General Assembly Security Council

 STATEMENT BY AMBASSADOR ASOKE K. MUKERJI, PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE, AT THE OPEN DEBATE OF THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL ON ‘WORKING METHODS’, ON
OCTOBER 23, 2014

 

Madam President

Let me begin by thanking you for organizing this Open Debate on the Working Methods of the Security Council. I thank your delegation for circulating the Concept Note for this Debate. I put on record our deep appreciation of your stewardship of the Informal Working Group on Documentation and Procedural Questions during the year 2013-2014. The working methods of the Council are of paramount importance and interest to all member states of the United Nations, given the fact that under Article 25 of the UN Charter, all member states ‘agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council’.

Madam President,

The Concept Note advises member states that the issue of Security Council reform, which is being debated by us in the General Assembly, does not constitute the subject of this Debate. We beg to differ with this advice. Any debate on its working methods must have the issue of Security Council reform as its overarching framework. The three paragraphs on the Security Council in the 2005 Outcome Document of the 60th anniversary of the Summit are clear on this subject. The accountability of the Council to the wider membership of the United Nations, as well as the need for transparency in its functioning, require us to address the shortfalls in the Council’s working methods in the context of the urgent need for early reforms of the Council. My delegation therefore aligns itself with the statement delivered earlier today by the distinguished Permanent Representative of St Lucia, on behalf of the L69 group.

Madam President,

In the interest of brevity, I would like to speak today on two issues related to the topic of our Debate. These are the shortfalls in the methods which the Council is using in drawing up mandates of UN peacekeeping operations, and the impact of the Council’s particular use of its working methods which dilute the international effort against terrorism, which is fast emerging as the single most important challenge to the maintenance of international peace and security.

Madam President,

On the first issue of peacekeeping mandates. You have been yourself witness to the complete disregard in the working methods of the Council to the clear provisions and obligations set out in Article 44 of the UN Charter. Whereas the Article calls for troop contributing countries not represented in the Council to be invited ‘before’ such mandates are drawn up to ‘to participate in the decisions of the Security Council concerning the employment of contingents of that Member’s armed forces’, India, for example, has not been so consulted. This despite the fact that India is the single largest contributor of troops to UN peacekeeping operations, having contributed more than 170,000 troops in 43 of the 69 peacekeeping operations mandated so far by the Council.

What is the impact of this shortfall in the working methods of the Council? It is clear that a major casualty has been the absence of the contribution that troop contributing countries could give the Council during Article 44 consultations on issues such as  deployment, required profiles of troops and equipment, as well as the nuances of strategy. In the process, the perceptions available within the United Nations membership on how to actually use peacekeeping to bring about peace have been sacrificed in favour of enforcing the will of a small privileged minority within the Council to look at peacekeepers as instruments to wage war. This has resulted in an increasing demand for more and more resources, military and financial, and experiments with new technology. This demand is at the expense of a politically brokered peaceful settlement of disputes, which in our view is also the most effective and sustainable way to protect the civilians caught up in conflicts where peacekeeping operations are mandated, not to mention the steadily rising toll on the lives of UN peacekeepers themselves.

Madam President,

On the second issue of the impact of the working methods of the Council on countering terrorism. We strongly believe that the Council must seriously and transparently take measures available to it under the Charter to require member states of implement its Resolutions on countering terrorism without exception. To condone the use of terrorism on account of perceived political purposes is counterproductive, and will engulf more and more member states in an ever-widening spiral of violence and destruction.

We therefore specifically call for the Council’s working methods to include a mandatory time-bound reporting requirement to the wider membership of the United Nations on implementation of Security Council Resolutions on countering terrorism. Let us make a beginning on this proposal by having a report to the wider membership of the United Nations with respect to the latest such Resolution adopted by the Council, UNSCR 2178 on 24 September 2014. We would be interested especially in the Council’s assessment on the implementation of operative paragraphs 11 and 12 of this Resolution dealing with international cooperation. My delegation would like to participate in any open and transparent exercise the Council may organize under its working methods on this subject, given the fact that my country has been one of the longest suffering victims of terrorism.

We have noted the use of the working methods of the Council to regulate the mechanism of the Ombudsman created by the Council in 2009. We note that though the General Assembly has the responsibility for electing the non-permanent members of the Council, the appointment of the Ombudsman is outside the purview of the General Assembly. As the Ombudsman deals with substantive aspects of international law, including the implementation of UN Security Council Resolutions pertaining to countering terrorism, we have concerns regarding the operation of this mechanism within the opaque working methods of the Council. Matters are exacerbated when we look at the highly unsatisfactory nature of the annual Report of the Security Council to the General Assembly, in which there is no transparency or detail regarding the way in which the Council actually works.

The Council’s provision that ‘Where the Ombudsperson recommends that the Committee consider delisting, the individual or entity will be delisted unless, within 60 days, the Committee decides by consensus to maintain the listing’ appears to us to be contradictory to the uniform application of the rule of law  which would impact adversely on the use of legal, as opposed to political, means to counter terrorism.

Madam President,

To conclude, we would reiterate that our interest in participating in this debate stems from the primary role given by the UN Charter to the Council for upholding international peace and security. Our concern is that the current working methods, which have been provisionally applied since the Council was established, have deviated from the clear provisions, and indeed, objectives of the UN Charter, making the Council ineffective and unrepresentative of the world as it is on 23 October 2014. Can we at least expect the Council to adopt clearly defined working procedures, taking into account our views expressed in this Debate, by the time our organization celebrates its 70th anniversary in September 2015?

Thank You.