NEW YORK (Staff Report) – At the United Nations, India found itself in the dock at a meeting of the Inter-governmental Negotiations on Security Council reform when Pakistan and other delegates demanded some rationale for its bid.
Brazil, Germany and Japan also supported Pakistan’s stance for permanent membership of the fifteen members body.
Pakistan Ambassador to United Nations Maleeha Lodhi exposed the poor logic of India and its allies saying that the G-4, formula reflect the self-serving national ambition of a few at the expense of the world body’s wider membership.
Speaking in inter government negotiations she said that the objective of SC expansion should be to respond to the concerns and “aspirations of all, not just a few”.
“To propose allocation of 4-6 seats permanently to that many countries, while handing over only 4-5 seats to the rest of the membership is not only poor mathematics but also poor logic, and even poorer rationale for a just and meaningful reform”, she declared.
Opposing the proposal that sought expansion in permanent membership, Pakistan’s envoy argued that this runs contrary to the principles that all Member States agree to – to make the Council “more representative, democratic, accountable, transparent and effective.”
Ambassador Lodhi said that the the principle of sovereign equality of states demands equal opportunity for all States to seek membership of the Council. Only additional electable seats, on the basis of periodic elections and fixed rotation, would allow equal, fair and increased opportunity to all States to aspire for Security Council’s membership.
She argued that the concept of “representation” would be hollow without accountability to those who were being represented. “Periodic elections are the only way to make the representatives accountable to the electorate”, she said.
Describing regional representation as “essential to address the imbalance in the Council’s composition, representative character and decision-making, Ambassador Lodhi said that the best way to do this was to enlarge the Council in the non-permanent category. “This not only allows more countries from respective regions to serve on the Council but also affords space to work out rotation of seats among cross-regional groups”, she added.
Reiterating Pakistan’s principled position against the addition of new Permanent seats, Ambassador Lodhi said that this would also undermine regional representation in the Council by creating the mirage that a country unelected by and unaccountable to its region could represent that region.
