India Slams UN Reform Draft On UNSC
India has strongly criticised the latest draft document on United Nations Security Council reform, saying it fails to properly reflect support for expanding permanent membership and does not move the process toward real negotiations.
India slams UN reform draft
India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Harish Parvathaneni, criticised the latest Elements Paper discussed during the Inter-Governmental Negotiations on Security Council reforms.
India said the document did not accurately capture the overall position of member states and reduced broad support for permanent membership expansion to a weaker formulation. New Delhi said this approach undermines the demand for meaningful reform of the Security Council.
UNSC permanent membership expansion
India warned that Security Council reform would be grossly inadequate if expansion was limited only to non-permanent members. It said such a move would not change the decision-making structure dominated by the five permanent members.
The current permanent members of the Security Council are the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom. India has long argued that the Council, created after the Second World War, no longer reflects present global realities.
India seeks text-based negotiations
India also pushed for text-based negotiations, saying the reform process should follow the same approach used in other United Nations negotiations. A text-based process would require member states to negotiate on a written document instead of continuing open-ended discussions.
New Delhi said there was no ambiguity over the meaning of permanent and non-permanent seats, as the UN Charter already defines both categories. India has repeatedly backed expansion in both categories and has maintained that it deserves a permanent seat in a reformed Security Council.
