Former Pakistani ambassador to Germany Asif Ezdi delivered a public talk at the Institute of Strategic Studies (ISSI) here on Thursday. The talk was a part of the ISSI’s “Distinguished Lecture Series” and the topic of the Thursday’s session was “United Nations Security Council Reform”.ISSI Director General Ashraf Jehangir Qazi said the discussion on the subject coincided with Pakistan’s election as a non-permanent member of the UNSC. He said that it was important for the UN to retain its credibility since the world was passing through a critical time. Ezdi was of the view that the United Nations Security Council Reform is the important organ of the international organisation.
“In view of the UN’s power, prestige and status that emanate from the permanent membership of the UNSC, it is no wonder that so many aspiring powers have set their sights on joining the privileged club of the P-5,” he added. He said that an expansion in the category of the permanent membership had become the central contentious issue in the current debate on possible reform in the Security Council.
Ezdi cited an article by Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter published in Foreign Policy’s September/October issue. He said the writer had presented a futuristic view of the UNSC and predicted that by 2025 the body would be extended from its present 15 members to 25 or 30 with Brazil, India, Japan, South Africa, Egypt or Nigeria and Indonesia or Turkey as its permanent members.
Ezdi told the audience that Professor Slaughter’s analysis should be an eye-opener for Pakistanis because in that scenario Pakistan’s status would be reduced to a “third-rate state”. He said that “that bleak scenario could have far-reaching implications for Pakistan’s foreign policy and national security.
He said that Pakistan seriously needed to deliberate on that issue and take steps to forestall that eventuality. He deplore the fact that Pakistan’s political parties, parliament, the media and foreign policy experts had hardly held any discussions on that issue, and if there were any, they only ill-informed the public. Ezdi said there was a general agreement that the present composition of the UNSC, with five permanent members and ten elected members, was outdated and needed to be enlarged to reflect the current geopolitical realties. He said that so far, the UN General Assembly had held seven sessions on that contentious issue. “And still there is no sign of any resolution of long-held differences which have halted reforms in the UNSC,” Ezdi added. The former diplomat also talked about the policies and positions of the member states. He said that the UN membership fell into four main groups on the question of the UNSC expansion, which he said were as followed:
1) Existing five permanent members of the Council; (2) The G-4 and other aspirants for permanent member states); (3) the “mid-tier” countries and their supporters comprising the Uniting for Consensus (UFC) group; and (4) the rest of the UN membership.
He said the main divide was between the G-4 and the UFC. He said the G-4 (India, Brazil, Japan, and Germany) were aspiring for permanent seats in the UNSC, while the UFC group of almost 40 countries desired expansion only in non-permanent category of the council.
On the position of the existing permanent five members of the council, he said, their main concern was to preserve their own privileged position. He said the P-5 recognised that the council’s current membership represented an obsolete global order and would have to be changed to give a greater legitimacy to the council itself. In this regard, he said, the US endorsed Japan and India for permanent bid in the council, while Russia, UK, and France only endorsed India’s bid for a permanent seat in the council.
“Whereas, China’s position is ambivalent as far as the expansion of the Council is concerned. The fourth group wanted the rest of memberships to be won over by the G-4 camp because of the effective campaign by the G-4 group,” he observed. Ezdi said the biggest failing of the UFC countries had been their inability to widen their appeal beyond the mid-size countries that had to lose the most if their regional rivals were elevated in the UNSC, whereas the G-4 were actively campaigning for their proposal. He said the UFC needed to do a lot more to counter the inroads being made by G-4 in Africa.
Ezdi explained the reasons for the failure of the UFC and particularly Pakistan’s failure in presenting its position successfully at the international forum. He said there was a conspicuous lack of commitment by Pakistan’s political leadership and the Foreign Ministry on the question of the UNSC enlargement, which he said, weakened the country’s position. Ezdi recommended that Pakistan should be working to stop the G-4 countries from getting permanent seats in the UNSC and there should be a top-level commitment towards equitable UN reforms. He suggested that in its public statements and private lobbying efforts, the government should try to avoid India-specific approach and emphasise that the creation of more permanent members would have disastrous consequences for the UN. The talk was followed by a question-answer session.
