On G20 margins, push for UN reform
PM Narendra Modi and Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have agreed to have “regular bilateral coordination meetings on Security Council Reform
New Delhi Reaffirming their traditional position on the global governance architecture, India and Brazil, the current and future presidencies of the G20, have made a renewed pitch for the comprehensive reform of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to include both permanent and non-permanent members, and expressed support for each other’s candidature as permanent members.
PM Narendra Modi and Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a joint India-Brazil statement said, have agreed to have “regular bilateral coordination meetings on Security Council Reform”.
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“The two leaders expressed disappointment at the paralysis created at the Inter-Governmental Negotiations on UN Security Council reform, which have not produced tangible progress,” the statement said. The two countries are also seen as important pillars of the Global South.
Separately, Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that having a country like India in the UNSC would be a matter of pride. “As you now, the world is bigger than larger than five.” Alluding to the current set of permanent members, he added, “And when we say the world is larger than five, what we mean is that it’s not only about the US, UK, France, China and Russia.” Erdogan, however, pitched for rotational membership of the council where each state in the world got a turn.
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In his own statement at the G20 during a session on “one future”, Modi pointed out that the UN had 51 members when it was set up in the wake of the Second World War and that there were close to 200 members now, but the number of permanent members had remained the same. He warned that an institution that did not change with changing times risked losing its relevance.
While the pitch for UNSC reform comes just a week before the world congregates in New York for the UN General Assembly’s high level week, where countries of the global south are expected to reiterate their pitch, the issue remains stuck in global geopolitics.
While other permanent members have supported India’s bid, China remains at the forefront of the opposition. In the case of other aspirants — Japan, Germany and Brazil (which, along with India, constitute the G-4) — a limited group of naysayers and regional rivals have consistently sought to block reform efforts.
But the issue is also hostage to process. The IGN process, which is the central framework under which UNSC reform is being discussed, hasn’t been able to finalise a text.
In a press briefing last year in New York, on the sidelines of the last UNGA high-level week, an exasperated external affairs minister S Jaishankar had said, “It is incredible that after so many years, there is no text. How does the negotiation advance if there is no text, no progress, no stocktaking, no end of the year assessment? In the absence of the text, it just goes round and round.”
On the grounds of seeking a consensus, China, along with select naysayers, has played an obstructionist role during the IGN process, even if Beijing does not, in principle, oppose the idea of reform. India has considered the possibility of taking the issue straight to the General Assembly where China will be forced to show its hand and has been in talks with other like-minded countries in this regard.A
