UNGA to begin negotiations on Security Council reform next week

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations General Assembly is set to begin next week serious negotiations aimed at reshaping the size and membership of the Security Council and making it more democratic and effective to meet the 21st century challenges, Afghanistan's UN Ambassador Zahir Tanin has said.
"Yesterday's multilateral institutions must be adapted to today's multi-polar world," said Tanin, who will chair the intergovernmental negotiations on the stalled reform process of the 15-nation council that open on Feb. 19.
"Security Council reform is sometimes dismissed as a cocktail party pastime for ambassadors, but I think, if it was the case before, those days are definitely over," he told a news briefing on Friday.
The council's reform, which got underway some 16 years ago, was backed by the 2005 world summit held at UN Headquarters in New York.
Practically all member states agree on enlarging the membership of Council, but they are sharply divided over the details.
In July 2005, the G-4 called for boosting its membership from 15 members to 25, with six new permanent seats without veto power and two for the African region as well as four non-permanent seats.
The Italy/Pakistan-led "Uniting for Consensus" (UfC) group opposed any expansion of the permanent members on the Security Council. It sought enlargement of the council to 25 seats, with 10 new non-permanent members
who would be elected for two-year terms, with the possibility of immediate re-election.
The African Union's called for the Council to be enlarged to 26 seats, one more permanent seat than the G-4 proposal. Its proposal for six new permanent seats was the same as the G-4's, except that it would give
the new members veto power.
The ambassador told reporters at UN Headquarters in New York that the competition over different reform proposals has ended and intergovernmental negotiations towards compromises are on the agenda of the General Assembly, which comprises of all 192 Member States.
The key issues concerning reform of the 15-member Council " five permanent members with veto power and 10 one-year rotating memberships " include the category of membership, the question of veto, regional representation, size of an enlarged Security Council, and working methods of the Security Council and its relationship with the General Assembly.
Tanin remained non-committal when repeatedly asked whether decisions would be taken on a consensual basis or by vote during the intergovernmental negotiations. He said the work plan presented next week would provide more information on how the negotiations would unfold. But, while voting had not been an option during the work of the General Assmebly's Open-Ended Working Group, he suggested there was a difference between that body's procedures and those of the assembly's informal plenary.
"The overwhelming majority of the Member States made it clear to us that it is not about negotiations on negotiations, but ... the aim is an early reform as the world's leaders expressed in the World Summit's outcome document in 2005.
"It's up to the Member States, in particular the five permanent [members], to help get the outcome that is needed," added Mr. Tanin.