Global Policy Forum

The President of the General Assembly was judicious in not wanting to make any improper comments on the state of play of the Working Group on the reform of the Security Council. My comment is to say that an equally eminent person in the UN has already passed certain judgements on what the reform of the Security Council is supposed to be.

This is an issue that should not to be treated as esoteric. It must be given as much discussion and as much input as possible. I am not one of those who are concerned that if they make waves, they may upset the boat. Nor do I belong to the minimalist group, who do not want to change the status quo. I think that the time has come after 49 years for us to take a bold step towards change. Changes are all around us, swirling around us, and the UN is not exempt. You see it in other agencies in the UN. The time has come for the Security Council also to be buffeted by change.

So far in the Working Group on the Security Council, positions have been made known and elucidated by national governments. The discussion has not yet profited from a more dispassionate approach. I do not want to be an agitator, but I think that the NGOs should work harder to ensure that they are involved in the process later on, when we discuss aspects of Council reform.

Having said that, I am aware that at the end of the day it will be governments who will decide on a formula for representation in a reformed Security Council. And you can be sure governments will construct checks and balances, representing the interest of this group or that group, and there will be a fair amount of political compromises. So the earlier we have thoughts from the outside, to insure that we have an objective review of a reformed Security Council, the better.

The Working Group has met in well over 10 meetings and the papers are being put together, but I would like to emphasize that there is a long way to go. All of us, particularly the governments back at home, are being burdened with ideas and notions that are quite new to us. So we have to allow governments to work it out back in headquarters. It will take various efforts--through the help of think tanks and others--before the governments can be comfortable enough to agree on one set of ideas or another.

The Malaysian delegation had started with several serious issues in our discussion. We have said that the most important points of Council reform are:

We have given some ideas of what a more equitable geographical representation would be. We do not think that equitable representation can be accomplished if there are more permanent members.

The Malaysian approach is comprehensive. We believe that there is no quick fix to the serious problems and flaws of the Council at present. The minimalist or the status quo-ist would say we need to do very little: Let's add two or three members and we will have a reformed Council. We would strongly disagree. Preoccupation with the admission of two members would merely distort important issues that must be addressed by the Council. They are: increased workload, heightened expectations, questionable working methods, the absence of adequate representation, ambiguous mandates and objectives.

We have consistently expressed our concern at the tendency among the permanent five to confine much of the work of the Council to themselves, turning deliberations into an exclusive club. We have stressed that collective security at the UN will be undermined if Security Council decisions reflect selectivity and double standards and are not manifestly balanced.

Urgent reform of the Council is also necessary to dispel assertions that the Western-dominated Council increasingly resorts to questionable decisions, the implementation which is left, in the main, to other members states, particularly the Third World. Such perceptions are drawn, for instance, from peacekeeping operations, where decisions are taken by the Council but implementation or enforcement of those decisions is not undertaken by Council members--particularly not by permanent members, though they are obliged by the Charter to participate in troop contributions--but by countries of the Third World. Decisions are taken by a Council that is Western-dominated, while enforcement and humanitarian work is being done by developing countries. This is a situation that goes against the grain of ethics and should be looked at, in a very serious fashion. We are seeing more and more peacekeeping operations of this nature. If there is going to be more burden- sharing on the part of the members of the General Assembly, the Security Council must take into account the views and needs of these members, who contribute peacekeeping troops.

The thrust of the reform and restructuring exercise is: To prevent the Council from becoming a vehicle for imposing the views of the dominant on the people that are not strong. To insure that the Council will avoid selective and discriminatory approaches to international crises. To insure that the Council respects the principles of democracy and transparency in its work. To make it responsive to the views of the general membership of the organization. And to insure that the Council will not exceed its Charter mandate.

It is equally important that members of the Council bear in mind that their representation in the Council goes beyond their own national imperatives. This is applicable to the permanent members who are not voted-in by the general membership but who are nevertheless obliged to take this principle into account. It also applies to the non-permanent members.

Malaysia strongly underlines the necessity of applying fully the provisions of Article 23, that says that a country that wants to be a member of the Council must be fully qualified, as defined under the Article. All too often, in the name of democracy, we talk about rotation but lose the point in that there are other qualifications that have to be taken into account. I have seen, in the two years that we have been in the Council, non-permanent members having problems coming to grips with pressure--and even at times coercive pressure--from permanent members. If members are not prepared to stand up to these pressures, and call a spade a spade, I would respectfully suggest that they not become members of the Security Council.

There is a tendency to over-glamorize membership of the Security Council. It is like a cabal of people, going to the right in the UN building, while all the rest of us go to the left, to the Delegates' Lounge for coffee or tea. They go in a very hush-hush fashion to the right, walking faster than all the rest, with all the glare of the television lights and reporters jumping on them. They go into a small room and we are all waiting outside in hushed expectation.

Anyone can get drawn by this kind of atmosphere. But if you cannot stand up to the kind of pressure that comes with the Council, then please do not join it. It beggars the developing countries to have one or two or three on the council who are not in the position to fight on behalf of the developing world.

Now for expectations and outcome of the Council reform process: Consistent with the principle of sovereign equality of states, Malaysia is against permanent members. We are cautious about new classifications of membership. Furthermore, stratification would only deepen and harden the asymmetries that already exist in the Council. Initially, Malaysia had proposed an increase of 10 non-permanent members to try to rectify the current imbalance, but we are cautious and are open to other ideas on the numbers. The President of the GA and the Ambassador of New Zealand have spoken in terms of certain numbers. We keep an open mind and we would like to see the reform of the Council and the changes in equitable representation on the Council not be governed by an over- focus on numbers.

We would like to see what can be done to have equitable representation based on regional representation--not by naming the biggest and most powerful in the region, but by using the impulses and mechanisms within a particular region to determine regional representation. Therefore, if Malaysia is the biggest in Southeast Asia, it is not automatically Malaysia that will be the next member of the Council. There would be a way in which others would also be represented. In fact, what we would have, if some of our ideas are accepted, is a permanent presence of a region or subregion without "permanentizing" one particular country. This creates a lot of waves but I think it is worthwhile trying to examine the idea as far as we can.

Further, the veto which guarantees the dominant power of the permanent five has to be examined. It is our view that veto power has now become untenable and unequal. If we need some kind of weighage in terms of asymmetry within the Council, we nevertheless cannot accept a situation where one or two or three in the Council become more powerful than the whole membership of the UN.

It is time to reject collectively the idea of an elite group continuing to decide on critical issues. We must reject exclusivity and put an end to the demeaning practice where non- member states of the Council have to stand at the doorway like a building attendant to get information on Council discussions. If some maintain the Council does not operate under democratic principles but on sheer power politics, we must then be bold to recognize that power is not static, it is dynamic. Nations can move up and down in the power ladder. There are some that can no longer claim their current preeminent position. They are there as a result of history. The preeminent position that they now have is actually made on the basis of power and gains that have accrued from developing countries as their colonial masters. There is no reason for us to recognize this questionable power status anymore.

Power can no longer be confined to individual nation-states. Power is increasingly reflected in the strength of the region. Regionalism is an imperative that cannot be ignored. There must be closer interaction within the General Assembly and the Council. Major decisions which have significant global implications have to be taken in close consultation with the membership. A revitalized UN must provide for an active General Assembly whose pronouncements on issues before the Council must be given weight by the Council.

I do not think this is an impossible task that we have given ourselves. It can be done, but it has to be done with honesty and a collective approach. That could really constitute reform of the Security Council.