India, Brazil and SA welcomes UNGA's decision to expand UNSC By Dharam Shourie

New York, Sept 30 (PTI) Welcoming the United Nations
General Assembly's (U.N.G.A.) decision to commence
inter-governmental negotiations for expanding the powerful
15-member United Nations Security Council (U.N.S.C.), India,
Brazil and South Africa have said the move is necessary to
make the Council more democratic, legitimate, representative
and responsive.

In a statement issued Monday, Foreign Ministers of
the three countries, partners in the India-Brazil-South Africa
Dialogue Forum (I.B.S.A.), said expansion in both permanent
and non-permanent categories is necessary to make the Council
"more democratic, legitimate, representative and responsive."

They reiterated their decision to jointly pursue the
Assembly's decision with a view to achieving concrete results.

The statement was issued after Foreign Ministers –
Pranab Mukherjee, Celso Amorim of Brazil and Nkosazana Dlamini
Zuma of South Africa – met on the sidelines of the U.N.G.A.
session to review international issues as also the cooperation
among themselves.

In a major victory for India, the Open Ended Working
Group (O.E.W.G.), which had been unsuccessfully trying for
last 15 years to bring about a consensus on the issue of
expansion of the Council, had decided that the
inter-governmental negotiations will begin before February 28
next year on the basis of proposals put forward by various
member States.

Pakistan and Italy-led Uniting for Consensus (U.F.C.)
group had tried to block the O.E.W.G. decision to start
inter-governmental negotiations but withdrew their objection
after it became clear that they lacked majority and India and
their supporters were moving towards demanding a vote on the
motion to go in for inter governmental negotiations.

India, Brazil, Japan, Germany and South Africa are
strong contenders for a permanent seat in the Council.

Currently, the United States, Britain, Russia, France
and China are permanent members who form the most powerful
group in the Council and take most of the decisions.

The expansion in permanent category would for the
first time allow the 192-member General Assembly to choose
permanent members.

Analysts say the move would make new permanent members
more responsive to the aspiration of the general membership
which would have selected them.

India, Japan, Germany and Brazil, known as Group of 4
(G-4) have been working together for the expansion of the
Security Council.

Under their proposal, the number of permanent members
would increase from 5 to 11 with the addition two members each
from Asia and Africa and one each from Latin America and
Europe and other States group.

It also calls for increasing the number of
non-permanent members from current 10 to 14 to take the total
membership of the Council to 25.

The expansion of the Council would need an amendment
in the U.N. Charter which will require the resolution seeking
increase in the number of members be adopted by two-thirds of
majority and once adopted, it would need to be ratified by
two-thirds of the membership including the five permanent
members. PTI DS
PMR