INP
\nUNITED NATIONS
\nPakistan has warned the international community that any \u201cill-conceived reform of the Security Council would be the greatest disservice to the rules-based international order whose pivot is the U.N.\u201d
\n\u201cA large, unwieldy and inefficient Security Council, characterized by an enlarged, privileged clique, is an end-state that Pakistan neither desires, nor will ever support,\u201d Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi, Permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, told the long-running Intergovernmental Negotiations aimed at reforming the 15-member body to make it more representative, efficient and effective.
\nFull-scale negotiations to restructure the Security Council began in the General Assembly in February 2009. Despite a general agreement on enlarging the Council, as part of the UN reform process, member states remain sharply divided over the details.
\nKnown as the \u201cGroup of Four,\u201d India, Brazil, Germany and Japan \u201d have shown no flexibility in their campaign to expand the Security Council by 10 seats, with 6 additional permanent and four non-permanent members.
\nOn the other hand, the Italy\/Pakistan-led Uniting for Consensus (UfC) group say that additional permanent members will not make the Security Council more effective and also undermine the fundamental principle of democracy that is based on periodic elections.
\nThe Security Council is currently composed of five permanent members \u2014 Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States \u2014 and 10 non-permanent members that are elected in groups of five to two-year terms.
\nWhile agreeing that an expansion in the size of the Security Council is an imperative of greater representation, Ambassador Lodhi argued that the representative character of an enlarged Security Council needs to be balanced against the need to maintain its efficiency and effectiveness.
\n\u201cAs true representation is inherently linked to active and continuous accountability, any measure of effectiveness is contingent on redressing the Council\u2019s existing dysfunctionalities, and not reinforcing them,\u201d she said.
\nEmphasizing the need to strengthen the representation of elected members on the Council, rather than emasculate their existing role, Ambassador Lodhi said that the only satisfactory outcome to meet the twin objectives of efficiency and effectiveness is through an expansion in the elected non-permanent category of seats.
\nAmbassador Lodhi emphasized that consensus only exists for enlarging the Council by more elected, non permanent members, adding that any claim to the contrary is a fallacy, and deserves to be treated, as such. \u201cWe can , therefore, only marvel at the ingenuity or disingenuity of those who offer solutions that reduce the margin of representation between the permanent and elected members, yet, promote them in the name of a more representative and effective Council,\u201d she said while criticizing those member states who aspire to securing permanent seats in the Council.
\nOpposing any addition of permanent seats to the Council, the Pakistani envoy said that when a third of the membership has never served on the Council, such \u201csolutions\u201d aim to further the self interests of a few, at the expense of the many who may, in consequence, be deprived from ever serving on the Council.
\nAmbassador Lodhi called for reinvigorating the vital institutional relationship between the two core organs of the UN, the Security Council and the General Assembly. In this regard, she called for strengthening the Council\u2019s accountability and transparency through greater participation and access to the work of the Security Council and its subsidiary organs by all members of the General Assembly.
\n\u201cWe believe that this ideal can only be achieved if democratic principles are placed at the heart of, and define, the Council\u2019s composition\u201d, she said while emphasizing that the best way to ensure a responsible and accountable Council is to strengthen the role and authority of the General Assembly in determining its representation in the Council.
\nThe Council she said, can be made more broadly representative of the general membership by adding electable non-permanent seats which would reflect the interests of all member states\u2019 small, medium and large.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
INP UNITED NATIONS Pakistan has warned the international community that any \u201cill-conceived reform of the Security Council would be the greatest disservice to the rules-based international order whose pivot is the U.N.\u201d \u201cA large, unwieldy and inefficient Security Council, characterized by an enlarged, privileged clique, is an end-state that Pakistan neither desires, nor will ever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-27167","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"\n