By Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti
Mr. President,
Thank you for convening this meeting on Security Council reform. The prompt resumption of the intergovernmental negotiations in the 65th Session demonstrates your commitment to this very important issue. My delegation fully supports your involvement and leadership.
We also welcome your decision to keep Ambassador Zahir Tanin as facilitator of this process. By being impartial to the positions of member States, yet partial to progress, he has earned the trust of the membership and has steered the process in the right direction.
Mr. President,
The transformations the world is going through are more and more evident. On the realm of the economy, the structures of global governance have already started to adapt to the new reality and must continue to undergo the necessary changes.
Unfortunately, the crucial mechanisms of collective security are frozen in time. With a composition that reflects the realities in the aftermath of the II World War, the UN Security Council is out of touch with today’s world. The Security Council must be brought to the 21st Century, in order to preserve and enhance it legitimacy and effectiveness.
Mr. President,
For 17 years now, members of this Assembly have toiled to reform the Security Council. The first 15 years were dedicated to the inconclusive work of the Open-Ended Working Group. The 63rd Session saw an important development as we shifted to intergovernmental negotiations in this informal plenary.
Some progress has been made since then. Through the oral and written positions exhaustively discussed by the membership, it has become clear which are the main options and negotiables for reform. In the 64th Session, at the request of the overwhelming majority of the membership, the Chair provided us with a negotiating text, which has been accepted by all. These have been important steps. We now have to move forward in order to achieve concrete results by the end of this session.
Mr. President,
What we now need is a streamlined version of the negotiating text. We need a workable and operational text that will enable the membership to take decisive action towards meaningful reform of the Security Council. To that end, your authority and impartiality, as well as Ambassador Tanin’s skill and perseverance, will be required. To ensure wide acceptance of such a revised version of the negotiating text, it is important would require that it comes from neutral source.
Brazil’s views on Security Council reform are well known. Together with the other members of the G-4 and many delegations, we believe that full legitimacy and the effectiveness of the Organ can only be achieved through an increase in the number of permanent and non-permanent seats, for both developed and developing countries. Greater transparency in its decisions and enhanced accountability on the part of its members are also a political necessity to which we must attend.
My country has always been a staunch supporter of the UN as the most perfect embodiment of multilateralism so far achieved. We have to preserve it, by reforming it. Therefore, Mr. President, you and your representative in these negotiations, Ambassador Tanin, may count on Brazil’s full support and active and constructive participation.
Thank you.
