General Assembly Session 63 meeting 54

Mr. Almansoor (Bahrain)

First of all, I would like to congratulate you, Sir, on the way in which you have been steering the work of the General Assembly and the general debate of the Assembly. We also wish to thank Ambassador Jorge Urbina, Permanent Representative of Costa Rica and President of the Security Council for the month of November, for his comprehensive presentation of the annual report of the Security Council, which appears in document A/63/2.

This is a significant opportunity for us to discuss items 9 and 111 of the agenda on the annual report of the Security Council and the question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council and related matters. Those two items enjoy special attention on the part of the States Members of the United Nations, given the link that exists between them. As we noted in earlier years, the annual report of the Security Council provides a comprehensive account of the activities of the Council and the issues that it has discussed throughout the year. It also includes the number of meetings held, whether formal open meetings or consultations, as well as the number of resolutions adopted by the Council.

However, as in earlier years, the report does not analyse the Council's work and the issues on which it has not been able to make progress, such as the Palestinian question. We need to understand the reasons for that failure if we are to find solutions and understand why the Council did not perform as it should have. Undoubtedly, that would be useful for everyone concerned. We need to study those reasons and work together to assist the Council in finding solutions to those matters and other issues on its agenda.

Discussion of the two items also serves to strengthen the relationship between the General Assembly and the Security Council, so that together those two organs can promote and strengthen the values and principles of the United Nations in the best possible way.

At the 2005 World Summit, world leaders recognized the importance of Security Council reform as an essential factor in all current efforts to reform the United Nations. They committed themselves to reforming the Security Council as soon as possible so as to make it more representative, efficient and transparent and enhance its effectiveness and the legitimacy of its resolutions. In order to achieve that goal, world leaders expressed their support for the reforms being undertaken to improve the Security Council's working methods, inter alia through the participation of non-member States in debates on matters on the Council's agenda.

In that regard, we need to work together with goodwill, in order to achieve tangible results that will obtain wide support and agreement. We should not forget that Security Council reform is an integral element in enhancing the entire work of the United Nations and its effectiveness in its mission to tackle the current issues and crises. The annual report of the Security Council indicates that there are more issues on its agenda than ever and, notwithstanding the fact that the Council tries to play the important role entrusted to it by the United Nations Charter, the many issues on its agenda subject it to constant pressure in addressing those responsibilities. That has a negative effect on the quality and depth of its discussions and on the decision-making process itself.

Given those circumstances, I believe that we need to be cautious in discussing new topics, particularly those that do not represent a threat to international peace and security. We reaffirm the importance of respecting the competence of United Nations organs, as set out in the Charter. The Security Council should not take up issues that are within the purview of other organs of the United Nations, which would constitute interference in the competence of other organs of this Organization. We should reaffirm the importance of cooperation and coordination among the various United Nations organs, which would enhance our ability to tackle the current challenges. Thus, we should hold regular meetings involving the Presidents of the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council to examine ways of ensuring their coordination and preventing any encroachment on the competence of other bodies.

Fair representation in the Security Council and the expansion in its membership, as well as other related matters, are a priority for my delegation. There have been attempts to consider those issues, involving the Open-Ended Working Group on Security Council Reform, established by General Assembly resolution 48/26. However, it is plain that those efforts have not yielded any practical results. Therefore, we should work together in a creative and open spirit, in order to reach an agreement satisfactory to everyone and supported by everyone.

Thus, we need to launch consultations that would serve as a basis for later intergovernmental negotiations. According to the draft report of 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 (A/AC.247/2008/Rev.2), which was introduced by the Vice-President of the General Assembly, there is general agreement that the Security Council membership needs to be adjusted and balanced, because its representation does not reflect the current situation in the world. We equally need to expand the Council and reform its working methods.

The process of reforming the Security Council should be comprehensive, taking into account all related issues. In that context, we support the principle of enlarging the Security Council in keeping with fair and democratic geographical representation, in the permanent and non-permanent categories alike, so as to enable all countries to be represented fairly, which would reflect the current position of the States Members of the Organization. There needs to be a permanent seat for Arab States to be rotated among them, as is done within the League of Arab States.

We should use the provisions of Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter to settle disputes peacefully. Recourse to Chapter VII should not be excessive but should be a last resort after all other, peaceful means have been tried. Recourse to Articles 41 and 42 is often undertaken quickly before available peaceful means have been exhausted.

It is extremely important to limit the use of the veto, and I believe there is a possibility of writing off the right of veto through a positive vote. There are some Member States that feel that the right of veto should be abolished through a two-thirds majority vote of the General Assembly. That is part of the reform of the working methods of the Security Council and would function to make it more open and transparent, given the greater participation of non-member States and in particular States concerned in the issues under consideration.

The Kingdom of Bahrain hopes that Security Council reform will take place in a manner commensurate with the challenges facing us in the modern world. We hope that the enlargement of the Council will serve to guarantee the democratic representation of all Member States, both large and small. We hope that we will be able to reach a middle-ground solution that can be applied so that all States will see their hopes and aspirations taken into account by the Council.

Mr. Churkin (Russia)

Each year all United Nations Member States are given an opportunity to debate together the results of the work of the Security Council, as reflected in its annual report, presented today on behalf of the entire Council by its President, Mr. Jorge Urbina, Permanent Representative of Costa Rica. Such a transparent discussion is very important.

In that context, we wish to thank the delegation of Viet Nam, which completed the main task of the preparation and organization of the report. We believe that the report is an overall and objective reflection of the dynamics of the work of the Council over the past year. The very fact that the Council, as in previous years, actively dealt with important contemporary problems shows that the international community, and the Council members themselves, have done justice to the inalterable and unique principle of the legitimacy of Council decisions, which is at the heart of the process of settling problems relating to international peace and security.

We also note that in the year ending, positive developments are continuing in the practice of the working methods of the Council, including more judicious openness in its activities. As can be seen in the statistics in the report, there was more of that compared with last year. In the work of the Council it is essential to maintain a reasonable balance between transparency and effectiveness, with the understanding that the main purpose is to build up the Council's potential to meet its Charter prerogatives to maintain international peace and security.

In that context, Russia, as a permanent member of the Council, advocates increased effectiveness of its work, including by giving the Council a more representative character. However, attempts in that regard must not affect the Council's effectiveness. That is one of the main issues in our approach to the matter of Council reform.

Russia's position in that regard is well known. We favour preserving a compact Council composition and are convinced that it would be counterproductive to bring in ideas that would infringe upon the prerogatives of the Council's current permanent members, including its veto institution.

We also fully support the notion that the formula for Council reform must ensure the broadest possible support by Members of the Organization, at any rate, by more than the legally required two-thirds majority of the votes in the General Assembly. The proposed reform models still do not enjoy predominant support in the United Nations. An attempt to sell those plans by bringing them to a vote would inevitably polarize the General Assembly. Even if one of the drafts did garner the two thirds of the votes required by the Charter, the Council would hardly become more authoritative in the eyes of the minority who disagreed, which would certainly include some influential States. Therefore, the significance of a formally more representative Council would be cancelled out by its diminished prestige in international affairs. That would be unacceptable.

We are prepared to continue the painstaking work to bring together approaches to selecting the optimal model of a future Security Council composition and to look at any reasonable option to enlarge the membership, including the so-called transitional decision, if it is based on the broadest agreement within the United Nations.

Our common task is to lay the foundation for the further strengthening of the authority and potential of the Security Council as the main body in the area of the maintenance of peace and international security. Thus, we all have a large responsibility to ensure that insufficiently thought out steps to reform the Council do not lead to polarization and division in the ranks of Member States and thus, instead of their strengthening, to a weakening of the United Nations and the Security Council, thereby complicating efforts on other reform tracks in the Organization.

In that context, we attach great significance to the preparatory work to agree on the format and the modalities of the upcoming intergovernmental negotiations, which, in the letter and spirit of the General Assembly decision 62/557 of 15 September, we are to complete in the Open-ended Working Group before initiating the talks. At the last meeting of the Open-ended Working Group, a number of delegations suggested developing a road map for its work in the upcoming pre-negotiation period. We believe that idea deserves support.

Our delegation is open to a further constructive exchange of views within the Open-ended Working Group with all delegations, in the time left, until commencement of intergovernmental negotiations.

Mr. Terzi di Sant'Agata (Italy)

I am grateful to the President of the General Assembly for convening this meeting of the General Assembly, which allows us to discuss the critical matter of how to make the Security Council more effective, representative and democratic. As representative of an elected member of the Security Council, I would also like to thank Ambassador Urbina and Ambassador Le Luong Minh and commend them on the annual report presented today (A/63/2). The Council presidency is working for greater openness and transparency, a goal we fully support. That brings me to the great effort done in improving working methods. The Permanent Representative of Costa Rica, in his presentation at the 53rd meeting, stated that we must "further the cause of transparency, access to the Council and accountability".

To this I would add redressing the imbalance between the General Assembly and the Security Council. Areas for improvement include fuller access to the Security Council, better and more regular communications from the Council to the general membership, more thematic debates in the General Assembly, more detailed annual reports to the General Assembly, more frequent and substantial public meetings and a system to prevent overlap and assure transparency in the subsidiary bodies.

As we read in the report presented today, we see, in the Council's daily efforts to address threats to peace and security, growing attention being paid to conflict prevention and mediation, to the protection of civilians in peacekeeping operation mandates and to the issue of protecting human rights as a contribution to security.

I shall now focus my comments on the report of the Open-ended Working Group (A/62/47), looking first at matters of procedure and then at matters of substance.

Together with a significant group of countries, Italy has, for three years now, been a promoter of the Uniting for Consensus idea. We believe that reforms that amend the Charter, alter binding agreements on peace and security and modify or create key United Nations bodies can only become a viable reality if every Member State has ownership. The most important reforms in the history of the United Nations have been approved by consensus or by an overwhelming majority. Let me give the Assembly a few examples: the creation of the Human Rights Council, the Peacebuilding Commission, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Ad Hoc Committee and the Preparatory Committee on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court and the indefinite extension of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

In short, every major diplomatic initiative to substantially modify existing institutional frameworks has been preceded by general agreements to convene preparatory groups, on the clear understanding that all relevant decisions would be taken by consensus. So how can we possibly imagine restructuring the Security Council -- the supreme body charged with safeguarding international peace and security -- in such a way as to have it remain at the service of a mere handful of Member States?

At the beginning of the current session of the General Assembly, the Security Council reform process entered a new phase with the adoption of decision 62/557 of 15 September 2008, which established aims, a procedure and a sequence. The task of the Open-ended Working Group at this juncture is clear, namely, to immediately address the framework and the modalities so as to prepare and facilitate the intergovernmental negotiations in the informal session of the General Assembly. But those negotiations have to be prepared urgently in the Open-ended Working Group, which needs to map out clear rules and procedures so as to guarantee a fair and level playing field. That will, in turn, guarantee objective and impartial intergovernmental negotiations that are characterized by openness, inclusiveness and transparency. What we propose, in short, is a democratic platform to reach a democratic result.

Turning now to matters of substance, the report of the Open-ended Working Group and its annexes provide a wide variety of perspectives on the exercise. In the annexes, there is a constant refrain on the need to consider the regional dimension in Security Council reform, such as in the letters addressed by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the Arab Group and the facilitators' report. The Security Council itself has acknowledged the importance of that dimension by holding a meeting on the role of regional and subregional organizations in the maintenance of international peace and security. The African Union, the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are examples of regional organizations that are engaged in close cooperation with the United Nations. The General Assembly has just adopted a resolution on cooperation with the League of Arab States and is currently discussing one on cooperation with the OIC.

That is the world of international relations in the twenty-first century. That reality must be adequately reflected in the balance of the Security Council. Regional seats, for example, would assure better representation of the interests and ownership of developing countries, small island developing States, other small States and all those that are underrepresented -- in other words, the vast majority of the membership, which is underrepresented. It is also the very same majority that the Permanent Representative of Cape Verde referred to yesterday in the Open-ended Working Group in speaking clearly against the arrogance of the few. We are now aware of the complexity of that process. Nevertheless, to enact Security Council reform that does not address the issue of regional representation would be to miss a great historic opportunity.

Some countries are proposing the mere addition of national permanent seats in one variant or another. Do we think that such a reform would really make the Council more representative and effective? In my opinion, reform centred on national permanent seats would be more divisive for the membership and provoke national rivalries.

Every country counts. We must not perpetuate a Security Council of the few. We want a new Security Council in which every country can recognize itself and feel a sense of ownership.

Mr. Frommelt (Liechtenstein)

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