Ambassador Colin Keating
Permanent Representative of New Zealand to the United Nations
I have just finished a month as President of the Security Council. One thought that remains in my mind--after a dreadfully hectic month--is this: while from the outside you may sometimes think that the Security Council is omnipotent, I certainly had a sense as President--as I was struggling with the problems of Gorazde, the problems of Rwanda--that the Security Council is anything but omnipotent. It was a body which dealt with policy, but it really had not at its disposal the resources to implement the policy that it wanted. So, I think we have got a very long way to go before we can answer the question raised earlier [from the floor --eds.] whether we are on the verge of world government. I think the reality is that we are very far from there.
I think there is a false and unfortunate media focus on reform of the Security Council at the moment. Whenever the issue comes up, the first question is always: "How many new permanent members will there be, two or three or five?" It seems to me that in many ways that is the wrong reform of the wrong organ. Within the UN, those are not the issues that strike the minds of the majority of the member states. The number of the permanent members of the Security Council is one of the least important issue we should be addressing. As President Insanally said, there is a convergence of views that the Security Council should be expanded, but there is no convergence of views at all as to whether the expansion should carry with it more permanent members or not.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that there is a risk, at this point of history, that the Security Council will be highjacked--not by the five permanent members installed in 1945, but rather by a larger group of middle-sized powers who envy the role of the permanent members and believe that they should be there too. Whether or not they have aspirations to become permanent members, they certainly have aspirations to be present in the Security Council most of the time. I think that in democratization, representivity is the real issue. That is the real thing that the small and even middle-sized have to watch out for in the future, because we could run a risk of a Security Council that is monopolized by, say, the 20 largest countries in the world. I do not think in real terms that is in anyone's interest.
People talk of the veto. New Zealand was right at the very beginning, at the foundation of the Charter, a country which spoke long and eloquently against the veto. We still have this view. The veto should be rolled back. As a absolute minimum, it should not ever be expanded. I do not anticipate any serious risk of the veto being expanded, because I do not believe that there is a serious political risk at this point of any agreement on any new permanent member.
The veto is not the only problem in decision-making. Continuity is also part of the problem. The fact that a country is present in the Security Council year after year can be more important in terms of its influence on decision-making than the fact that it has got a veto. Vetoes are now very rarely used and most of the work of the Security Council at this point in history, is accomplished by consensus--which means that, in effect, every one of the members of the Council has de facto a veto. Except for resolutions, all of the actions are decided on by consensus and indeed most of the resolutions are adopted 15 to 0. So that gives a lot of power to even one member of the Council that wants to stand out on an issue. The real weight of that power is largely a factor of how long a country has been a member of the Security Council. Our experience has been that certainly the first six months and perhaps even the first year, a member of the Security Council has great difficulty.
I would say that only in the last few months New Zealand has felt really strongly able to influence what is happening in the Security Council. Certainly the presidency last month has reinforced that. But to be a really effective Security Council member, one is going to have quite a learning curve and that needs to be borne in mind.
I will finally say a few words about accountability. President Insanally listed important steps that have already been taken by the Security Council and I have to admit to a good deal of pride and pleasure in having played a role in accomplishing some of those changes that have been made in the Council's practice. There is a lot more that can and should be done by way of institutionalizing and equalizing the power within the organization. And it falls very much at the moment on the President of the day, the extent to which they are willing to allow things to happen behind closed doors, the extent to which they are willing to allow the first draft of all resolutions to be formulated by the permanent members and to be presented, delivered up as a fait accompli to the Security Council members.
Sometimes I have a great sense of irony when people say how is it that the Security Council has done this or has done that. The members of the General Assembly are outraged because they had no advance notice. I find it ironic because you often have to respond that most of the members of the Security Council had no advance notice either. We are confronted with a fait accompli. This is the resolution, it's up for adoption and dare you suggest any amendments!
The way in which the Council works is going to have to change, its culture has to change. And then, in the end, a major factor will always be the willingness of the members who are elected to it, to opt either into the old way of doing things or to opt for a new and sometimes quite painful way of doing things which involves being independent, outspoken and willing to step on this country or that country's toes. And I guess that, as with national elections in our countries, in the end you get what you elect to the Security Council.
The membership of the General Assembly should not forget that they choose--as a result of accommodations within the regional groups--to elect this or that country to the Security Council, simply because this is the way it has always been done. It is the same as elections in your country or mine: If you choose to support somebody that has always been there simply because that is the easy course, then you will get what you vote for. That is certainly the case in the Security Council and I think it is very important that when we look at expanding the number of members on the Security Council we have another serious look at the question of how the regional group structures work. It is not a matter which requires an amendment to the Charter, but certainly the way that we go about, within our regional groups or constituencies, deciding who will be our representative. That can be as important as whatever we may write in the Charter, at the end of the day.
