PRESS BRIEFING BY GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT JEAN PING (GABON)

 

Briefing correspondents today, just after the General Assembly elected five members to the Security Council to serve the usual two-year terms, Assembly President Jean Ping (Gabon) said that a consensus had emerged during the Assembly’s debate this week on Council reform, adding that “things were moving fast, positions were moving fast, countries were moving fast”.

Today’s newly elected members, to begin serving on 1 January 2005, are Argentina, Denmark, Greece, Japan and United Republic of Tanzania.

Emphasizing the participation of an unprecedented 106 speakers in the reform debate, Mr. Ping said that consensus had emerged on the need to speed up the process, with speakers particularly attached to adapting the Council to the world in the twenty-first century.  When the Council was created in 1945, the Organization had only 51 Member States.  Today, of course, it had 191 Member States.  The world had changed drastically since 1945.  Through decolonisation, a lot of countries, many African nations among them, had gained independence and had become United Nations members.  In other major changes, the cold war had ended and globalization had taken root.

In that context, he said that the Council needed to be reformed in a process that should involve increasing its membership and improving its methods of work.  Relations should also be strengthened between the Council and the other main organs.  A large majority of countries sought Council expansion in both the permanent and non-permanent categories, while others only wanted expansion in the non-permanent category.  Differing opinions flowed from there on such issues such as the veto.  Some said that right should be given to new permanent members; others disagreed.  Still others called the veto anachronistic, non-democratic and non-transparent.  The suggestion had also been made to allow the veto only under Chapter VII decisions, which concerned the use of force.

On the question of who would have new permanent seats, he said that some countries had named specific candidates, namely Japan, India, Germany, Brazil and one African country.  Regarding the veto right, some felt that it be granted, not to countries, but to regions only.  It was also suggested that countries could be re-elected again and again and, in that way, become permanent.  Another idea was one permanent seat for European countries, another for the Arab Group, and so forth.  Other groups wanted two permanent seats.

Asked how many delegations wanted each of those different options for reform and how many had spoken in favour of the aspirant four, the President said that perhaps it was not a good idea to mention the numbers because there would be so many expressions of protest.  He could confirm, however, that apart from six speakers, the rest had said that expansion should concern both the permanent and non-permanent membership.

Pressed to provide more data, he referred the correspondent to the recent meeting in Mexico, which supposedly had included those who favoured the regional countries proposal.  Concerning whether anyone had called for a semi-permanent membership category, he said that, yes, but not many.  The majority wanted an expansion of the Council to be in both the permanent and non-permanent categories.  During the discussion of the veto, the differences had been even wider.  Some countries suggested there could be permanent members without the veto right.

He said that the general debate had been more intensive than ever, with 141 speakers raising the issue of Council reform.  That had never happened before; there was a need, even an insistence now, after nearly 11 years, to move for a decision in that regard.

Replying to a question about the admission of African countries to the Council, he recalled the Harare Declaration, adopted by African leaders at their summit in 1997, which, among other things, sought recognition for African nations’ claim to several seats, both permanent and non-permanent, given that it was the largest regional group in the United Nations.  It was decided that the best course of action was to wait and see how the seats were distributed in a rational way, but then candidacies were suddenly proposed during the summit.  That had bothered some people.  Libya had proposed its candidacy, along with Egypt, South Africa and Nigeria.  The Harare summit wanted to avoid that by saying, “let’s just obtain the seat and then we’ll see in a more rational way how to organize the candidacies”.

Would the candidacies of Egypt and Libya be a problem for Gabon and other sub-Saharan African countries? a correspondent asked.

He had recalled, returning to the 1997 summit, that Africans, in their wisdom had thought they should have two seats, and that absent a formal Arab group, the second seat should be from North Africa.

Asked if there had been any discussion about increasing the two-year terms to three or four for non-permanent members, he said that if Article 23 was changed, countries could be re-elected.  Then, there could be permanent members without really saying they were permanent.  He noted that the executive boards of other United Nations bodies, such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), had no permanent members, but their members had been re-elected since 1945 because it had been thought that their continued presence was important.

He said, to a series of further questions, that everybody had acknowledged the need to reform the United Nations.  The problem was how.  Reform of the Security Council could be decided by a vote of at least two-thirds, but it was thought that such an election might divide the Assembly.  So, the best thing was to try to reach consensus.

In the past 15 days, he saw countries “moving fast”.  One country, for example, had previously said that there should be no permanent members whatsoever because it had not believed that one country should have more status than another.  Today, that country said it was ready to offer itself as a candidate for a permanent seat.  Another country had not wished to consider the veto.  Now, it said it was ready to negotiate.

He said that the United Kingdom, a permanent member, had stated officially that it would support the addition of Japan, Germany, India, Brazil and one Africa nation.  As to whether he thought there could be agreement within the next year or two, he said that various opinions had been expressed on those issues.  The majority of countries had mentioned those five candidates, but others had strongly opposed them.

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