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UNITED
NATIONS:
Security Council
Reform Not Just a Question of
Numbers
Mario Osava*
RIO DE JANEIRO, (IPS) - Rather
than granting veto power to a
greater number of countries, the
United Nations Security Council
needs ”qualitative” reforms that
would strip its five permanent
members of that authority, if
true multilateralism is to be
achieved, say analysts in Latin
America.
A mere quantitative change in
the Security Council that
”maintains the same design”
would not be in line with the
current global situation and
would merely ensure the
continuation of the crisis in
the multilateral system, argued
Cándido Grzybowski, one of the
organisers of the World Social
Forum (WSF) and the director of
the Brazilian Institute of
Social and Economic Analysis (IBASE).
”Changes in the decision-making
process are needed, in order to
come up with better quality
resolutions,” agreed Juan
Tokatlián, director of political
science and international
relations at the University of
San Andrés, in Buenos Aires.
The U.N. Security Council ”has
always been an oligarchical,
undemocratic mechanism lacking
in transparency,” he told IPS.
But what is now being negotiated
in the debate on U.N. reforms is
only the make-up of the global
system's highest body, which is
composed of 15 countries,
including 10 rotating members
and five permanent veto-wielding
members: Britain, China, France,
Russia and the United States.
A committee of experts named by
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi
Annan set forth several
proposals for Security Council
reform, including initiatives
for enlargement, but without
altering the veto power of the
five permanent members.
Germany, Brazil, Japan and India
are also demanding permanent
seats for themselves and for two
African nations, as part of a
proposed expansion of the body
to 25 members.
The debate, which began in the
early 1990s after the break-up
of the Soviet Union and the end
of the Cold War, has degenerated
into a dispute over the eventual
new spots on the Council, with
many countries opposing the
aspirations of the four regional
powers and demanding a system of
rotating seats.
In Latin America, Brazil's
candidacy is rejected by
Argentina and Mexico. But ”if
the Council is expanded, the
inclusion of Brazil is a given,”
because ”it is the only country
in the region with the vocation
of being a global actor,”
Rosendo Fraga, director of the
New Majority Studies Centre in
Argentina, told IPS.
Argentina, which a century ago
was ”South America's biggest
economy,” today has a gross
domestic product equivalent to
one-fourth or one-third of the
GDP of Brazil or Mexico, which
means it has lost the ”critical
mass” needed to defend its
aspirations to a rotating
presence in a permanent Latin
American seat, said Fraga.
It is only natural for Brazil to
play a regional leadership role
due to the size of its economy,
territory and population, ”while
Mexico does not have that
vocation, and Argentina and
Chile lack critical mass,” said
the Argentine analyst.
Brazil, which has aspired to a
seat on the Security Council for
years, has built up its case by
actively participating in U.N.
peacekeeping missions, such as
the one it currently heads in
Haiti, said former Mexican
diplomat Andrés Rozental.
Brazil ”has never refused - as
has Mexico - to assume its
responsibilities as the
geographically, economically,
demographically and politically
dominant country in the region,”
wrote Rozental in an article for
the non-governmental Mexican
Council of International
Affairs, which he presides over.
Mexico remains caught up in ”a
sterile debate on whether or not
it is a good idea to occupy the
place to which we could also be
entitled due to our size,
economic strength and
population. Up to now this
national schizophrenia was
nothing more than a theoretical
discussion, without practical
effects, because an actual
reform of the U.N. charter
seemed remote,” he added.
The former diplomat lamented
that officials in Mexico had not
”clearly stated that Mexico also
aspires to the additional seat
on the Security Council, and
that we would not accept a
decision reached without a
consultation process and without
even a discussion on the merits
of each of the candidates.”
But it is unlikely that Brazil
and other contenders for a seat
on an expanded Security Council
will achieve the same status as
the five permanent members with
power of veto, as part of the
modernisation and
democratisation of the global
body, because they face the
opposition of strong neighbours,
like China in the case of Japan
and Argentina in the case of
Brazil, in addition to other
obstacles.
The Council, which was created
to maintain international peace
and security, is involved in
both military and diplomatic
questions, observed Tokatlián,
who wondered how it could accept
as permanent members countries
like Germany and Japan, which
”do not control their own
security, because they have U.S.
bases in their territories.”
But Brazil lacks one credential
that is decisive: a military
that is capable of rapid
intervention abroad ”to impose
peace” rather than merely
maintain it, said Geraldo
Cavagnari, a researcher at the
Strategic Studies Centre at the
University of Campinas and a
former Brazilian army officer.
That is ”one characteristic that
Brazil does not yet have,” which
requires sophisticated resources
and implies risks and high
costs, including human costs,
because it can involve jumping
into the middle of armed
conflicts, he said.
The Brazilian armed forces are
getting a taste of that in
Haiti, where they are heading up
a U.N. peacekeeping mission that
is not enjoying a great deal of
success, Cavagnari added.
Brazil's ambition is ”madness”,
a product of ”the old
nationalistic militarism and
dream of becoming a great
power,” which is possibly
generating negative effects like
the tension with Argentina and
other neighbours, besides
commercial and political
concessions to China, said
Grzybowski.
Brazil's pretensions have also
influenced its nuclear policy,
with pressure to revive the plan
for building new nuclear energy
plants, ”despite the opposition
of the country's energy
authorities,” he said.
The Security Council should be
maintained in a U.N. reform
process, but alongside a
”redefinition of national
sovereignty, in whose name
genocide has been committed,”
and the enforcement of respect
for human rights, so that they
are not ignored when ”crimes
against humanity are committed,”
like in the case of Rwanda in
1994, said the analyst.
It would be more democratic to
adopt a system of rotating
membership and a collective veto
that would kick in with a
minimum number of votes, ”like
one-third, for example,”
suggested Grzybowski.
Tokatlián, meanwhile, pointed
out that a large Security
Council, such as the proposed
25-member body, would make it
difficult to adopt decisions
quickly.
Both analysts expressed their
concern about society's scarce
participation in the debate on
Security Council reform.
In the WSF, which has drawn tens
of thousands of activists and
representatives of civil society
to its annual gathering since
2001, U.N. reforms are being
discussed as part of the ”new
democratic international order,”
noted Grzyboswki, a member of
the WSF International Council.
Grzyboswki and many WSF
activists are not impressed by
the official proposals for U.N.
reform that are presently being
debated.
They argue that much deeper
changes are needed, such as
putting the World Trade
Organisation, the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank
under U.N. control, affirming
the supremacy of human rights,
and promoting human security, by
strengthening several U.N.
commissions and councils that
now have only consultative
status.
* With additional reporting by
Marcela Valente in Argentina and
Diego Cevallos in Mexico.
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