Global Policy Forum

Point 3 of the Program of Work: Expansion of the Security Council

Total Size of the enlarged Security Council

In their wisdom, the ancient Romans used to say "tot capita, tot sententiae" - there are as many different ways of thinking as there are people. Not that they always differ; they simply sense different nuances and are moved by the urge to express them. At times this translates into complications of simple matters and needless delays.

The Italian proposal originally called for a Council of 23-25 members, by adding 8 to 10 new non permanent, more frequently rotating seats. But from our own experience of sitting on the Council for two years, in 1995 and 1996, we have realized how difficult it can be, at times, to manage a Council of fifteen, as it stands now. Italy therefore believes that enlargement - for the time being at least - should not exceed 5-6 seats, for a total of 20-21. We must guard against an excessive enlargement of the Council that would make it unwieldy, inefficient, and therefore ineffective.

Permanent Seats

Since the beginning of this exercise, Italy has made clear its opposition to the creation of new, fixed permanent seats. We have explained the reasons for this position over and over again. Allow me to recapitulate them once more:

1. First, in the words of the President of the Republic of Italy, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, in his statement to the General Assembly in April 1996: "A simple enlargement of the current Olympus could diminish the interest of the excluded, giving them the dangerous feeling of being marginalized, of being transformed into mere spectators."

2. Another major reason for our opposition to new, fixed permanent seats concerns the future of the European Union. Two members of the EU have been permanent members of the Security Council since 1945. To add a third member from the EU countries would clearly not move in the direction of more cohesion and more unity in the pursuit of a European common foreign and security policy, which should follow logically and naturally the introduction of a common European currency. Here I echo and subscribe to what Amb. Petrella of Argentina and Amb. Tello of Mexico said in their statements yesterday. May I add that to give more visibility in the United Nations to the European Union as such - possibly in the future Security Council - remains one of the main goals of Italian foreign policy, with the full blessing and support of the Italian Parliament.

3. Third, the greatest difficulty by far that one can foresee in the expansion of permanent members is the selection of the few, new privileged ones, in the absence of any established criteria to this end. Some have proposed that new permanent members should be elected by a vote in the General Assembly. But given the intensity, acrimony, and expense already common to elections of Member States to mere two-year terms on the Council, what kind of poisonous competition, what kind of repercussions can we expect from the election of permanent members from different geographic regions? Let us not underestimate the severe, adverse consequences of such a process on relations within individual regional groups and among member states.

4. Fourth, to make new fixed permanent members would mean to exempt them in perpetuity—per saecula saeculorum, as our Colombian colleague, Prof. Andres Franco, put it so wryly yesterday--from the requirement of democratic elections, and to exempt them from accountability to the General Assembly. The Security Council would become even more elitist and less democratic than it is now.

As our Mexican colleague, Amb. Manuel Tello, said so eloquently: "In the past decade we have witnessed a strengthening of a trend towards democracy, not towards oligarchy. ... Exercising democracy means reducing inequality. Exercising democracy means eliminating privileges, not giving them to more selected few." In fact, to create new members 'more equal than others' would completely disregard the preamble of the UN Charter, which solemnly proclaims the equal rights of all nations large and small. To create new permanent members without the veto would mean dividing the entire UN membership up into a three or four caste system.

Furthermore, to create new permanent members, discriminating between industrialized and developing countries, would reintroduce a categorization, a contraposition from the past, which we hope is gone forever.

5. Fifth, the countries that have laid claim to new fixed, permanent seats - and their supporters - argue that they represent new realities, that they are global powers, or in the latest definition, that they are "new global realities." Not so, Mr. President. These countries have been global realities since at least the beginning of the century (as are others represented in this room). They have long been on the map of the major nations with global reach. Their fortunes have ebbed and flowed with the tides of history, and will continue to do so.

What is truly new in the post-World War II era is not the emergence of a few global powers. What is new is the fact that nearly ninety former colonies have become full-fledged independent, sovereign States thanks mainly to the process of decolonization. These countries must be recognized, by far, as the emerging new realities of the world in which we live.

6. Sixth, claims to permanent seats by some industrialized nations seem to be based mainly on economic power. But let me mention what our former colleague from Malta, Ambassador Joseph Cassar, now a Professor at St. John's University, recently wrote in this regard: "Arguments portraying economic strength as a criterion to justify claims to permanent membership are hazardous. Economic strength is neither static nor permanent." What if in the near future, other countries, other States were to become (and some have already become) economically stronger than current permanent members? Would these other States also be entitled to permanent seats because of their economic strength? And would current permanent members with diminished economic power have to give up their seats?

7. Seventh and last, who is to say that adding new permanent members - increasing the circle of the privileged from 5 to 7 or even 10 - would really enhance the role of the Council in maintaining international peace and security? It is a known fact that the current Council is dominated by the permanent members. Do we really want to make this dominance overwhelming and irreversible?

For these reasons and for many more, Italy remains adamantly opposed to enlarging the current island of privilege by adding new fixed permanent seats, frozen in time for perpetuity.

Mr. President,

Another way suggested of enlarging the Council would be to create what have been called "disguised hybrids": permanent rotating seats. I remain convinced that this concept is a contradiction in terms. When they proposed it, even its promoters had to describe it as a "constructive ambiguity." "Ambiguity," for sure, Mr. President. "Constructive," I doubt. Confusing, maybe.

The reality is that within each regional group some countries have served, and are serving, on the Council more often than others. In the Italian proposal we tried to codify this practice and give some order to it. What we called for was the creation of "more frequently rotating, elective, non-permanent seats." In the end, this concept is not unlike the idea of "rotating permanent seats," except that our terminology may have been more accurate, and does not suffer from the ambiguities described above.

On this basis, if Africa were to be given two permanent rotating seats with the veto, we Italians would be the first to applaud, since this would wipe out a glaring inequity in the geographic distribution of power in the Security Council. But, allow me to repeat, while we are in favor of the concept of rotating seats, even if they are called "permanent rotating", we remain firmly against new fixed permanent seats, of any sort or nature.

To conclude on this particular point, Mr. President, we believe that the membership is longing for more democracy, more accountability, and certainly not for increasing the elite, not for extending the privileges.

Non-Permanent Seats

In light of the conceptual problems with the increase of permanent seats, Italy is strongly in favor of an increase, for the time being, only in non-permanent, elective seats. In our opinion, this is both the most democratic solution and the most doable one. Increasing the number of elective seats would make it easier for all Member States, large, medium and small, to serve on the Security Council.

Of course the majority of these new elective non-permanent seats should go to the regions that are currently underrepresented in the Council, notably the developing countries. Africa for instance, should get two more elective seats, in addition to its current three, for a total of five (one for each of the five sub-regions of the African continent). Needless to say, Asia and the GRULAC should also see their representation substantially increased. And as for Eastern Europe, who could honestly deny their current under-representation, although in the long run quite a few of them might be inclined to move in the direction of the Western Group, a trend that should be taken into account by an appropriate formula.