Germany’s Merkel says U.N. Security Council must be reformed

India, host of this summit, deserves credit for breathing a new lease of life in G-4 which had been moribund all these years. For India, it will take another decade to become a strong economy.

The case for G4 is easily made.

“The Security Council must include the world’s largest democracies, major locomotives of the global economy, and voices from all the major continents”. The other ten members of the UNSC are elected members from the various regions.

What the G4 nations are now pushing for is authority and finality to the process. For instance Africa and Latin America are not represented in the P-5.

In considering the utility of G4 for India, one must, however, look beyond the UNSC. Logically, Germany and Japan should have been in the UNSC even earlier, but they were the defeated powers in World War II.

Maiduguri: Boko Haram carried out its deadliest attacks on the key northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri since President Muhammadu Buhari came to power, killing scores in a series of coordinated bomb blasts. Consider a few examples. That India would be taking an initiative to hold a meeting of G-4 was unthinkable a couple of decades ago. Yet, more are getting created.

For India, G4 also has another relevance.

The appeal was in a summary of Merkel’s opening remarks at a meeting with her counterparts from Brazil, India and Japan provided to reporters by the German delegation.

In the context of meeting the challenge of climate change, the Prime Minister laid emphasis on clean energy while asking the developed world to transfer technology, innovation and finances to the developing countries without having “selfish interests”.

New Delhi’s hassled response to the Gulf War during its UNSC tenure in 1991-92, was too glaring.

The Council further lost its credibility when the Bush administration formed its so-called “coalition of the willing” to invade Iraq in 2003. In case after case, the single superpower of the day, the USA, has acted unilaterally or with a cobbled-up coalition of the willing.

Indeed, as many have observed, Modi needs to be credited for moving our foreign policy orientation from non-alignment to the much needed multiple alignments.

Welcoming the goals set in the SDG, Modi noted that the world is focusing on island states and said that setting of separate targets for their eco-system was an important step.

Is it a draft for negotiation? Clearly the use of the veto itself must be reviewed. On September 14, the text was adopted by consensus by the UNGA.

“The reform of the Security Council within a fixed time frame has become an urgent and important task”.

The reform of the UNSC, an euphemism for its expansion, raises many issues. The second is its size. This is not to say that veto should be restricted to only the P5 and not be granted to the new members. “And the permanent members did ratify the resolution”, he said. With Russian Federation added Europe has three members.

It has also insisted that the intergovernmental negotiations should proceed in a calm, transparent and inclusive atmosphere, free from artificial deadlines. Our position is very clear. Italy and France have been opposed to Germany’s bid and Argentina has played spoiler to Brazil.

The Secretary-General commended India for its indispensable contribution to United Nations peacekeeping. Mere population size will never help India earn a permanent UNSC seat.

While in the UNSC, it is all about how well India can “fit into” a preordained order, at BRICS it is all about “creating” a new framework.

They strongly emphasized that the process underway in the United Nations to bring about the reform of the Security Council should be conducted, given its urgency, in a fixed timeframe. The ISIS threat is waiting for India to take the lead.