Pot of gold at end of the rainbow
The Economic Times
B.S. Raghavan / November 22, 2010

The United Nations came into being for the purpose of forging a collective approach and taking concerted action in regard to issues relating to the peace, progress security and well-being of the world. The UN Charter conceived the Security Council to be the punchy, protective arm of the world community with the primary responsibility for maintenance of international peace and security.

From the outset they both became the cockpits of power politics of the original five permanent members: Britain, China, France, Soviet Union (now Russia) and the US. The five members, known as the Big Five, never hesitate to block any action or proposal not to their liking by freely using the right of veto vested in them.

The plain, but little known, fact is that in the vast majority of sensitive issues which had within them the seeds of disagreements or conflicts, either the two bodies had no definitive say or the interested powers made their own deals outside of them by the time-honoured practices of arm twisting, blandishments and bait dangling.

No consensus

About the Security Council, in particular, the prevailing assessment is that it has become the handmaiden or cat's paw of the Big Five, which have effectively relegated the non-permanent members to second-class status, letting them serve out their two-year tenure under sufferance, and subjecting them to browbeating or even blackmail with a view to forcing them to toe their line.

The UN Charter is 65 years old, belonging to a spacious era when relations among nations as among individuals were governed by a few relatively simple rules. Now the risks are vastly greater and the problems of the world infinitely more complex. There have been reviews galore of the working of the UN as a whole, including its various offshoots, ever since its inception, but they have invariably led to a dead end with no consensus in sight.

Anybody's guess

The reason is the realisation that merely tinkering with the reform process by bits and pieces will prove to be a remedy worse than the disease. It has to be a comprehensive effort, taking account of the two thorniest impediments against any effective action: The veto power of the Big Five and the effete authority of the UN Secretary-General. Enlarging the membership and adding to the tally of permanent members, by themselves, will only turn out to be cosmetic in nature without addressing the fundamental factors that have reduced the UN, in general, and the Security Council, in particular, to pale shadows of themselves.

It is obvious that any reform of the Security Council is inextricably bound up with the overall need to tone up the UN itself and any attempt to consider it in isolation by changing its character or composition will be instantly shot down.

If, despite recognising the need for reform, it has made no headway for 65 years, the time it will take to become a settled fact is anybody's guess.

That is why the US President, Mr Barack Obama, while seeming to endorse India's permanent membership, drew circles round it to make it sound almost like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow by saying that “in the years ahead” he did nothing more than looking forward to its materialising!

Actually, knowing that the Security Council, as it has functioned in the past, did not amount to much, India need not have gone overboard in celebrating Mr Obama's nebulous declaration as if it was some kind of manna from heaven and as if India was sunk without UNSC' permanent membership. My advice is that India should use its coming two years of membership to take the reform process forward and bring it to a conclusion.