Debate on expanding UN Security Council intensifies

The G-4, as the four countries are called, want to add 10 more seats to the 15-member Council, six of them permanent. Four of those permanent seats would go to those countries, and the other seats to two yet unnamed African nations.

"We will work with you to achieve enlargement of the Security Council, but only in the right way and at the right time," Shirin Tahir-Kheli, adviser on UN reform to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, told the General Assembly on Tuesday.

"We urge you, therefore, to oppose this resolution and, should it come to a vote, to vote against it."

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Although a vote on the proposal has not yet been scheduled, the debate began in earnest on Monday.

According to BBC, "a majority in the General Assembly [is] in favor of the resolution although not the required two-thirds majority needed for it to be passed."

Since the UN began in 1945, the permanent five council members have been Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States.

Brazil's ambassador to the UN, Ronaldo Mota Sardenberg, said the realities of power had changed since 1945, and the Council needed to reflect a modern-day balance of power.

Japan will press on with its fight to expand the council, despite the US rejection, reports The Age of Melbourne, Australia.

Japan's chief cabinet secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said Tokyo felt the US position was not final, and that there had been extensive discussions with Ms. Rice in Tokyo on Tuesday. "Many developments are possible, so at this time we don't believe the US way of thinking is fixed," he said. "We, along with the other nations, would like to have it decided soon."

India said effective decisions of the council would have no resonance in the world at large without new members, reports Reuters.

"To postpone and do nothing is perhaps a sign of maturity, but equally of old age and decrepitude," Ambassador Nirupam Sen told the assembly.

The African Union (AU) agrees with the G-4 that there should be six new permanent seats (two from Africa) - but it wants them to have veto power. The G-4 has dropped this demand. The AU also stood by its call for calling for five non-permanent seats for African countries, approved by the AU this week in a draft resolution.

As for which countries will represent Africa in the proposed expansion of the Council, the South African daily Mail & Guardian reports that this week's AU summit in Sirte, Libya "decided discretion was the better part of valor when dealing with a potentially thorny issue of deciding who should represent it ...."

"There are fears this stance will put the continent at odds with its most important donor countries and reduce the chances of proponents for reform gaining a critical mass of support at this time," according to the Mail & Guardian. The paper reports that South Africa, Nigeria, and Egypt are leading contenders for the two proposed African seats.

A third group of about 20 nations, called " Uniting for Consensus," opposes any new permanent members and instead wants to add 10 nonpermanent members. The group – led by Pakistan and Italy – says the G-4 proposal is unequal, because it gives permanent membership to 11 countries and leaves 180 others to compete for 14 seats. Pakistan's UN Ambassador Munir Akram said it would erode democracy and accountability in the council and would enlarge the "club of the privileged."

Mr. Akram led this charge with what a United Press International reports calls "the harshest criticism" of the G-4." He said some nations felt the reform process had been hijacked by a small group of nations seeking new and unequal privileges for themselves.

To add insult to injury, self-interest had been portrayed as altruism," Akram said. "The seekers of special privileges and power masqueraded as the champions of the weak and disadvantaged -- asserting that the special privileges they sought would make the council more representative and neutralize the power of the present members.

The seekers of special privileges and power masquerade as champions of the weak, asserting that the special privileges they seek will make the UNSC more representative. ... History has witnessed many who proclaimed they came to bury, not praise Caesar.

The diplomatic wrangling over security council reform has led to concerns that other pressing items on Secretary General Kofi Annan's agenda may be put on the back burner. When asked about this Mr. Annan said:

We have a set of proposals on the table. The member states have been discussing these issues for months now. There is no reason, no excuse, not to bring those discussions to closure. And if they have to focus on the Security Council reform, let them do that. But they should move on the other clusters as well.

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