The General Assembly launched negotiations on Thursday aimed at reforming the powerful UN Security Council after nearly 30 years of efforts mired by national and regional rivalries.
Representatives of the 192 member states met informally behind closed doors to listen to the timetable for talks on five key issues, including the size, composition and power of an expanded council.
“This is a historic day in the United Nations,” Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann said. “Finally, today, we are about to enter into the substance of this reform.”
There is widespread support for revamping the UN’s most powerful organ to reflect current global realities rather than the international power structure after World War II when the UN was created. But all previous attempts, starting in 1979, have failed because rivalries between countries and regions blocked agreement on how to expand the council.
The Security Council, which is responsible for maintaining international peace and security, has 15 seats. Ten are filled by non-permanent members elected for two-year terms that come from all regions of the world, and there five permanent members with veto power whose support is essential for any reform to be adopted — the US, Russia, China, Britain and France.
In 2005, world leaders called for the council to be “more broadly representative, efficient and transparent.” The General Assembly’s last session, which ended in September, asked the current session to start intergovernmental negotiations on council reform by next Saturday.
German Ambassador Thomas Matussek, whose country is seeking a permanent seat as a reflection of its economic might, said prospects for compromise “are better than they were before, because against the backdrop of the international financial and economic crisis everybody talks about global governance.”
The question, he said, is whether countries want the world to be run by small groups of economically and politically powerful nations or “by the only legitimate global institution that we have, and that is the UN.”
Italian Ambassador Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata, whose country recently hosted a ministerial meeting of 80 countries to discuss remaking the council, said that “everybody feels the pressure of the international situation — be it in the peace and security [area], be it in the financial aspect.”
But Chinese Ambassador Zhang Yesui (張業遂) said he viewed the negotiations as a continuation of talks in the assembly’s working group.
“The problems remain,” he said. “We have to see how people present their views in this new forum.”
D’Escoto said the first negotiations on March 4 will tackle the different categories of Security Council membership. That session will be followed by meetings on the veto and regional representation later next month.
The size of an enlarged council and its working methods as well as the relationship between the council and the General Assembly will be up for consideration in April. A second round of negotiations is scheduled for May.
Calling Thursday’s launch of negotiations “a significant event,” British Ambassador John Sawers said “the need for change is great.”
“The current climate of economic instability has highlighted the need for strong, representative and effective international organizations,” he said.
But Sawers cautioned that in undertaking reforms, “we have to ensure that this council remains capable of taking the effective action necessary to confront today’s security challenges.”
US Ambassador Susan Rice echoed this view, saying President Barack Obama’s administration supports council expansion “in a way that will not diminish its effectiveness or its efficiency.”
“We will make a serious, deliberate effort, working with partners and allies, to find a way forward that enhances the ability of the Security Council to carry out its mandate and effectively meet the challenges of the new century,” she said.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
EYEING A SOLUTION: In unusually critical remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump said he was ‘destroying Russia by not making a deal’ US President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war. Trump’s warning in a social media post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
RSS