Global Policy Forum

H.E. Mr. Hennadiy Udovenko, President of the General Assembly

Distinguished Delegates,

The General Assembly has just taken a decision by which it drew the line at yet another year of deliberations on matters relating to the comprehensive transformation of the United Nations organ entrusted with primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.

In anticipation of this moment, it was not an easy task for me to decide on what should be said or should not be said on such a topic as the reform of the Security Council. This is probably one of the most difficult issues the United Nations has tackled throughout its history and it is certainly one of the thorniest items on its agenda at the end of this century.

Being the Chairman of the Open-ended Working Group mandated to deal with this matter and having chaired personally a substantive number of its meetings, I had the opportunity to follow closely every development in this process.

As was the case during the four previous sessions of the General Assembly, tremendous efforts have been made this year in order to explore comprehensively different aspects of this reform. The rather bulky report of 77 pages of the Open-ended Working Group is a striking illustration of extensive discussions which took place during the fiftysecond session of the General Assembly.

It is also worthy of being noted that this year the Working Group met the record number of times - it held 56 meetings during the current session of the General Assembly.

While progress has been made in some areas, and new ideas and proposals have emerged, at this point there is no compelling evidence to believe that the meetings of the Working Group have yielded a breakthrough in this reform exercise. Moreover, once again the Working Group appeared to be not in a position to submit any agreed recommendations on the substance of this matter to the General Assembly, except that it should continue its work during the next session.

I shall not dwell on the reasons why this did not eventuate. All of you are perfectly aware of the major stumbling blocks, which have prevented the Working Group from agreeing on anything, even on mere encouragement to bring its work to a conclusion before the end of this millennium. Some of these stumbling blocks include opposition to the creation of new permanent seats, disagreement over the issue of the total size of an enlarged Council, different approaches to the issue of rotational arrangements for new permanent seats, and, finally, considerable differences on the problem of veto right with respect to both current and prospective permanent members.

It is indeed a fact that all those problems continue to exist. One could argue that perhaps, given the fundamental nature of the differences over Security Council reform, no pre-conditions exist at the current stage that could lead to a breakthrough in their reconciliation. The response to those arguments should be rather straightforward - we should bear in mind that there is no single, man-made problem, which cannot be solved by human beings.

In the earlier days of the United Nations, Ralph Bunche, a faithful and ardent servant to this Organization, pointed out a fundamental raison d'etre of this world body. He said: "The United Nations exists not merely to preserve the peace, but also to make change - even radical change - possible without violent upheaval".

Until now, the United Nations has been striving to make this noble design a reality not only in word, but also in deed. By agreeing to establish the International Criminal Court, just to cite this latest example, Member States have provided convincing proof that they are able to take courageous steps which are not restricted to narrow national considerations.

As far as Security Council reform is concerned, what is indeed unfortunate is that the intensive discussions which have not led to practical results could leave a perception for the outside world that this reform exercise merely reflects conflicting interests between different groups in pursuit of their own goals.

International public opinion could be left with an impression that one group is striving to transform its apparent international prestige into sound results within the UN system. However, another group would appear determined, for different reasons, to prevent any such transformation. And still another group appears to be sparing no efforts to preserve the existing situation.

But it is absolutely not to satisfy these interests that this reform exercise has been initiated. It would be deplorable indeed if even the participants of the decision-seeking process themselves understood this reform only from that perspective. Should that be the case, one could only assert that the final outcome of this endeavor would not only be of little avail, but could, perhaps, inflict even damaging consequences on this Organization.

When interests collide, we must have a clear blueprint on which should prevail.

In the deliberations regarding Security Council reform there should be only one predominant interest, that is to enhance the relevance of the United Nations to the requirements of a changing world and to ensure that it can, more effectively and efficiently, meet the looming challenges as we enter a new century.

Distinguished Delegates,

As far as almost three years ago, Member States and observers of the United Nations representing the peoples of the world, acknowledged in the Declaration on the occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary. of this Organization the existence of important differences on key issues relating to Security Council reform.

However, they expressed their position in the most unambiguous manner having declared that the Security Council should be expanded and its working methods continue to be reviewed in a way that will further strengthen its capacity and effectiveness, enhance its representative character and improve its working efficiency and transparency.

At that time, Member States required further in-depth consideration of the issues relating to Security Council reform which, as they expected, could help to overcome the existing differences.

However, nobody would assume that the intent of the authors of that Declaration was to assign a permanent status to the Open-ended Working Group as the only outcome of its deliberations and the best alternative to the preservation of the status quo of the Security Council.

Nor, let us believe, is it the intention of the General Assembly now, even though it has just decided that the Working Group should continue its work during the fifty-third session.

Therefore, it is likely that the next session of the General Assembly may pose some difficult questions for Delegations. It is quite possible that they may be challenged with the need to give an answer to whether the exploration of different aspects of this reform should not be brought to an end in one form or another?

If there is still a need for something to be explored after five years of intensive discussions, perhaps, it is our ability to see beyond our national interests, our aptitude to measure this reform against the historical imperatives of today's world. That could well be another crucial question that may confront the Assembly at its next session.

As for this session, we are concluding the consideration of this item without sound results that are so needed to strengthen the United Nations at this crucial time in its post cold war existence.

If those who follow us succeed in this endeavor to reform the Security Council, we could rightly say that by working hard and tenaciously we also paved the way for this accomplishment.

However, if they fail, we should accept our share of the responsibility for that failure...

In conclusion, I should like to express my sincere thanks to Ambassador Wilhelm Breintenstein of Finland, and Ambassador Asda Jayanama of Thailand, the two Vice Chairmen of the Open-ended Working Group on the Question of Equitable Representation on and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council and Other Matters Related to the Security Council, who have continued during the fifty second session the challenging task of conducting the discussions and complex negotiations of the Working Group.