General Assembly Session 59 meeting 25

Mr. Sardenberg (Brazil)

First, I would like to congratulate Ambassador Sir Emyr Jones Parry, representative of the United Kingdom and President of the Security Council for the month of October, for having introduced this report to the General Assembly covering the period from 1 August 2003 to 31 July 2004. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Ambassador Motoc and the delegation of Romania for drafting the report. I would, in addition, like to extend a word of recognition to the Secretariat for providing support in the preparation of the document.

The submission of an annual report by the Security Council to the General Assembly in accordance with the relevant articles of the United Nations Charter is a practice that flows from the fact that the Council was entrusted by Members with the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security and it acts on their behalf in that regard. Reporting is a practice that promotes accountability, as it allows the wider United Nations membership to discuss and assess the Council's achievements and failures, its shortcomings and working methods.

As the present report shows, the agenda of the Security Council has become increasingly complex, going far beyond classic situations of inter-State conflict or even of struggles at the domestic level that are likely to endanger international peace and security. That trend, which has been apparent for the past 15 years, is ever more pronounced nowadays. The Security Council currently deals with a variety of issues such as post-conflict peace-building, economic reconstruction, promotion of justice and the rule of law, national reconciliation, activities related to disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of ex-combatants, conflict prevention, the fight against terrorism and the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to non-State actors, among others. Today the Council's active agenda consists of more than 70 items. Some of them are new, while others have been before the Council for decades. The difficulty in securing peace and security stands as a grim reminder of the limitations that are presently inherent in the Council's work and structure.

The nature and volume of those issues are leading the Council to alter, even revise, its procedures, methods and tools. Meetings are held every day, sometimes concurrently, as happened this morning, yet the Council's monthly programme of work does not seem to allow for all issues under consideration to be discussed with the necessary time and in-depth analysis they require.

Such developments take place against the backdrop of what we believe is a disturbing tendency to apply a range of explicit enforcement provisions under Chapter VII not only to actual threats to international peace and security, but also to potential ones. Moreover, increasingly loose reference to Chapter VII has led to its becoming a conceptual umbrella for issues not directly related to security, and has even led to situations in which the Security Council might potentially interfere with the legal and political prerogative of States, such as treaty-making. That is not, in our view, the most judicious use of provisions intended to be used as a last resort, whose implementation should result from thorough assessment grounded in sound criteria and sound political judgement.

The Council should not allow ambiguities to seep into its resolutions and its decisions; nor should it tacitly permit profuse resort to Chapter VII, which could negatively affect multilateral efforts aimed at promoting collective action with a focus on cooperation. Indeed, cooperation is clearly a legitimate approach that, even in crucial cases, may have greater potential for effectiveness.

As a current non-permanent member of the Council, Brazil has itself been directly confronted with questions that stem from today's challenging agenda, and we are actively engaged in finding specific, precise responses. It seems clear to us that, in many contemporary conflicts, action aimed at restoring peace and security must be combined with measures that promote social and economic development. Considerations such as these have been guiding the Brazilian approach to many issues related to conflicts being considered by the Council.

For instance, with regard to Haiti -- which unfortunately had to be reintroduced into the agenda less than a decade after an earlier involvement by the Council -- Brazil has supported the idea of engaging the international community, together with the authorities in Port-au-Prince, in designing a long-term development strategy aimed at achieving long-term stability and combating poverty, thus facilitating peace and democracy in that country.

In the case of Guinea-Bissau, we joined an initiative involving the Economic and Social Council and international financial institutions that seek to work with the transitional Government to create conditions for national growth and prosperity. The initiative is an effort to prevent social and economic strife from degenerating into yet another West African conflict of major dimensions.

A third case in point is Timor-Leste, where we have actively urged the Council to continue to provide the new nation with the support it needs in order to consolidate the institutions that are essential to secure a future of stability and prosperity. That would help to ensure that the international community's peace and security investment in that country and other efforts there are not wasted.

Sustaining such interdisciplinary action -- which in many ways is also innovative -- requires not only increased attention by the Council but also frequent and fluid interaction on the part of the Council with other main organs of the United Nations, as well as broader participation by the membership. Brazil is of the view that both the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council can do much to contribute to the adequate assessment of, and effective response to, the multidisciplinary challenges with which the Security Council is currently confronted. I need not stress that the United Nations Charter already clearly provides for such institutional partnerships, as in Article 12, paragraph 1, concerning the General Assembly, and in Article 65, with respect to the Economic and Social Council. We also welcome regular meetings among the Presidents of the main bodies of the United Nations system.

The practice of holding frequent open debates and public meetings is highly useful, as it allows the Council to devote attention to a broad spectrum of opinion on the issues before it and, in fact, enhances the quality of the Council's deliberations. In addition, briefings by the presidency in meetings with troop-contributing countries, besides promoting transparency and accountability, add greater focus to those deliberations.

In the context of the reform exercise, we should explore all such possibilities to the fullest in order to provide greater leverage to the United Nations system as a whole in addressing contemporary challenges.

The current session of the General Assembly promises to be crucial for the adoption of decisions regarding the reform of the Organization aimed at better equipping it to deal with the growing threats and challenges that characterize present-day international reality. In that effort, reform of the Security Council is a task that should no longer be put off. For many years, a decision on that issue has eluded us, as not enough progress has been made within the framework of its consideration by the Open-ended Working Group on the Question of Equitable Representation on and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council and Other Matters Related to the Security Council.

Based on a shared conception of the need for fundamental reform in the composition of the Security Council, my Government recently joined Germany, India and Japan in expressing joint support for reform that meets the expectations of the majority of Members of the Organization. We will work together with other like-minded Member States towards meaningful reform of the United Nations, including that relating to the composition of the Security Council. We are convinced that Africa must be represented in the permanent membership of the Security Council, and we welcome the presentation of candidatures of countries from that region for a permanent seat.

The question of United Nations reform -- particularly the need for the Security Council to become more representative, legitimate and effective -- has, in effect, acquired unparalleled relevance and urgency for most Members of the United Nations. In this session's general debate, 148 out of the 190 representatives who took the floor expressed their views on these issues. In that regard, my Government wishes to take this opportunity to express its heartfelt recognition and appreciation to all those who have manifested -- on that occasion and at today's meeting -- the support of their countries for a Brazilian permanent membership in an expanded Security Council.

On the basis of the perceived need to bring the United Nations and its principal organs up to date with current international realities, the Secretary-General established the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. Its findings and recommendations will be available by the end of this year. Last week, during the debate on the report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization (A/59/1), I had the opportunity to express my Government's broad expectations with regard to the work of the Panel. On that occasion, I stressed the importance of not considering the threats and challenges facing the Organization strictly from a perspective of coercion and the use of force; of putting forward recommendations aimed at strengthening not only the Security Council, but also the other principal organs of the United Nations; and of avoiding the expansion of the scope of Security Council action in a manner that would interfere with the mandated functions of the other main bodies. I also emphasized the need not to mistake the increased activity of the Council in recent years for a sign that that body is functioning well. Such activity is rather evidence of the increasingly fragile foundations of international peace and security. Finally, I stress the need to heed the call of the international community for greater multilateralism.

Now, I wish to add a few remarks that pertain specifically to the reform of the Security Council. First, it is necessary to take into account adequately the expectations of the Member States. It is certainly significant that more than half of the 148 Member States that referred to the issue of reform of the Security Council during the general debate explicitly put forward the view that the Council should be expanded in both the permanent and non-permanent member categories. Secondly, and no less significantly, only five countries expressed a preference for a partial, more limited kind of Council expansion.

Thirdly, nearly all of those Members that defended an expansion in both categories were of the opinion that there should be new permanent seats for developing countries, some of which, including my own, were specifically mentioned, as I noted earlier.

The views of Brazil on the issue of the reform of the Security Council are today shared by many and come as no surprise. The Security Council must be strengthened and made more representative and legitimate. Its composition, in particular as concerns its permanent membership, can not remain unaltered. It can no longer ignore the emergence on the international scene of developing countries that have become important actors, both regionally and globally and often exercise a critical role in promoting the pacific settlement of disputes.

We must also incorporate, on a permanent basis, countries that have the will and the capacity to take on major responsibilities with regard to the maintenance of international peace and security. In short, better representation confers greater legitimacy, and greater legitimacy increases the efficiency and efficacy of the work of the Council.

On the basis of those considerations, Brazil is ready to work, through the intergovernmental process and together with our partners and the wider membership, in a common effort to make the Organization a better reflection of its Members' aspirations for a more peaceful and just world. It is a task that is pressing on us now and must be accomplished.

Mr. Requeijol Gual (Cuba)

This is the third time that a brief analytic summary is included in the annual report which, although still insufficient, marks a step forward towards the objective of having truly substantive reports on the work of the Security Council.

Without disregarding the value of the current report as part of the Council's institutional memory, we still hope for a text with greater analytical content, which presents the political and legal grounds of, at least, the most important decisions the Council adopts.

We believe such a report should reflect not only what has been done, but also what has not been achieved and the reasons why this has occurred, particularly in cases where the Council has failed to act or when it has visibly lacked unity. Thus, there must be more analytical details on divided votes, especially in those cases where a negative vote of one of its permanent members was recorded. For instance, during the term under consideration, the veto was exercised on four occasions; three of them involved the United States voting against draft resolutions on the Palestinian question.

As long as the Council does not succeed in changing its current practices, its annual report should comprise detailed information on the discussions carried out in closed meetings, including the diverging opinions Council members may have on given issues.

Due to the limitations still characterizing the annual report, the only meagre means available at the moment to obtain bits of information concerning closed meetings are the informal briefing meetings, which are carried out by the rotating presidency and are of varying quality and consistency, and that presidency's subsequent monthly assessment.

The General Assembly still does not receive the special reports which, under the Charter, the Council should submit when necessary. During the current term, we have also seen actions and omissions by the Council that would have merited the preparation of a special report to the Assembly, which would have contributed to promoting the active interrelation between both bodies that we all hope for. The Assembly would then be able to formulate useful recommendations for the work of the Council.

In that sense, we consider vital the full implementation of relevant resolutions adopted by this Assembly, for instance, resolution 51/193 and resolution 58/126; the latter contains provisions in its section A referring not only to the quality of the Council's annual report, but also to a follow-up to the results of the debate we are having today.

We reiterate that our demands do not represent simple academic curiosity, but the fact that Member States represented in the Assembly have the legitimate right to expect appropriate accountability from the body, of limited composition, to which we have entrusted the prime responsibilities for maintaining international peace and security and which, pursuant to the Charter, acts on behalf of all Member States.

There will not be true reform of the United Nations without reform of the Security Council, a body where the principle of sovereign equality is institutionally and flagrantly violated on a daily basis.

The rule of international law cannot be re-established, particularly that of the Charter, nor can there be democracy within this Organization as long as the Council exercises totalitarian power. It is also true that Council members, including the permanent members, also endure the dictatorship of the super-Power established by the strength of arms and money.

It is well known that the veto was the reflection of an international balance that does not even exist today, and Member States, with few exceptions, agree that the veto must be eliminated.

However, the essential fact is not so much the legal aspect of the veto but mainly the powerful forces that suppress the other permanent and non-permanent members and Member States. Such forces govern the essential processes of the world economy, finance, military supremacy and also the precarious and temporary equilibria; the same correlations that hamper the exercise of the physical majority of the non-permanent members also prevent the General Assembly from regaining the powerful functions entrusted to it by the United Nations Charter, given the political, military and financial realities of this era. Until such time as the elimination of the veto is achieved, its use should be limited to Chapter VII of the Charter, as a first step towards that aim.

The Security Council should be broadened to include new permanent and non-permanent members. New permanent and non-permanent posts -- created in the Council as part of its broadening -- should be entrusted with the same prerogatives as the current members have.

The objective of the enlargement should be to correct the insufficient representation of developing countries. Two or three developing countries from Latin America and the Caribbean, two or three from Africa and two or three developing countries from Asia should join as permanent members, with the same prerogatives of those currently possessing them, including the veto.

As stated by the Non-Aligned Movement, if agreement is not reached in other categories, at least the number of non-permanent members should be increased for the time being. Greater transparency in the work of the Security Council is an urgent matter. Decisions taken within that body have ever-increasing direct or indirect implications on all Member States, in an increasingly interdependent world. Furthermore, many of these decisions, when carried out, should be financed by all Member States, and not only by those taking such decisions.

The annual report of the Security Council should include more illustrative statistics, including percentages, on the number of public meetings and consultations of the whole and the time devoted to them. This would provide us with more detailed information for debate in the General Assembly and give us a deeper understanding of why the Security Council still continues to do the majority of its work behind closed doors, despite the fact that this not only contravenes the Council's rules of procedure but has also been emphatically and repeatedly qualified as unacceptable by most Member States.

It is not only necessary to increase the number of open meetings, but also to turn them into genuine opportunities to properly take into account the opinions and contributions of States who are not members of the Council. Similarly, it would be useful to establish minimum briefing requirements for the monthly reports of the Council President.

Overcoming secrecy in the work of the Council would allow our Governments to obtain the information they need to make timely policy decisions. In this context, we would like to thank those members of the Council, especially countries belonging to the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States and the Non-Aligned Movement caucus, which have undertaken specific efforts to keep us as well informed as possible on the work of the Council.

The Security Council also violates both the spirit and letter of the Charter through an increasingly voracious and intrusive agenda which usurps the functions of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council. The adoption of resolution 1540 (2004) is a clear example of this and of the interest on the part of certain States in transforming the Council into a body that adopts texts which, in practice, are similar in scope to international treaties. We consider that international legal obligations, including those related to disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation, should not be legislated for all Member States without their full participation and sovereign acceptance through their signature and ratification of relevant treaties and agreements that have been negotiated multilaterally.

While the Security Council oversteps its remit on certain issues, on others it succumbs to stalemate, such as we see regarding the situation of the occupied Palestinian territories, and this is a matter of concern.

Furthermore, there is no logical explanation for the fact that the Council's rules of procedure continue to be provisional after so many years of being in force, and that it has not been amended for more than 20 years.

Finally, we consider that the General Assembly's Open-ended Working Group on the Question of Equitable Representation on and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council and Other Matters Related to the Security Council should continue to work with renewed energy.

Mr. Balestra (San Marino)

Like previous speakers, San Marino wishes to make its contribution to the discussion of item 53 on the General Assembly's agenda, concerning the question of equitable representation on, and increased membership of, the Security Council and related matters. We want to thank Ambassadors Wenaweser and Gallegos for the excellent work they have done.

The Security Council was created as an instrument to prevent and remove international threats and to ensure peace and security. This body is still the only one that can authorize the collective use of force, and for this reason it must be representative, responsible, efficient and, most importantly, capable of adapting to the new challenges that the international community faces. For this reason, an increase in Security Council membership is necessary but must be carefully thought out.

Some delegations have expressed their concern regarding the fact that the Open-ended Working Group on Security Council reform has not yet obtained results despite many years of intensive activity. There is here an implicit criticism which, in my view, seems to be directed at a group of countries whose only fault lies in having opposed the ways and means of reforming the Council, as proposed by another group of countries. The international community bears common responsibility for its lack of readiness to take a decision on this extremely sensitive matter; this state of affairs reveals the danger of instituting reforms which do not meet international standards of democracy and fairness.

San Marino is convinced that a decision on the enlargement of the Security Council, to be effective, must be made on the basis of consensus, or at least general agreement.

Reiterating what my country's Foreign Minister, Mr. Fabio Berardi, stated during the general debate, San Marino favours an increase in the number of non-permanent members as appropriate. Such an enlargement would ensure greater participation by all countries in the Security Council, with more equitable geographical representation through democratic elections in the General Assembly.

The contribution of a State to the work of the Security Council consists not only in its participation in the Council, but also in the expression of its preferences for the most qualified candidates to serve on the Council in a particular period of history, which it does when electing them in the General Assembly. Seventy-eight Member States of this Organization have never served in the Security Council. For those countries, participation in the democratic process of electing members to the Security Council is a most important and valuable contribution which they bring to the work of the Security Council.

The extension of the privileges of permanent membership to other countries would mean creating additional injustice, discrimination and inequality. San Marino is in favour of gradually restricting the right of veto, with a view to its eventual elimination. The veto is a vestige of the past, which grew out of specific circumstances that are no longer present. This anachronism should be limited and discouraged. We believe that the majority agrees on the fact that the use of the veto should be limited to Chapter VII matters and that it should be subject to further limitations such as its suspension, banning the use of the single veto, and prohibiting the use of the veto on questions of reform. We consider it extremely important for permanent members to have the ability to cast negative votes on draft resolutions without vetoing them and we deem it indispensable to introduce the concept of accountability with regard to the veto.

San Marino awaits the report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. We are confident that the Panel will take into consideration all the above-mentioned aspects of reform in its deliberations. We look forward to availing ourselves of those deliberations as additional food for thought in the discussions of the Assembly's Working Group.

Mr. Haraguchi (Japan)

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