GA Open-Ended Working Group
June 23, 1998
Mr. Chairman,
The question of the quorum, the majority required for decisions on Security Council Reform, goes to the heart of what kind of reform we want: an elitist reform to please and benefit the few, without convinced, widespread support from the international community or a true democratic reform to benefit all States and our Organization as a whole, based on general agreement among the members of the U.N.
In this respect Mr. Chairman, the Conference Room Paper prepared by the Bureau (CRP.14) unfortunately does not meet our expectations for a balanced, impartial document that could guide our discussion. I must be adamant on this point. For us this document is unacceptable in its present form. I refer, in particular, to paragraph 1, which lists the "final decision on the Security Council's reform as the first point for discussion, indicating that "a final decision on the question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council containing amendments to the Charter of the United Nations shall be taken in accordance with Article 108 of the Charter." But this goes without saying. What it however seems to imply is that other decisions leading up to that result, such as a decision on the creation of now permanent seats, might not require a similar majority.
What we challenge most of all is the "phased" approach, as proposed by a former President of the G.A., which would break the reform up into different stages to be approved by the General Assembly at different times and with different majorities. Document CRP.14 seems to endorse this kind of approach: but there has been no decision whatsoever in the Working Group in this respect. Let's call a spade a spade. This piece-meal strategy is an attempt to get the bandwagon rolling, to convey the misleading impression that the enlargement of the oligarchy is inevitable. Let us not forget that in the one previous case of an enlargement of the Security Council, in 1963, the General Assembly was instead presented only with the final product, the amendment to the Charter.
From this perspective, I cannot but applaud the conclusions of my distinguished colleague from Germany, Ambassador Tono Eitel, in his speech to the Working Group on May 28, 1998, when he said: "If it appears that a framework or 'agenda,' which originally was introduced to help and ease the process, meets with too many obstacles or political concerns, we might seriously consider to come back again to a normal one stage approach that introduces the necessary Charter amendments from the very beginning." Yes, Mr. Chairman, a return to normalcy as Ambassador Eitel himself recognizes, would greatly help to clear the atmosphere of our Working Group.
Mr. Chairman,
In the past weeks, other documents prepared by the Bureau--namely CRP-10 and CRP.12--appeared in specialized publications such as International Documents Review. They are described in such publications as papers "summing up the current understanding". Many were surprised, since these are not official documents agreed upon by the Working Group and it is incorrect to convey to outsiders the impression that they are. Some might be misled to the point of considering them part of our travaux préparatoires, while they were actually prepared under the personal responsibility of the Bureau. I very much hope that CRP.14, especially as it stands, will not land in the columns of any publication. While I am sure that the leak did not come from the Bureau, it is still the responsibility of the Bureau that the public, and future participants and scrutinizers of our work, not be misled. These are not agreed documents. They are nothing more than working papers prepared under the responsibility of the members of the Bureau. And, as it has clearly emerged, there is strong opposition to some parts of them.
Mr. Chairman,
My second set of remarks concerns the meaning of the expression "general agreement" required to approve any reform of the Security Council, contained in General Assembly resolution 48/26 of December 3, 1993, which established our Working Group. This question should be addressed from both a political and a legal point of view.
In political terms, the expression "general agreement" can only mean an "agreement that has overwhelming support. The dictionary definition of the term "general," after all, is "involving or belonging to the whole of a body, to every member of a group" (Webster's III). There is no need for me to repeat here what our distinguished colleague from Japan, Ambassador Owada, has recently said: that Security Council reform is of paramount importance to international relations in the next century. If this is the case, I submit that it cannot be approved without the consent of an overwhelming majority of UN members. We have already discussed and can continue to discuss the exact number corresponding to a "general agreement". For instance, our distinguished colleague from Lithuania, Ambassador Jusys, mentioned the number 155. Statements along similar lines have been made by several other distinguished colleagues. At the initial stage of this debate some years ago, the figure mentioned was 165 or more. Therefore, in political terms, "general agreement" clearly means far more, and absolutely in no case less, than two-thirds of the entire U.N. membership; certainly, it cannot mean two-thirds of those present and voting, considering the regular phenomenon of absences and abstentions.
Let us not forget that, for the establishment of permanent seats, in 1945, at the end of the day there was unanimity of the 51 signatory States. And for the establishment of four new non-permanent seats in 1963, the majority was of 85%.
How could the "pretenders" possibly imagine that, today, a lower majority could legitimately establish new permanent and non-permanent seats? How could they think for a moment that they could transform the majority needed for election to a non-permanent seat into the majority establishing new, irreversible permanent seats in their favor? How can those who advance this proposal not see the enormity of such a claim?
The second point is how to translate the political requirement of a "general agreement" into a legal perspective? From a legal standpoint, the U.N. Charter and the rules of procedure of the General Assembly contain a number of provisions pertaining to the majorities required for decision-making in the Assembly. The UN Charter provides for a two-thirds majority of General Assembly members on amendments and revision of the Charter (Arts. 108 and 109); a two-thirds majority of the members present and voting for important questions (Art. 18, para. 2 and rule 83); and a majority of the members present and voting for other questions (Art. 18, para. 3 and rule 85). Moreover, Art. 10, para. 1 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice and rule 150 of the G.A.'s rules of procedure state that, for the election of members of the ICJ, candidates who obtain an absolute majority of the votes of members present and voting in the General Assembly (and in the Security Council) shall be considered elected. This means that there are four different patterns of vote.
Looking at these various possibilities, and leaving aside the majority required for the specific case of election of members of the ICJ, we can easily exclude that the majority required for Security Council reform could be the simple majority indicated in Art. 18, para. 3 of the Charter: it would be impossible to maintain that Council reform is not an important question.
But it would be equally impossible to argue that Art. 18 para. 2 of the Charter should apply to our case, with a two-thirds majority of the members present and voting. Everyone knows that this mechanism could allow the adoption of a resolution by a limited number of votes, since many countries regularly abstain or leave the room rather than vote on controversial issues.
This leaves us the third option, the majority provided for by Art. 108. The reference to Art. 108 was first adopted by the Foreign Ministers of the Non-Aligned Movement at their meeting on 25 September 1997 in New York. Then, this reference was formally introduced in a draft resolution (L.7) presented by 22 countries, including Italy, last October. The German delegation later reacted by introducing an amendment to our resolution, stating that decisions on important questions pertaining to the reform of the Security Council "shall be made by a two-thirds majority of the members present and voting".
To accept the German position just described would mean accepting the possibility that Council reform can be enacted by the vote of 80 or 90 countries, if not less: i.e., not even half of the general membership of the United Nations, a minority of member States! Is this consistent with the provisions or spirit of the Charter? Can a change in the U.N. system of this magnitude be decided on by a minority of member States?
The strategy of the "pretenders" is clear. They want to foster a piecemeal approach to the Council's reforms such as having a "framework resolution adopted by a minority of member States, in the hope that later on, others will jump on the bandwagon to give them the additional votes needed for the formal amendments to the Charter. We are strongly against this approach, which is absolutely without precedent.
Can anyone deny that the establishment of new permanent seats, by a framework resolution, is not equivalent to a major amendment to the Charter? What we are dealing with, here, is the creation of new permanent seats, and in particular, of fixed, named permanent members. We are talking about giving an enormous, absolute, permanent power to few selected nations who would become ipso facto unaccountable to the General Assembly, with the risk of transforming all the other members of our Organization into permanent spectators.
This is why we will continue to oppose any piece-meal approach, not only in the interest of our nations, but also of the entire Organization. This is why we feel entitled to request that any such decision be voted on with the majority called for by Art. 108, for Charter amendments.
Resolutions which imply, or are equivalent to, a major amendment to the Charter, must be approved by the same majority required in Art. 108 of the Charter.
In this respect, it is very encouraging that in Cartagena, four weeks ago, the Foreign Ministers of the 113 NAM countries reaffirmed their determination that any resolution with Charter amendment implications must be adopted by the two-thirds majority of all Member States referred to in Article 108 of the Charter. Even to outside observers, like Italy and others, it is clear that the NAM Ministers have underlined and reiterated the importance that they attach to the matter of Security Council expansion and reform, and to the need to carry, as an absolute minimum, two thirds of the total membership of our Organization for any project implying U.N. Charter amendments on this subject.
Mr. Chairman,
When our draft procedural resolution L.7 was introduced last October, one of our most prominent colleagues humorously defined it a measure of "preventive diplomacy". The vehement opposition of the other side and, later on, the German amendments to our resolution persuaded us that our initiative had been, indeed, a timely and necessary preventive measure, it was not, and it is not, as some of our opponents claim, an attempt to block or indefinitely postpone reform. No, we more than others are against the status quo. But we are equally against replacing the status quo with an even more exclusive and elitist Security Council, one based on privilege and the construction of a caste system in the U.N., reminiscent of ancient Empires: an outcome that we will continue to fight to the very end with all our strength. All the arguments in the world will not silence our belief in the need for less oligarchy and more democracy, more participation, more accountability, more transparency in our common house.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
