UN Security Council to expand?

[KipWellsFan]

courtesy reuters

 

Japan wants SC seat and veto

Wed 1 December, 2004 05:34

 

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan says that all permanent members of the U.N. Security Council should be treated equally and have veto powers after the world body is revamped.

 

A high-level panel on reforming the United Nations appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan has proposed two models for reform, including one that would add six new, permanent members to the council but without the power of veto.

 

The council, the most powerful U.N. body, whose decisions can be mandatory, has five permanent members with a veto -- the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia, considered the victors in World War Two in 1945.

 

"Japan considers it unfavourable to have permanent Security Council members that have veto power and those that don't have it," Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hatsuhisa Takashima said. "This is what we have said on various occasions."

 

Takashima added, however, that Japan would bow to the majority within the United Nations.

 

"If it is the consensus of the international community, Japan will accept it," he said.

 

Japan, along with Germany, has long sought a permanent seat on the Security Council. Secretary-General Annan wants a decision on reform next year.

 

Any change to the council membership needs approval from two-thirds of the 191-member General Assembly and must avoid a veto by any of the council's current permanent members.

 

Britain, France and Russia have indicated their support for Germany, Brazil, India and Japan. China, parts of which were under Japanese rule until 1945, has difficult diplomatic relations with Japan and is thought unlikely to support its bid.

 

The United States has expressed support for Japan but the Bush administration has not offered similar backing to Germany, which opposed the U.S.-led Iraq war.

 

Japan's Takashima welcomed the panel's recommendation that the so-called "enemy state" clause be removed from the U.N. Charter.

 

The clause, dating back to the Second World War, allows for military action against Japan and Germany, without any endorsement by the Security Council. Japan pays almost as much money as the U.S. into the United Nations' coffers.

 

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticl...81&section=news

 

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Seems only fair that "enemy state" clause be removed. Germany is as dangerous as Royce Clayton with a bat.

[southsider2k5]

Yeah, that's what we need... more vetos so that even less can get done at the UN, and it can be even more subject to corruption. :rolly

 

Get rid of the vetos. Period.

[Texsox]

Yeah, that's what we need... more vetos so that even less can get done at the UN, and it can be even more subject to corruption. :rolly

 

Get rid of the vetos.  Period.

Are you certain the US should give up veto powers? Wouldn't that put us on an even footing with the juggernaut countries like Luxemburg and Liechtenstein? I believe the developed nations, the guys who are actually footing the bill for this "security" crap, should have more control than some podunk, population 2,000,000 country.

 

There are problems in the UN, but reducing America's power isn't going to solve them.

[southsider2k5]

Are you certain the US should give up veto powers? Wouldn't that put us on an even footing with the juggernaut countries like Luxemburg and Liechtenstein? I believe the developed nations, the guys who are actually footing the bill for this "security" crap, should have more control than some podunk, population 2,000,000 country.

 

There are problems in the UN, but reducing America's power isn't going to solve them.

The problem with the UN lies exactly with the veto power. They could come up with some kind of an EU more votes for certian countries system, that would at least be a step in the right direction, but when a vote can go 160-1 and that one countries vote is a veto, so nothing gets done, there is a problem. Look at some of the votes on Israel. Two countries in the whole world vote against them, and they never get anywhere.

 

It also leaves the system wide open to corruption (as evidenced by the Oil for Food program) you bribe one official, and you can have your way on the UN security council. Even if the system is weighed towards the security council, it makes it harder to buy off the council.

[Texsox]

The problem with the UN lies exactly with the veto power.  They could come up with some kind of an EU more votes for certian countries system, that would at least be a step in the right direction, but when a vote can go 160-1 and that one countries vote is a veto, so nothing gets done, there is a problem.  Look at some of the votes on Israel.  Two countries in the whole world vote against them, and they never get anywhere.

 

It also leaves the system wide open to corruption (as evidenced by the Oil for Food program) you bribe one official, and you can have your way on the UN security council.  Even if the system is weighed towards the security council, it makes it harder to buy off the council.

I believe we are talking about the security council, not the general assembly. The Security Council has the permanant members, the WW2 "Victors" who hold the vetos, and a rotation of other countries who do not have veto powers. I was not aware that there were any vetos in General Assembly matters.

 

My guess is, coming off WW2 the UN Security Council was weighted towards inaction, not action. The system was built to not start WW3. Perhaps we need to see the UN as the place of last resort, not the first step in these matters? Perhaps we have been placing expectations on a system that really isn't meant for those expectations. Kind of like asking Mom's minivan to win the Daytona 500.

Edited December 1, 2004 by Texsox

[CrimsonWeltall]

US Vee Toes

 

Haha, look at these.

 

NEW RESOLUTION: ISRAEL SUX

14 votes: AYE

US: VETOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[KipWellsFan]

Report was presented today at the UN. And more countries are being asked to join the Security Council than the previous article stated.

 

courtesy cbc.ca

UN panel wants bigger Security Council

Last Updated Thu, 02 Dec 2004 13:21:13 EST

UNITED NATIONS - A report presented to the United Nations secretary general on Thursday called for the enlargement of the UN Security Council as the key plank in a reform program intended to make the world body more effective.

 

Secretary General Kofi Annan asked for the report from the so-called High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change after bitter disagreements in 2003 over the U.S.-led war in Iraq divided the UN.

 

The panel had a mandate to look at the threats and challenges facing the world in the 21st century and how the UN could deal with them more effectively.

 

The lengthy report contains 101 recommendations including on such divisive issues as:

 

An overhaul of the organization's bureaucracy including an early retirement program.

An attempt to define what constitutes justified use of "preventive" military action.

How to effectively monitor and fight global diseases.

 

Security Council to add members

 

The most important and contentious issue was the proposed enlargement of the Security Council from 15 to 24 members.

 

 

Relates story: UN report to advise sweeping reforms

 

But in a sign of the difficulty and complexity involved in enlarging that body, the panel has developed two different recipes for its expansion, and only a vague timeline for implementation of the changes.

 

"It is only a starting point. It is the member states who have to decide whether they want an effective United Nations. Building security takes more than report or a summit," said Anand Panyarachun, head of the panel and a former prime minister of Thailand.

 

Currently, the Security Council has five permanent members and 10 temporary members with terms of two years each.

 

The five permanent members, the United States, Russia, China, U.K. and France, hold a veto.

 

Under one proposal six new permanent members – the likely candidates are Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, Egypt and either Nigeria or South Africa – as well as three new two-year term members would join the council.

 

Under the other proposal, a new group of eight semi-permanent members would be chosen for renewable four-year terms, and one additional two-year term seat would also be created.

 

The permanent members would retain their exclusive vetos.

 

UN summit to deal with proposals

 

Most of the report's reform proposals could be implemented by the General Assembly and by individual member states or UN sub-organizations such as the World Health Organization and others.

 

But the Security Council reform would require a change to the UN charter, which requires a two-thirds majority in a vote in the General Assembly.

 

Annan is expected to whittle the panel's 101 recommendations down to a small number of principal subjects to be taken up at a summit meeting of heads of state at the UN in September before the opening of the General Assembly.

 

Annan under fire

 

The report comes at a time when world leaders are calling for reforms to the 60-year-old organization, and when Annan himself is coming under fire over his son's activities in the UN oil-for-food program in Iraq.

 

But there's also a growing chorus of voices, particularly in the U.S., which portrays the UN as hopelessly corrupt and irrelevant, casting doubt on whether there is the backing from members to undertake the difficult process of reform.

 

Some U.S. senators have called for Annan's resignation over oil-for-food, and U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday called for a full inquiry into the program.

 

Such issues threaten to divert energies from reform efforts, said analysts.

 

Asked whether he was optimistic about the chances for UN reform, Panyachuran said, with a shrug of the shoulders: "In this world, you have to be a perennial optimist."

 

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/200...orms041202.html

[Rex Kickass]

The UN seems chiefly engineered to be a safety valve, where most major threats of war can be talked out of gas rather than actually fought. And it has worked in many circumstances of major combat action. It played a role in helping maintain the bipolarity of the US/USSR cold war II and helped to maintain an MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) regime between the two.

 

The main problem with the UN structurally, the way I see it, is as the world changed to a multipolar world, with a couple regional hegemons, (China, USA, Russia, EU) the UN needs to change with it. The question is how to do so in a way that is going to be acceptable to the people currently holding the strings of power in the UN.