JOHANNESBURG, AUGUST 24 – Today’s the five-nations BRICS countries issued a joint statement calling, among other issues, for UNSC reforms, supporting the aspirations to a greater role for Brazil, India and South Africa.
“We support a comprehensive reform of the UN, including its Security Council, with a view to making it more democratic, representative, effective and efficient, and to increase the representation of developing countries in the Council’s memberships so that it can adequately respond to prevailing global challenges and support the legitimate aspirations of emerging and developing countries from Africa, Asia and Latin America, including Brazil, India and South Africa, to play a greater role in international affairs, in particular in the United Nations, including its Security Council,” the Johannesburg declaration said.
The UN Security Council consists of 15 countries, of which 5 (Russia, Great Britain, China, US and France) are permanent members with veto rights, and 10 are non-permanent members, elected for two years. Earlier today, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that most UN countries recognize the need for reforming the Security Council. “Africa is underrepresented in the global financial architecture, just as it lacks a permanent seat on the Security Council. The world has changed. Global governance must change with it. We need reforms to make global frameworks truly universal and representative of today’s world”, said the head of the United Nations. Later, speaking with the press, Guterres said that “some things have changed. First, as you know, the General Assembly has decided that whenever a country uses the veto, that country needs to go to the General Assembly to explain the reasons of the veto. It is a small step. But in any case, this would be unconceivable a few years ago”.
The SG added that there was every year a working group on the reform of the Security Council. “That working group was never based on written texts and there was never any readout of its work. That has changed. And I believe that we’re talking and we’re listening because I am referring to what was said by President Biden, by [Foreign Minister] Lavrov, by the other members of the Security Council, I see that all five Permanent Members today agree that at least there must be one seat for African countries in the Security Council. I can’t see any opposition in the P-5 in relation to this, that is probably the most obvious injustice in the Security Council’s composition”. According to Guterres, “things are starting to move in a different way, and I hope that reform of the Security Council will become a strong element in the agenda of our discussions next year”.
During the same BRICS summit, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the UNSC should be expanded to incorporate representatives of Asia, Africa and Latin America, and not Western countries. (@OnuItalia)
