Last week, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, in his testimony before the House of Representatives, said the moment for the Group of Four had passed. Bolton’s recognition took the United Nations one step closer to reforming its most crucial organ and what comes next will depend greatly on how quickly and seriously the member states, including the United States, will start to consider the alternative proposals. The arrangements endorsed by Group of Four proposed additional permanent seats for Japan, India, Brazil, and Germany, plus two more permanent seats for Africa. The proposal has been debated and heatedly negotiated for the past nine months but it did not collect the support it looked for. It is time to move on to the other proposals.

Why not more permanent seats?
Group of Four’s proposal has failed to gather necessary support for two reasons. First, it was extremely divisive and evoked fierce opposition from the aspirants’ regional rivals such as China, Pakistan, Mexico, and Italy. Second, the African Union countries insisted that the proposed permanent seats for Africa enjoy the same privileges given to the existing permanent countries, including veto power. Africa also demanded an additional third non-permanent seat perhaps to accommodate the three aspiring countries, namely Egypt, South Africa, and Nigeria. It was not the unruly use of power that prevented the African countries from reaching a compromise deal with the Group of Four. According to some observers, what proved impossible for the African countries was reaching an agreement on which member of the union deserves the permanency. Afraid that their rivals will be seated, some African nations insisted on veto powers thus killed the prospects of a deal with the Group of Four. The African Union has 53 member states and their vote is therefore almost essential to change the structure of the Security Council. Only by attaining a two-thirds majority in the 191 member General Assembly, which translates into 128 votes, can a Charter amendment be submitted to the national governments for ratification. Security Council cannot be enlarged without a Charter amendment.

That is why, Canada and eleven other countries, who signed on to an alternative resolution on July 21, contest the Group of Four’s plan. Some of these countries signed on to the resolution not because they opposed the four aspirants but the inherent problems of permanency. They may have a point; entitling states to occupy seats on the Security Council in perpetuity would accomplish nothing for the interest of the Security Council or the United States. A permanent arrangement is not democratic in principle, and is the polar opposite of accountability. Neither is it flexible, fair, or representative as Allan Rock, the Canadian ambassador to the United Nations, stated. Moreover, the right to veto is not the only privilege for permanent members of the Security Council. Permanent members also enjoy de facto ‘right’ of having a permanent judge at the International Court of Justice as well as to occupying key positions in the United Nations system. Expanding the privileges of permanency would create additional layers of hierarchy, which is certainly not in conformation with the type of democratic governance the world wants to see at the United Nations.

Continental versus regional groupings
The U.N. reform process of the past nine months, also demonstrated that the governments prefer to stay with the regional grouping system when allocating and electing the members of the Security Council. Kofi Annan’s High Level Panel recommended in the two models from December 2004 that the five regional groupings the General Assembly had used to elect the non-permanent members of the Security Council since 1965, be canceled. These are five seats for Asia and Africa; two for Latin America; one for Eastern Europe and two Western Europe and Other States. The Panel offered instead four continental groupings (Africa, Asia and Pacific, Europe and Americas). While stronger regional arrangements may be the path to ensure representation of the United Nations’ large constituency in a small body, regionalism does not guarantee best results. It is the regional arrangements that led to the inclusion of Sudan to the Security Council, Zimbabwe to the Human Rights Commission or Iran to the Board of Directors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Continental arrangements do not give more say to the democracies either, so one wonders why the High Level Panel recommended continental groupings in place of the regional ones? By reducing the number of groups and combining East and West Europe into one, the Panel was able to allocate more seats to countries other than in Europe. Was that the only rational for continental groupings?

What does the United States want?
Current U.S. position advocates a permanent seat in the council for Japan. Ambassador Bolton said last week, there is the fear of domestic implications from Japan’s exclusion from the council as a permanent member. What would that do to the support for Japan’s funding levels? Japan’s contributions to the United Nations roughly amounted to $ 1 billion in 2004 and Japan still owes about $700 million to the peacekeeping budget. Would having the second largest financial contributor really make the council more effective? If Japan, was a permanent member of the Security Council, could the council have acted to stop the genocide in Darfur?

Let’s also not forget the China factor. If the United States continues to support a permanent seat for Japan, it will eventually push Beijing into confrontation with Tokyo. Concerned over Beijing’s rising power, some analysts, such as Vance Serchuk of the American Enterprise Institute advocated this as a policy option for the United States. But there is too much to lose if U.S. allows the enlargement debate to turn into a ruthless realpolitik chess game. The debate over the expansion of the Security Council is a geopolitical contest for power and influence, but it is also about sharing the cost of international security. The United States wants a smaller council, with not more than 20 or so members and thus can allow only one or two more permanent seats to be allocated to a developing country. Delhi, by voting in line with the United States in September at IAEA in Vienna against Iran, earned some points from Washington. But U.S. alone is not the decision maker at the United Nations. Who would represent the developing world in the Security Council anyway? The chances of Group of 77, the largest Third World coalition in the United Nations, which now has 132 members, reaching an agreement on one or two permanent seats, are very slim.

What’s next: a leadership opportunity for Japan?
Proposals of permanency create divisions at the United Nations and face fierce opposition from many parties. No one is expecting to rid the current permanent five members of their privileges any time soon, but that realism should not discourage the member states from preventing the Security Council from further damage. Capitals need a sound strategy to promote the reform of the Security Council at the United Nations. Washington should not wait for Beijing to veto Japan’s permanent membership to start considering other proposals. Tokyo too should grab this opportunity, relax its perseverance on a permanent seat, and settle for a longer term at the Security Council. For that they should re-examine closely all the existing proposals including the Model B or the Blue Model (these models propose longer council terms), where those who contribute the most to the Security Council mandates, would serve longer periods. Model B for example, proposes four year renewable terms. If the purpose is to equip the medium powers with a sense of ownership of the Council, why not consider extended renewable terms?

Ayca Ariyoruk is a Research Fellow at the Center for U.N. Reform Education.