UNITED NATIONS: Reiterating its firm opposition to expanding the Security Council’s permanent members, Pakistan has sharply questioned how will adding new permanent seats to the already 15-member body enhance its representativeness, efficiency and effectiveness.
Speaking at the Intergovernmental Negotiations (ING) on Security Council Reform, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UN, Maleeha Lodhi, said that no cogent answer has ever been given with regard to how this move would make the Security Council more representative. Adding new permanent members would, in fact, have the opposite effect, the Pakistani envoy said.
Calling for comprehensive reforms by the Security Council, Ambassador Lodhi warned against its piecemeal approach, and also argued that all negotiations must be member state driven process, aimed to achieve the widest possible political acceptance. Reform, she stressed, must also be based on the principles of democracy, transparency and accountability.
Pointing to the role of non-permanent members in the Security Council in bringing about a gradual improvement in its working methods, Ambassador Lodhi made the case for an increase in such member, which would further improve the functioning of the Council. “The fate of the rules of procedure of the Security Council is also dependent on the composition of the Council”, she added. She said that all member states had expressed a desire for their greater participation in the proceedings of the Security Council as well as an “enhanced transparency and accountability of the Council”. The desire to establish an increased yet meaningful communication, open meetings and briefings, consultation with the troop-contributing countries, submission of analytical reports by the Council to the General Assembly, “all point to the shared desire for participation, accountability and transparency”, she added.
“If we all truly share these ideals”, Ambassador Lodhi said, then “we must be able to justify our positions in other key areas of reform on the same principles.” She further went on to say that “one cannot claim to seek a more democratic, accountable, transparent, effective and representative Council in one key area of reform and then propose ideas in other areas that undercut the same principle.”
Ambassador Lodhi, while underlining all Member States’ desire to participate in the Council’s proceedings, in addition to being informed about the Security Council’s work, also said that they do not view the Council as the preserve of a few ostensibly powerful States. “This is why Pakistan has always stressed expansion of the Council’s membership that serves the interest of all Member States”, she added.
Additional permanent seats will “usurp the equal opportunity rights” of the other Member States of the General Assembly to serve on the Council. “How can justice, fair play, transparency and accountability be promoted by such an unfair expansion of the Council,” she inquired.
