Pakistan calls for strengthening UN General Assembly's role in shaping Security Council

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan on Wednesday called for strengthening the role and authority of the General Assembly, the most representative UN organ, in shaping the Security Council, as talks continue on ways to reform the 15-member body.

"Whether it is regional representation, or equitable geographical distribution, the Council can be made more broadly representative of the general membership by adding electable non-permanent seats which would reflect the interests of all its members -- small, medium-sized and large," Ambassador Masood Khan told a closed session of the Intergovernmental Negotioations on expanding the Security Council to make it more representative and more effective.

"We need to increase, not decrease, the ratio of non-permanent to permanent members," Khan, who is Pakistan's permanent representative to the UN, told the 193-member group.

Full-scale negotiations to restructure the Security Council began in the General Assembly in February 2009 on five key areas -- the categories of membership, the question of veto, regional representation, size of an enlarged Security Council, and working methods of the council and its relationship with the General Assembly.

Despite the general agreement on enlarging the council, as part of the UN reform process, member states remain sharply divided over the details.

The Security Council is currently composed of five permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, and 10 non-permanent members that are elected in groups of five to two-year terms on the Council.

In July 2005, the so-called Group of Four -- India, Germany, Japan and Brazil -- unveiled its aspirations for permanent membership of a 25-member Council, with six new permanent seats, including two for the African region, and four additional non-permanent seats.

The Uniting for Consensus (UfC) group, of which Pakistan is a member, countered with a proposal that does not envisage any increase in the number of individual permanent members, but seeks 10 additional non-permanent members to make it a 25-member body, with all decisions concerning the Council reform taken through negotiations and by widest possible consensus. Later, Pakistan backed an Italy-Colombia proposal that would create a new category of members -- not permanent members -- with three to five years duration and a possibility to get re-elected.

On its part, the African Union's has called for the Council to be enlarged to 26 seats. Its proposal for six new permanent seats was the same as the G-4's.

Dealing with the relationship between the General Assembly and the Security Council, Ambassador Masood Khan said the key words should be harmony and collaboration; not rivalry and opposition. In this regard, he underscored the need for ensuring and strengthening the application of the principle of accountability.

The Pakistani envoy also chided an aspirant of Council's permanent seat who had insisted that since permanent members were mentioned by name in the UN Charter, regional groups did not have a role in their nomination. "What this means", he said, "is that states sitting on the Council mostly represent and advance their national interests!"

While calling for strengthening institutionship relationship between the two major UN organs, he suggested that the general membership address the issue of the Council's perceived encroachment on the Assembly's mandate by better scrutiny and evaluation of the Council's work. "This would reinforce checks and balances between the two bodies."