees the privileged veto? In all probability, the question of sharing the privileged veto would remain non-negotiable for P5.

Fear: The UNSC expansion will open a Pandora’s box since the whole Charter may be reviewed. PTI

Bharat H Desai

Jawaharlal Nehru Chair & Professor of International Law, JNU

THE high-level segment of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) concluded on September 26; the speakers included 76 Heads of State, 50 Heads of Government and 48 ministers. They resorted to posturing and airing their grievances against the global order, the UN system and global flashpoints.

Interestingly, US President Joe Biden’s September 21 address brought the spotlight back on the long-pending discourse for expansion of the UN Security Council (UNSC) and the Indian claim for a permanent seat. “I believe that the time has come for this institution to become more inclusive so that it can better respond to the needs of today’s world. That is also why the US supports increasing the number of both permanent and non-permanent representatives of the Council,” Biden had said. However, he did not name the countries that the US would support in both categories.

Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar addressed the UNGA plenary on September 24 and on the sidelines held a meeting of the P4 countries — Brazil, India, Germany and Japan — that seek a permanent seat. Each one of them has challengers in their respective regions.

The advent of the UN, on the ashes of the League of Nations, was an audacious project to “to save the succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” In his address on the adoption of the UN Charter on June 26, 1945, the then US President Harry Truman prophesied, “If we had this Charter a few years ago, and above all the will to use it, millions now dead would have been alive. If we should falter in the future in our will to use it, millions now living will surely die.” It was a human construct and not a perfect solution.

“In fact, the United Nations was not to take the mankind to paradise, but rather to save the humanity from hell,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had said on September 24. The UN Charter proclaims sovereign equality of states and its raison d’être is to give effect to individual and collective responsibility of the member states for the maintenance of international peace and security.

The issue of veto did prove most contentious at the outset since many of the original 51 founding members expressed reservation about making the P5 countries (China, France, Russia, the UK and the US) more equal than the others. However, with the collapse of the League, the war-ravaged world was left with no option, but to accept the imperfect world organisation that the victorious powers pushed down their throat. It was a take-it-or-leave-it situation. That legacy continued even after the expansion of the non-permanent membership from 11 to 15 by a December 17, 1963, amendment to Article 23. Since then, the world has transformed in the past six decades.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a call for “comprehensive UN reforms” in his address on September 25, 2021, at the 76th UNGA. “We cannot fight today’s challenges with outdated structures,” the Prime Minister had said. His priority list included climate change, poverty alleviation, situation in Afghanistan and the Security Council reforms.

Apart from claim of India and other countries, the question of veto remains most contentious. Will the original P5 allow the future inductees the privileged veto? In all probability, the question of sharing the privileged veto would remain non-negotiable for P5. Some improvisations are now discernible from US President Biden’s speech. He suggested that the P5 need to “refrain from the use of the veto, except in rare and extraordinary situations.”

Similarly, in the use of Russian veto in the aftermath of the “special military operation” in Ukraine, the UNGA adopted an unprecedented resolution 76/262 on April 26, 2022, for a “standing mandate for a General Assembly debate when a veto is cast in the Security Council.” It had suggested that “the President of the General Assembly shall convene a formal meeting of the General Assembly within 10 working days of the casting of a veto by one or more permanent members of the Security Council to hold a debate on the situation as to which the veto was cast.”

This extraordinary step shows the pathway to blunt the edge of the veto use by the P5. Hence, it may render the veto less attractive in future expansion of the UNSC. That would open the doors for the third category of permanent membership without veto. It would be a pragmatic path for India to enter the UNSC.

It is feared that the UNSC expansion would open a Pandora’s box since the whole Charter may be subject to review. Many member states strongly feel that the UN Charter does not reflect the realities of the 21st-century world. In a futuristic scenario, if a consensus would emerge among the states, it will necessitate an amendment of the Charter under Article 108. It would require approval by a two-thirds of the UNGA members as well as concurrence of the P5 of the UNSC.

A review conference under Article 109 can be convened by a two-thirds vote in the UNGA and a vote of any nine UNSC members. Any alteration of the Charter proposed at a review conference cannot take effect without the consent of the P5.

If the UNSC expansion comes on the agenda, can the revival and repurpose of the UN Trusteeship Council, lying dormant since November 10, 1994, be far behind? The idea of “trusteeship of the planet” was flagged by PM Modi in his November 21, 2020, address to the G20 Riyadh summit.