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Little Prospect of Security
Council Reform, Draft Working Group Report and Debate Show Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis UNITED
NATIONS, August 27 -- The
lack of transparency of the UN Security Council was debated all day on
Wednesday, with no finality and no changes. Frustration was expressed
by many
non-Council members. Indian Ambassador Nirupam Sen, for example, spoke
of the
Council's losing legitimacy due to not expanding "the number of
permanent
members." While the debate's
sponsor, the Belgian Council presidency, declined to speak to the media
at
the end of Thursday's debate -- perhaps because there was no outcome
document -- Inner City Press has obtained a copy of the
August 26 Draft Report of the "Open-ended Working Group" on Security
Council reform, and puts it online here
Just as the
Council held its
first open debate on its working methods in 1994 -- the year it stood
by during
the Rwandan genocide, it is noted -- the Working Group of the General
Assembly
first met in January 1994. For fourteen years they have sloshed around.
Now the
draft report merely takes note of the range of proposals, by among
others the African
Union, G-4, L 69 Group, United for Consensus and Small Five States, for
whom
Switzerland spoke at Wednesday's Council meeting. This failure to
prioritize
any of the proposals is, as one involved diplomat told Inner City
Press,
"bound to make everyone mad." And for very little impact: since the
Permanent Five hold the veto, little meaningful change can be expected.
Still, countries want to get at least non-permanent
seats on the
Council. On Wednesday the written testimony of Iceland's Ambassador
Hjalmar
Hannesson had, in red, "First Time Candidate to the Security Council
2009-2010." While its opponent
Turkey
is buying soccer balls and "VIP vehicles" for countries whose
vote it wants, Iceland has devoted a budget of over $4 million to
its
counter-campaign, mostly increasing staffing in New York. The Icelandic
National Broadcasting Service has sent a reporter to the UN. Smaller
countries are all in it together. But the lack of unity in confronting
the
Permanent Five, coupled with their disproportionate structural power in
the UN
system, seems to doom the prospect of real reform. Watch
this
site. And this (on
South Ossetia),
this, on
Russia-Georgia,
and
this -- |
