New proposals unveiled for UN reforms

UNITED NATIONS, Saturday (Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly unveiled proposals that would send plans to expand the elite U.N. Security Council back to the drawing board and instead enlarge the elite body on a temporary basis. While a vast majority of U.N. members believe the 15-member Council is unrepresentative, dominated by industrial nations, a report on Friday acknowledged that rivalries on who should have a seat have stymied solutions for decades.

The Security Council, the most powerful U.N. body, which can make mandatory decisions on war and peace, has five veto-bearing permanent members given seats when the United Nations was created in 1945. They are Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, considered World War II victors, while another 10 nations rotate for two-year terms according to regions.

The new report was requested by the 192-member Assembly, which assigned five “facilitators,” the ambassadors of Chile, Croatia, Cyprus, Netherlands and Tunisia, who drew up proposals after three months of consultations. Among their recommendations were a series of transitional arrangements, which would be reviewed periodically. This could include added temporary seats, semi-permanent seats and other variations short of a permanent set-up.

“In my view the status quo is unacceptable,” said Chile's U.N. Ambassador Heraldo Munoz. The hope is “to suggest directions, to rethink what has already been posed as solutions” to break the deadlock. Officials from four countries who want permanent seats — Brazil, Germany, India and Japan — met this week in Brasilia to discuss their position. Their plan, drawn up in 2005, also calls for two permanent seats from Africa.

Of the four India is said to be the most adamant on obtaining a permanent council seat. Another group of medium-sized countries, which includes Pakistan and Italy, have advocated an additional 10 nonpermanent seats for various terms. But unlike other U.N. reforms, compromise was nearly impossible as seats on the council meant winners and losers, with each candidate having drawn enough opposition to prevent any plan from gaining a two-thirds vote in the Assembly.

The last step in the process is a U.N. Charter change, which must be approved by national legislatures, and here the current five permanent members have veto power. The Bush administration has said it would go for “two or so” more permanent members, without veto power, for a total of five or six additional seats.

“A significant number of member states tend to agree that their ideal solution may not be possible at this stage, and believe that it may be more reasonable to consider the best possible solution for now,” the report said. Expansion of the council needs to be based on a country's contribution to peace and security as well as an equitable geographical distribution. Enlargement should also “address the under-representation of developing countries as well as small states,” the report said.