India for compromise solution on Veto power in UNSC reforms

Pressing for UN Security Council reforms, India has suggested a compromise solution on the tricky issue of what kind of Veto power the new permanent members should hold.

 

The G-4 — Brazil, Germany, India and Japan — hold the view that the new permanent members should have the same responsibilities and obligations as the current permanent members the US, the UK, Russia, France and China.

 

However, the new permanent members will hold off wielding the Veto power for fifteen years after the reforms come into place.

 

"The new permanent members shall not exercise the right of Veto until the question of the extension of the right of Veto to new permanent members has been decided upon in the framework of the review mandated fifteen years after the entry into force of the Council reform," said Hardeep Singh Puri, India's envoy to the UN.

 

Speaking at the ongoing discussion on the reforms this week, Puri said that this compromise would "ensure that the veto does not veto Council reform."

 

At this stage only a small number of countries want the Veto to be abolished altogether but a large majority would prefer some restrictions on the use of Veto especially in under certain circumstances like genocide, crimes against humanity and serious violations of international humanitarian law; war crimes, ethnic cleansing and terrorism.

 

The deliberations on the Veto are part of the growing momentum to achieve concrete progress on UNSC reforms.

 

This year the discussion was kicked off with the chairperson of security reform process Zahir Tanin, who is also Afghanistan's permanent representative to the UN, asking member-states to submit proposals that can be worked into a negotiating text, which will be the basis for future discussions.

 

In 2009, member-states of the UN finally abandoned the 'Open Ended Working Group' (OEWG) that had dragged on for 15 years without yielding any substantive results.

 

In March last year, the old talks were replaced by the new "inter-governmental negotiations".

 

Speaking to PTI earlier, Puri even expressed confidence that current negotiations will lead to tangible action in 2010 and could probably yield results in 2011.

 

At the same time, Pakistan is not in favour of an expansion in the permanent category.

 

Opponents of the expansion fear that more members will further cripple the SC, which is often divided and fails to reach effective decisions on peace and security matters.

 

These countries also argue that assigning more powerful countries permanent positions in the Security Council will not break the power dynamics of the past.

 

The Uniting for Consensus group of about 40 nations, led by Pakistan and Italy, are trying to block attempts by G-4 to expand the number of permanent seats in the Council.

 

Reacting to Pakistan's previous objections to the negotiating text, Tanin said in March, "Pakistan has views and reservations about how the text is going to be produced but Pakistan was not against the text being produced."

 

The G-4 favour expansion to six more permanent seats and four non-permanent seats. Two each of the new permanent members would be from Asia and Africa, and one each from Latin America and Europe.

 

Most countries in the GA also favour expansion in both categories, according to a report on recent negotiations.

 

"My distinguished colleague from Pakistan seems to believe that having more permanent members would make the Council more opaque and elitist," Puri had said earlier.

 

"The issue is not whether a Council with five permanent members and ten elected ones is more efficient than one with 25 members with a few more permanent members. We should go into the causes for the Council being ineffective, as composed today, which is why we are having these negotiations," he added.