UNITED NATIONS: India, along with other members of the G4 have offered to initially forgo veto powers as permanent members in a reformed Security Council, in a bid to get the reform process moving. India's Permanent Representative Syed Akbaruddin, who spoke on behalf of the G4 at the Inter-Governmental Negotiations on Council reforms, said, "The issue of veto is important, but we should not allow it to have a veto over the process of Council reform itself."
The G4 constitutes of India, Brazil, Germany, and Japan, which lobbies for Council reforms and mutually support each other's candidatures for permanent seats on any expanded body. While the new permanent members would in principle have veto powers, Akbaruddin informed that "they shall not exercise the veto until a decision on the matter has been taken during a review." Meanwhile, the G4 released a statement saying, "While we are aware of no other way to proceed but this, we are open to innovative ideas to rework the UN system." It rejected suggestions to create a category of longer-term elected members of the Council as a plan to block adding new permanent members.
Akbaruddin said expanding the non-permanent categories would only worsen "the imbalance of influence" in the Council and "tilt the scales" in favour of an outdated set up. However, the Uniting for Consensus (UfC), a 13-member group including Pakistan, opposed expanding permanent membership and suggested creating a new category of elected membership with longer terms than the current two years, instead. Brushing aside the proposal as "old hat", Akbaruddin said the 1944 Dumbarton Oaks conference held in Washington to negotiate the shape of the UN had rejected suggestions for the longer-term Council membership. Any proposal for Council reforms without an expansion of the number of the permanent seats does "grave injustice to Africa's aspirations for equality," he said.
The G4 also pointed out that the number and allocation of non-permanent seats have outlived their relevance since the UN was formed and the reform in 1965 when the number of non-permanent members was increased from six to 10. Akbaruddin said that 53 members of the Asia-Pacific group of nations have only two elected seats on the council, while the 26-member Western Europe group also get two.
