By Prof. Fruchtbaum (Soloman Islands)
February 11, 1999
Statement by Professor Harold Fruchtbaum, Adviser, Permanent Mission of Solomon Islands, to the Open-ended Working Group on the Question of Equitable Representation on and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council and Other Matters Related to the Security Council 11. February 1999
Mr. President,
The delegation of Solomon Islands welcomes you and the two co-vice chairs to the Working Group. Membership in the Bureau is not a light burden, and we thank you for taking on the responsibility.
During these four morning meetings, we have heard well-crafted and insightful statements offering proposals and suggestions for how we are to go forward. Whether we begin with Cluster I or Cluster 2 or consider them in parallel or begin by deciding what de we want to have achieved by the time we must report to the 53rd General Assembly or by answering focused questions posed by the Bureau, it is clear from the interventions we have heard that there is in the Working Group a strong desire for a new and fruitful dynamics. Without it we will soon find ourselves locked into the same patterns of frustrating debate we are familiar with from our previous five years of effort.
Mr. President,
The Solomon Islands delegation has two proposals that would help to create that new dynamics. As you observed in your comments opening our first meeting on Monday morning, small groups develop patterns of their own that may shut out the rest of the world. You encouraged us to open the windows and to look out to the governments and peoples we represent. My delegation agrees wholeheartedly, but while we look out the rest of the world should be allowed to look in at what we are doing here. The meetings of the Working Group are officially closed, but what is the reality? At least fourteen Permanent Missions publish the statements they make here on their websites. Some Missions send copies of their statements to the third floor press area of the Secretariat building for distribution to journalists.
Since we know the general positions our colleagues take in the debates of the Working Group - and that means the governments that we represent know them as well - is it not time that the peoples of the world know them also? Let us officially open the Working Group to representatives of the media and non-governmental organizations who have an interest in our work. Let them hear and report on the issues we debate and the problems we must resolve. Let them hear, for example, the representatives of the permanent five insist on maintaining their veto rights. We demand more transparency in the work of the Security Council; should we not provide it in our own efforts? Opening our windows to the world would allow in fresh breezes that would help to change the dynamics of the Working Group. The critical assessments that the media would provide could be a powerful incentive for us to achieve agreement on a number of issues. When we reach the negotiating stage, our meetings could again be closed.
Unfortunately, this proposal will not be supported by all of the delegations in the Working Group, and these meetings will likely remain closed. Each Mission, of course is free to do as it wishes. In the past, Solomon Islands has kept the confidentiality of the Working Group's meetings and has not spoken to journalists or provided them with the texts of statements or summaries of the interventions of its delegates. That is no longer a tenable position. Ideally, the meetings of the Working Group should be open. Continuing with this arrangement of being closed while not really being closed does not speak well for our undertaking here.
Mr. President,
The second proposal of my delegation is that the Working Group must have a research capability. It remains incredible to me that after five years of debate on difficult issues that require thorough study, we have not established the means by which the Working Group can ask for and obtain the research and analysis it requires. The well-staffed missions can do their own studies or obtain assistance from their capitals. Should not the Working Group have that capability as well? Last year, for example, Solomon Islands suggested that a historical study of the origin and use of the veto would be helpful in the Working Group's deliberations and proposed that the study be undertaken. The Permanent Representative of Egypt refined the proposal by calling for a historical study of the legal basis of the veto and its use. Since the Working Group did not have a research capability, the question was who would perform such a politically such a politically sensitive study? The very brief paper provided by the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, with its human resources strained by an especially heavy workload, left much to be desired.
A number of issues that the Working Group must resolve require close study. For example, several delegations have stated that the size of an expanded Security Council must not be so large as to impair efficiency and effectiveness. The assumption is that the smaller the future Council the better. Is that really true? With proposals calling for 20 to 26 members, what would be the optimal size? These are questions that require analysis, including operations research. How is the Working Group to obtain it?
Much has been said in the Working Group about the need for the equitable representation of the regions. Our thinking has focused on the existing five, but in other fora of the United Nations, there have been proposals that seven or even nine regions were more appropriate arrangements. How would expanding the number of regions affect the design of an enlarged Security Council? The Working Group needs a careful study of this as well as other questions.
The research capability that Solomon Islands proposes would allow the Working Group to establish open-ended research and study groups drawn from the available experts in the Permanent Missions and from UN bodies as well as from universities and other non-governmental organizations. That means the Working Group should have available to it the financial resources to obtain research and analytical assistance. Article 13 of the Charter and numerous precedents in the history of the Organization allow for the initiation of needed studies. One of the legacies of this Working Group to the diplomats who will follow us may well be one or more studies they will find useful when they are reviewing the structure and working methods of a future Security Council. Last year, for example, this Working Group benefited from a study the Interim Committee undertook a half-century ago to define what were procedural questions in a Security Council frequently paralyzed by the animosities of the Cold War.
Thank you.
Proposal submitted by Solomon Islands concerning the records and archives of the Security Council with reference to the Working methods of the Security Council and the transparency of its work, dated 11 March 1999.
Records and Archives
Suggested improvements to the present practice:
(a) The Security Council should review its procedures and rules for the creation and maintenance of and access to the records and archives of its private and public meetings and consultations;
(b) Procedures for promptly fulfilling requests for these records and archives by the accredited representative of any member of the Security Council should be established;
(c) In its annual report to the General Assembly the Security Council should certify that the maintenance of its records and archives meet the established international standards for the management of records and archives.
Institutionalization:
Incorporate provisions to this effect into the rules of procedure of the Security Council, amending the rules in Chapter IX as necessary,
