UN Council needs urgent reform

By Imron Cotan

JAKARTA (JP): The United Nations General Assembly is undergoing its 52nd session in New York and as has been previously predicted, the reform of some of its institutions, especially that of the Security Council, is indeed high on the agenda.

Notwithstanding the fact that it has recently resumed its pivotal role in maintaining international peace and security -- as stipulated in Chapter V, Article 24, of the UN Charter -- many attempts have been made to reform the Security Council.

There have been at least two underlining reasons upon which the international community's call for the reform of this powerful organ of the United Nations is based.

First, it is now being considered as nonrepresentative since the members of the United Nations have drastically increased to 185 states.

Second, and of no less importance, the Security Council created undemocratic rules to cater to the cold-war era, allowing a selected few of its members holding permanent seats -- namely the United States, Russia (formerly the U.S.S.R.), the United Kingdom, France and China -- to exercise individual veto powers over any decisions the Security Council might take.

The need to reform the Security Council has furthermore gained ground, especially among developing countries, due to an increasingly common perception that the Security Council seems to be more of a political tool for the most powerful countries to multilaterally legalize goals relating to their national interests.

The stern and continuous actions taken against Iraq are indeed a striking example and seem to have been blown out of proportion. Ironically, in the meantime, the Security Council is incomprehensibly speechless regarding tragedies of similar magnitude in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Burundi, Israel and Zaire to name but a few cases which it has long been confronted with.

Unfortunately, the attempts to reform the Security Council have so far failed to achieve the looked-for results. It is against this backdrop that the president of the 51st session of the UN General Assembly, Ambassador Razali Ismail of Malaysia has taken the initiative to try to reform the Security Council.

His proposals contain the following basic ideas:

First, the permanent members should be increased to ten countries compared to the current five.

Second, two out those five additional seats should be given to Germany and Japan, as they represent the strongest economic powerhouses in our recent history, while the remaining three should be openly contested among the members of the regional groupings of Asia, Africa and Latin America (including the Caribbean), each having one seat respectively.

According to the devised plan, candidates from developing countries could only be elected if they manage to secure the vote of two-thirds of the members of the General Assembly. The initiative furthermore highlighted that all five of the additional permanent members should enjoy no veto rights.

Third, four countries should be elected to function as additional non-permanent members of the Security Council representing respectively, African states, Asian states, Eastern European states and Latin American and Caribbean states.

Fourth, the veto rights of the current permanent members should be subject to scrutiny in the future for eventual abolishment -- for the maintenance of such power is being perceived as legitimizing undemocratic values, originating from the cold-war era, which all developing nations object to.

The proposals put forward by Razali seem to be very attractive. They, however, contain elements which demand a closer look. Of cardinal importance is the selection process of the permanent members originating from the developing world.

Unlike Germany and Japan, the three representatives of the developing countries are obligated to freely compete in the General Assembly.

Hence, these countries would not actually represent the aspirations of the region concerned, while at the same time opening the possibility of non-regional countries in the General Assembly to determine the representative of a particular region which they do not belong to.

The best way to circumvent this delicate situation is to select the regional representatives based on a consensus. This, of course, is no easy task either.

The political realities in the regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean certainly pose formidable hurdles to consensus-building efforts which would determine the representative country best-suited for each region.

In Asia, India would be questioned by Pakistan and Indonesia. In Africa, Egypt would be challenged by Nigeria or South Africa and vice-versa. While in Latin America and the Caribbean, Brazil would be antagonized by either Argentina or Mexico and the other way around.

Another innovative solution has to be invented. The proposal put forward by Indonesia's Foreign Minister Ali Alatas before the 52nd session of the General Assembly recently is indeed praiseworthy. Alatas proposed that, instead of one, Asia should be given two additional permanent seats in the Security Council.

If this would be applied as well to the two remaining regions, it would greatly help the regions pave the way for achieving a consensus decision.

Without a modification such as Alatas' suggestion, the proposals offered by Razali would not address the nonrepresentative nature of the Security Council. As one might recall in its early inception, the Security Council consisted of 11 countries with the United Nations having 51 members (21.5 percent of the UN membership was therefore also part of the Security Council).

Should Razali's formulas be acceptable, the Security Council would merely have 24 members with the United Nations having 185 members. That means the membership of the Security Council would only constitute 15 percent of the total United Nations membership -- far less than it was in its early establishment.

While this idea is indeed totally unacceptable, it may lead as well to the question of validity or invalidity of the decisions taken in this would-be nonrepresentative body.

What is most striking is that, for the case of Germany and Japan, the election of these two countries would be based on economic parameters -- disregarding the fact that they were the predominant Axis Powers during World War II, inflicting horrendous and unmeasurable damages to mankind and its civilization.

Furthermore, these economic criteria are doomed to be short- lived, for in the not-so-distant future many countries will also be able to claim that they are eligible as well for permanent seats on the Security Council based on their tremendous progress in economic fields and their huge contribution to the United Nations budget.

These might, for example, include the Republic of Korea and Singapore, while politically and demographically they do not adequately represent any constituencies.

In an attempt to thwart this totally unacceptable formula, the potential candidates from Asia, especially Indonesia, have to campaign openly and assertively.

Establishing beforehand a set of criteria for suitable candidates is indeed the right thing to do. As one might recall, Alatas has on many occasions stated that those candidates should be chosen not only by geography but also from their political, economic and demographic weight and their track record of contributing to world peace (The Jakarta Post, Oct. 2, 1997).

One additional important factor that should be included in this set of criteria is that the candidates have to represent the existing powerhouses of the real world.

Indeed, the current Security Council does not have any representative from the Moslem world. Albeit Indonesia does not claim itself as an Islamic state, it is still a member of the Organization of Islamic Conferences. No single country can contest that Indonesia is a suitable candidate to serve as a representative of this important and yet developing constituency of the world.

Not until after all countries unanimously agree to specific criteria can Indonesia entertain the idea of reforming the Security Council. If not, we should stand in the way of reforms not supported by all members, for Indonesia is too big a country to fall to any pressures. We should stand firm for a right and just course for the world and for Indonesia.

The writer is a former United Nations Disarmament Fellow and an expert on international peace and security affairs, residing in Jakarta.