June 20, 2005
U.S. Enters the Fray on U.N. Reforms
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 
Filed at 4:42 p.m. ET
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- At the height of the debate over expansion of the powerful U.N. Security Council, the United States has entered the fray with a proposal for fewer new seats -- and criteria for membership including economic clout and a commitment to democracy and human rights.
President Bush's administration also made clear its top priorities for reforming the United Nations are budget and administrative changes and new efforts to promote peacebuilding, human rights and democracy -- not Security Council expansion.
But Washington entered the diplomatic battle late and may not be in time to stop a vote on a resolution by Brazil, Germany, India and Japan for a larger council that they hope would give them permanent seats.
Foreign ministers of the four countries -- known as the Group of Four or G-4 -- will meet in Brussels Wednesday on the sidelines of an international conference on Iraq to set a date for the U.N. General Assembly to vote on their resolution, Brazil's U.N. Ambassador Ronaldo Mota Sardenberg said Monday.
There is wide support among the 191 U.N. member states for expanding the Security Council to represent the global realities of today rather than of the post-World War II era when the United Nations was created. But the precise size and membership of an expanded council remains contentious.
Even though details of the U.S. proposal will not be unveiled until a closed General Assembly debate on Tuesday, France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said ''there is a dynamic here, and the dynamic is created by the G-4.''
''They think they have the votes,'' said the French envoy, whose country is co-sponsoring the G-4 resolution.
At the request of African nations, the General Assembly vote will take place after the African Union summit in Libya, which ends on July 5, Sardenberg said.
After 10 years of debate, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told member states in March he wanted a decision on council expansion before September, when he has invited world leaders to a summit to hopefully adopt the most sweeping reform of the United Nations since it was founded 60 years ago.
The council currently has 15 members, 10 elected for two-year terms to represent different geographical regions and five permanent members who wield veto power -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France.
Annan put two possible options on the table and said if the 191 U.N. member states could not agree, the General Assembly should consider a vote.
Picking up on one option, the Group of Four circulated a resolution that would increase the Security Council from 15 to 25 members, including six new permanent seats -- with four hopefully going to them and the other two to African nations.
Britain, Washington's closest ally, supports six new permanent seats, including the G-4 countries.
The rival Uniting for Consensus group of mid-size countries also favors a 25-member council, but it favors the second option -- adding only non-permanent members who would face periodic election, which it argues is more transparent and democratic. But it has not proposed a resolution that could be put to a vote.
On Thursday, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns spelled out the Bush administration's ideas for the first time -- a ''more modest expansion'' to 19 or 20 seats with the addition of ''two or so'' new permanent members including Japan, and two or three non-permanent members.
The United States also wants any new council members to meet specific criteria as well as geographical balance, Burns said. The criteria should include a sizable economy and population, a country's contributions to the U.N. system, its potential to contribute to U.N. peacekeeping missions, and its commitment and record on democracy, human rights, counterterrorism and nonproliferation.
Not all the current permanent members would meet the criteria.
Diplomats said the U.S. proposal is not likely to win the required two-thirds support from the 191 U.N. member states either -- primarily because adding just two or three permanent seats would be less attractive to African, Latin American and Asian nations than the six permanent seats proposed in the G-4 resolution.
Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Friday that Tokyo's top priority was gaining approval for the G-4 proposal.
Even if the G-4 resolution wins two-thirds approval in the General Assembly, that's only a first step. New permanent members would then have to be elected by a similar two-thirds votes. But the most difficult step is a final resolution to change the U.N. Charter which not only requires a two-thirds vote but also approval by the Security Council's five permanent members -- and China has already expressed strong opposition to giving Japan a seat.