UN chief Antonio Guterres backs demand for expansion of Security Council
UN chief Antonio Guterres backs demand for expansion of Security Council
M.U.H
13/09/20264
Speaking at the BRICS Summit on Sunday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres backed the demand from the Global South to expand the UN Security Council, which, he said, will help “bring balance and equity to global systems and institutions”. He also underlined that India has been at the forefront of this demand.
Emphasising that today’s economic, demographic and geopolitical realities are not those of 1945, Guterres said that “the institutional structures must reflect it”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on Saturday pitched for a greater role for developing countries in global decision-making, saying the Global South should move from being a “rule-taker” to “rule-shaper”.
Echoing that sentiment, Guterres said: “Countries represented at this Summit speak to that changing reality.” Over the past several years, he said, major emerging nations have called for an expansion of the UN Security Council. “India has been at the forefront of this demand,” Guterres said.
He also weighed in on how the world is increasingly moving towards multipolarity, adding that it “helps bring balance and equity to global systems and institutions”. “But this requires reforming global multilateral institutions — including the UN Security Council and the Bretton Woods system — to reflect the world of today,” he said.
“As your Summit’s theme rightly frames it, we must build for resilience, innovation, cooperation and sustainability, he said at a session on Sunday, adding that it is an imperative for “shaping inclusive global growth”.
In the New Delhi Declaration issued on Saturday, China and Russia have reiterated their support for India and Brazil to play a greater role in the United Nations. According to the Declaration, the leaders of BRICS countries reiterated their support for a “comprehensive reform of the UN, including its Security Council”.
The Declaration pressed for the need to make the UN body “more democratic, representative, effective and efficient, and to increase the representation of developing countries in the Council’s membership 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 BRICS countries, to play a greater role in international affairs, in particular in the UN, including its Security Council”.
The UN Security Council has five permanent members – China, France, Russia, the UK and the US. Each permanent member holds veto power over resolutions. This number has remained unchanged since the Council’s inception in 1945.
“We stress that the UN Security Council reform is to lead to the amplified voice of the Global South. Recalling the 2022 Beijing and 2023 Johannesburg-II Leaders’ Declarations, China and Russia, as permanent members of the UN Security Council, reiterate their support to the aspirations of Brazil and India to play a greater role in the UN, including its Security Council,” the Declaration stated.
Guterres also spelt out an agenda for the world facing a geopolitical flux. “First — through financing… Multilateral Development Banks must also become bigger, better and bolder, with a new business model to mobilise massive private investment and expand concessional funding to developing countries,” he said.
Artificial Intelligence could compress decades of development into years, said the outgoing UN Secretary-General, adding, “but its power sits with a few companies, in a few countries. Unchecked, the AI divide will widen every other divide — in income, in opportunity, in security, and in sovereignty”.
On climate justice, without mentioning the US, he said, “Developed countries must keep their promises: 300 billion US dollars a year.”
Critical minerals must be responsibly managed, adding value and jobs in producing countries and communities, he said.
He also spoke about the need for peace. “From Gaza, to the broader crisis in the Middle East, to Ukraine, Sudan and beyond, our world needs peace. Across the board, States must respect their obligations under the UN Charter and international law — including the principles of sovereign equality … respect for territorial integrity and political independence of States … international navigational rights and freedoms… peaceful settlement of disputes … international humanitarian law and international human rights law.”
As we move irreversibly to a multipolar world, all countries must work to strengthen and safeguard a multilateral system that delivers for all with the United Nations at its centre, he noted.
