Africa: Call to Realize UN Security Council Reform

Coordinating regional and intercontinental blocs is crucial to lead diplomatic push for realizing the reform of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for more inclusiveness, Scholar suggested.

African leaders have been calling the United Nations for years to get proper representation in the UNSC. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and AU Chairperson Cyril Ramaphosa addressed this claim once again during the UN General Assembly at the High-Level commemoration of the 75th anniversary held on 22 Sep 2020.

Approached by The Ethiopian Herald International Law Assistant Professor Anbesie Fura said that the UNSC has made historic fault since its foundation established by superpowers of the Second World War whom granted extended power and authority for themselves as guardians of world peace.

Therefore, Veto powers can play whatever they wish in the international security affairs by the name of the United Nations, he believed.

The veto powers have decided that they shall have unanimous vote to reform the Security Council if initiation is proposed anytime. “This is very binding and hindering factor to amend the UNSC to accommodate inclusive representation.”

If the other countries want to realize UNSC’s reform, they need to amend the charter and reform the structure of the organization. Even this can be very hard but can be achieved by strong diplomatic push by harmonious bloc from the four corners of the globe, he suggested.

UNSC is the most powerful organ of the UN having authority to resolve binding decisions on global peace and security affairs.

On the other hand, the five permanent member nations are among the UN countries that spend highest financial and material support to UNSC which encourage them to develop sense of ownership over the international organization, Anbesie observed.

For example, the United States is the largest provider of financial contributions to the UN peacekeeping efforts providing 27.89 percent in 2019 followed by China with 15.21 percent, according to UNSC.

This enabled US to indirectly control the organization and use it as her international diplomatic instrument to achieve its national interest, Anbesie believed.

There are countries that allocate huge amount of money for UN. “In fact, we do also deploy many soldiers to world peace keeping missions through UNSC. However, they [the veto powers] won’t consider it sufficient enough to have identical authority or to get the permanent seat,” he mentioned.

These countries [US and other veto powers] have been engaging in various peacekeeping missions while none of them ensured sustainable peace since the countries participate with concealed political agenda, he noted.

They calculate their interest before engaging in any peacekeeping missions. Therefore, they used to give due attention to their own interest more than finding ways to resolve global disputes, he stated.

In the face of new and complex challenges, the UN is indeed under enormous pressure to deliver better, so that it needs to evolve and adapt with the new global realities, Abiy said to the General Assembly.

At a time, when the world need global leadership and collective action to tackle complex challenges, the ongoing stand-off the Security Council is undermining the UN and the organ’s credibility, he underlined.

“Such a stalemate further supports the need for the Security Council to be reformed and adopt to confront global realities,” according to PM Abiy.

The PM also noted that the historic injustice against Africa must be redressed through adequate representation

“If we want to change this historic injustice, we need to propel for strong political pressure uniting each other. The whole giant blocs across continents need to work harmoniously in this regard,” Anbesie recommended.

Moreover, influential blocs from Africa and other continents ought to cooperate to create fundamental diplomatic influence so as to push for the reform of the UNSC, he stressed.

Unless otherwise, Africa will not achieve neither permanent nor additional nonpermanent seat in the UNSC, Anbesie concerned.

It was in 2015 that the UN proposed reform to have genuine representation of countries in the UNSC despite the reality that the five year efforts didn’t bear fruit yet.