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India criticises delay in UN reforms, calls for transparent negotiations
In a meeting on the negotiations to ensure equitable representation and an increase in the membership of the Security Council on Monday, India’s envoy to the UN criticised “naysayers” who had stalled the reforms
India has criticised the inordinate delay in inter-governmental negotiations for reforms of the UN and called for a more open and transparent approach to ensure the world body and the Security Council become more inclusive and capable of tackling contemporary challenges.
Participating in a meeting on the negotiations to ensure equitable representation and an increase in the membership of the Security Council on Monday, India’s envoy to the UN, TS Tirumurti, criticised “naysayers” who had stalled the reforms. He didn’t name the parties that were opposing the changes.
India has for long campaigned for a permanent seat in a reformed and expanded Security Council. Its candidature has been backed by P-5 members such as the US, the UK and France and members of the G-20 such as Germany and Japan. China is often perceived as stalling efforts to reform the UN.
“We all know that reform at the UN is supposed to be a process, not an event. However, sadly, there is no process here in the UN that has traversed the torturous pathways more than what this process of Security Council reform has,” Tirumurti said, pointing out that the inter-governmental negotiations had started 13 years ago while the subject of reforms was first included in the General Assembly’s agenda 43 years ago.
“While the world is not what it was when we began the process, the objections to moving forward remain frozen in time. While global challenges of the 21st century have multiplied, we have been stopped by the naysayers to even adopt the process in order to move forward,” he said.
The inaction on UN reforms has not been “without cost”, and the Security Council is called on to address complex issues of international peace and security but “finds itself unable to act effectively, for it is lacking inclusivity of those who need to be there, and therefore lacking legitimacy and credibility”, Tirumurti said.
The inter-governmental negotiations, he said, are “anything but negotiations” and there is no written documentation that can form the basis for “transparent give-and-take negotiations”.
Tirumurti said India wants the application of the UN General Assembly’s rules to the inter-governmental negotiations to ensure openness and transparency, and an “outcome text” or draft outcome document that should be updated after each meeting to reflect the views and positions of all countries.
The UN cannot allow the inter-governmental negotiations to “continue to serve as a convenient smokescreen for a handful of reform naysayers”, and failure to make changes could force states to look outside negotiations, for genuine reforms.
The permanent membership of the Security Council should reflect contemporary realities and include adequate representation from all regions, he said, reiterating India’s call to have six more permanent seats – two each for Africa and Asia, one for Latin America and the Caribbean, and one for the West European and others group.
“The goal of a reformed multilateralism to preserve peace and promote security is a long overdue idea. For our part, India stands ready to play a constructive role in promoting the common objective of a comprehensive and structured reform process,” he said.
