Opposing the expansion of a reformed UN Security Council, Pakistan has questioned how adding permanent members will enhance the efficiency of the top world body as it will "usurp" the equal opportunity rights of other nations.
"Pakistan has always stressed expansion of the Council's membership that serves the interest of all member-states. Additional permanent seats will usurp the equal opportunity rights of other member-states of the General Assembly to serve in the Council," Pakistan's Permanent Representative to the UN Maleeha Lodhi said at the Inter-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) on Security Council Reform discussions here on June 1.
"How can justice, fair play, transparency and accountability be promoted by such an unfair expansion of the Council," Lodhi said.
India, along with the G4 nations of Brazil, Germany and Japan, has stressed that the problem of "imbalance of influence" in the Council cannot be corrected if only non-permanent members are added to the powerful UN body as part of its reform and expansion in both categories is essential to achieving equilibrium that reflects current global realities.
India's Permanent Representative to the UNSyed Akbaruddin has said that expansion in both categories particularly in the permanent category is essential to reform the Security Council and make it democratic, legitimate, representative, responsive and effective.
Lodhi said all member-states need to participate in and be informed about the Security Council's work.
"Member-states do not view the Council as the preserve of a few ostensibly powerful states," she said.
Lodhi added that while the size of the Council needs to be balanced with the Council's representativeness and its effectiveness, she questioned the concept of "representativeness" in the permanent category.
"To date, we have not heard any cogent, much less persuasive answer to this question. How can additional permanent members, with or without veto, enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the Council," she said.
She said the size of the Council can not be a good starting point for convergence.
"We cannot possibly decide the size of the Council before the need, merit and nature of each additional seat is agreed on. We will examine how every seat in the Council will add to the Council's democratic and representative credentials, its accountability, transparency, efficiency and effectiveness," she added.
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Lodhi said the memberships' stress on ensuring
participation of all Council's members in the Council's work relates to a particular manner in which the P-5 (China, France, Russia, the UK and the US) tend to conduct business.
"How then can additional permanent members ensure participation of non-permanent members. In fact, if 45 per cent of the Council comprised of permanent members, as some have proposed, the non-permanent seats would become completely inconsequential," she said.
"Over the years, the Council is indebted to its non-permanent members for gradual improvement in its working methods. It is therefore safe to assume that more such members will further improve its working methods," she said.
