The UNSC should be expanded to include India

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is not reflective of the changing times, and is heavily inclined towards dependence on the global dynamics of the immediate post World War II era, when more than half of the world was still ruled by imperial powers. The fact is, it is about time the composition of the UNSC takes cognisance of the new emerging powers on the world stage.

The UNSC is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), devolved with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly and approving any changes to the UN charter. Its powers include establishing peacekeeping operations, enacting international sanctions, and authorising military action. Its incumbent significance stems from the fact that it is the only UN body with the authority to issue binding resolutions on member states.

The UNSC, like the UN, was created after World War II. It held its first session on 17 January 1946. In the early decades, since its inception, it authorised military interventions in the Korean War and in the Congo crisis and peacekeeping missions in the Suez crisis, Cyprus, and West New Guinea. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, UN peacekeeping efforts increased dramatically in scale, with the UNSC making edicts of major military and peacekeeping missions in Kuwait, Namibia, Cambodia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The UNSC actually consists of 15 members, of which five are permanent – the US, Russia, China, the UK and France. The remaining ten members are elected on a regional basis to serve a term of two years. Permanent members can veto any substantive resolution, including those on the admission of new member states to the United Nations or nominees for the office of Secretary-General.

Resolutions of the Security Council are typically enforced by UN peacekeepers, military forces voluntarily provided by member states and funded independently of the main UN budget. As of March 2019, there were thirteen peacekeeping missions with over 81,000 personnel from 121 countries, with a total budget of nearly $6.7 billion.

The fact that the permanent seats of the UNSC are loaded so heavily towards the victors of World War II and colonial rulers, takes away the very legitimacy of the UN being a fair and pervasive entity. The veto power too, had made the UNSC quite an impervious protagonist during the Cold War era. From 1985 to 1990, the U.S. vetoed 27 motions, primarily to block resolutions perceived as anti-Israel but also to protect its interests in Panama and Korea.

In 2003, the US invasion of Iraq was an arrant snub to UN resolutions and sanction. The US did not even seek a UN resolution to get its invasion sanctioned, in its misconstrued claim that Saddam Hussein had amassed weapons of mass destruction.

Today, as a new Cold War emanates, what with China’s exceptionable belligerence in the Indo-Pacific region, it is about time to take stock of the changing undercurrents on the world stage. There are new alliances being forged, and there’s need for new voices to be heard at the table. The UNSC’s permanent membership should be expanded to include countries like India, Japan, Germany, Brazil and South Africa. This would engender greater equipoise and even-handedness for the UN.

Of the above-mentioned nations, India’s candidature is most imminent, considering that it is the largest democracy in the world. It has a population of almost 1.4 billion (whereas Europe, that has 3 permanent seats on the UNSC, has a population of only 764 million). It is an unequivocally multi-cultural nation, almost a commonwealth in itself. It is among the top 5 countries in the world as far as purchasing power parity GDP goes. And it has the third largest defence expenditure in the world, after the US and China.

India has contributed nearly 195,000 troops to UN missions, the largest number from any country, and has participated in more than 49 missions. Today, India is the second largest troop contributor, with 7,676 personnel deployed in 10 out of 16 active UN Peacekeeping Missions, of which 760 are police personnel.

As for Japan, it is among the most highly industrialised nations in the world, and has the third-highest GDP, in nominal terms, in the world. It also has a population of 126 million.

Germany is the largest economy in Europe, with a population of 83 million (the largest in Western Europe). It is the unofficial leader of the EU, and we simply can’t perpetuate narrow-minded post World War II mentality, and deny Germany a seat, while reserving seats for the UK and France.

Brazil deserves a seat by virtue of it being the largest country in Latin America in terms of area, population and economic size. It is also the sixth most populated country in the world.

South Africa qualifies, as a representative of the second most populated continent in the world, as also a representative of Black Africa.

The fact is that the veto rights of a fistful of nations in the UNSC has put paid to the organisation’s aspirations at being the protagonist of a level playing field. Besides, that Britain and France, two nations on the wane, still preserve their seats on the UNSC, while countries like India, Germany, Japan, Brazil and South Africa are excluded, has invalidated its ability at having a balanced outlook.

It would be noteworthy to add here, that morality, balance and justice are still being imparted on the world by a handful of countries who want to maintain the oligarchy, even while they were the perpetrators of historical crimes against humanity. It is about time the emphasis changes to bring about greater justice, and to do away with restrictive monopolistic configurations. The UNSC must be expanded to accommodate new global players, and do away with overused and obsolete imperialistic ideology, if it has to be efficacious in exteriorizing the international justice it seeks to make manifest.