inside the glass house

Vote on veto: Reforms elude UN
NEW YORK -- The 15-member Security Council, the only UN body empowered to make war and peace, is a political anachronism that has outlived its usefulness.

With its five veto-wielding permanent members - the US, France, Britain, China and Russia - the Council violates the one-nation, one-vote principle enshrined in the UN charter.

As a result, the Council has continued to legitimize the long-discredited principle that while all 191 member states are created equal, some are more equal than the others.

The 10 other non-permanent members on the Council, who are elected every two years on the rotating principle of geographical distribution, have no vetoes and remain politically impotent.

As former UN Under-Secretary-General James Jonah, who also served as Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone, told a seminar organized by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation last week the misuse of the veto is even regrettable than the veto itself.

As someone who had chaired the Security Council, and whose country was once a non-permanent member, Jonah said: "The veto has been abused, abused and abused."

Every member of the Council has used the veto to safeguard its own national interest. Over the last 60 years, the veto has been abused mostly by the former Soviet Union (now Russia) and the United States (mostly to protect Israel).

But the veto has also been used as a political threat to advance parochial interests. France, for example, has always forewarned member states that it will not give its blessings to any candidate for Secretary-General who does not speak French.

The warning from France is ominous: if you want to be the UN Secretary-General, make sure you speak French. Otherwise we will veto you. As former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali once jokingly remarked: you should not only be able to speak French but also speak English with a French accent. That's a double jeopardy.

"What is the relationship between having a good Secretary-General and his ability to speak French," asked Jonah, who comes from an English-speaking African country.

But then, when you possess the veto power - as France does - you play the game according to the rules set by permanent members, whether they are right or wrong.

Or even change the rules in the middle of the game - since the UN charter does not specify French as a qualification to become a Secretary-General, even though French is one of the working languages of the world body, as is English, Spanish, Arabic and Chinese.

Since 1994, a UN working committee has been labouring to bring about radical changes in the Security Council. But after 10 long years, the committee has hit a dead-end.

The primary reason is that permanent members armed with the veto have refused to abdicate the ultimate power they possess. They have also been wishy-washy about welcoming new permanent members with veto powers, to their elitist inner circle.

Last month Secretary-General Kofi Annan released a landmark 62-page report described as a blueprint for restructuring the world body. The report backs a proposal made by a high-level panel on UN reforms, which early this year called for two alternative models:

Model A provides for six new permanent seats, with no veto being created, and three new two-year term non-permanent seats, divided among Africa, Asia and Pacific, Europe and the Americas.

Model B provides for no new permanent seats but creates a new category of eight four-year renewable-term seats and one new two-year non-permanent (and non-renewable) seat, divided among the four regional groups.

The secretary-general said he wants member states to take their pick before September, when over 150 world leaders are expected in New York for a summit meeting.

The four front runners for Model A were India, Japan, Germany and Brazil (who called themselves the Group of 4). But last week, in a major setback to the Group, both China and the US said they are in no rush to change the current composition of the Security Council. Both countries have refused to abide by the "artificial" September deadline set by the Secretary-General.

The reservations from the US and China came as a surprise to most diplomats, and a bitter disappointment to the Group of 4, which was under the mistaken impression that the coast was clear for changes in the Security Council.

The rejection also undermines Annan's broad package to reform the world body. When he introduced the package last month, he stressed this was not an "ala carte" package. It was not meant to be picked apart. The whole package was meant to be approved in toto.

But with most member states expressing strong reservations over some of his proposals, including the creation of a new Human Rights Council, Annan faces another crisis of confidence as he struggles to save his beleaguered administration.

At a news conference in Geneva last week, he was forced to backtrack when he told reporters that he did not mean to say that it was an "all or nothing" package.

"My suggestion that they look at the proposals as a package was not intended to convey the message - take it or leave it," he said. "What I am suggesting is, let's look at it comprehensively."

Back to Columns