India along with three others renew bid to reform UN security council; but ‘little hope’

• Pramod Thomas
• 24 September, 2020

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By: Pramod Thomas

AN attempt which started 15 years ago has been renewed by four nations including India.

Brazil, Germany, India and Japan have relaunched their bid for permanent seats in an expanded UN security council, which experts say ‘would not happen’.

“We commit to instill new life in the discussions on the reform of the security council,” the foreign ministers of the four nations said in a joint statement.

They said such a reform can only save the council from ‘becoming obsolete’.

“The world of today is very different from what it was when the United Nations was created 75 years ago. There are more countries, more people, more challenges but also more solutions,” they wrote.

The four nations launched a bid in 2005 to expand the permanent membership of the security council, whose setup reflects the victors of World War II.

Five nations — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — exercise vetoes on the world body’s most powerful institution.

Germany is nonetheless currently on the Security Council as a non-permanent elected member without a veto and India will similarly join in January.

Recently, many world leaders have appealed again to the UN to reform the council.

Adding the “G4” would ensure that the security council incorporate Europe’s biggest economy (Germany), the world’s second largest developed economy and major UN contributor (Japan), the world’s second most populous nation (India) and the most populous nation in Latin America (Brazil).

The chances of Security Council reform “are next to none,” said Andrew Bacevich, professor emeritus of international relations and history at Boston University.

“And the reason is that the reform proposal, which in many respects makes great sense, calls upon the permanent five countries to lose their power, he said.

The US has backed a seat for close ally Japan, and former president Barack Obama on a visit to India announced support for New Delhi’s bid.

With Britain’s exit from the European Union, France is the only EU nation with a Security Council veto.

France officially backs the bid by the four nations including Germany, as well as an expanded African presence.

South African president Cyril Ramaphosa said that Africa needed to be better represented in the council.