Despite India’s repeated demands for reform of the UN Security Council, the process of the expansion of the membership is expected to slow down this year with the final draft of the Declaration on the Commemoration of the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the U.N. favouring a softer approach to the issue.

“We reiterate our call for reforms of three of the principal organs of the United Nations. We commit to instil new life in the discussions on the reform of the Security Council and continue the work to revitalise the General Assembly and strengthen the Economic and Social Council. The review of the peace-building architecture has our full support,” the final draft says. The Declaration is a powerful reiteration of the UN’s founding principles that brought a new world order 75 years ago.

Mention of ‘discussions’ in this key anniversary document is being interpreted as dilution of the progress made on the path of reform of the principal organs of the UN during the 122nd plenary meeting of the General Assembly.

At the meeting on September 15, 2008, the General Assembly on the basis of previous resolutions had ‘decided’ to proceed with the “modalities in order to prepare and facilitate intergovernmental negotiations on the question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council and other matters related to the Council”.

The final draft for the upcoming UNGA is also a step down from the Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on September 16, 2005 when the call for reform was demanded against the backdrop of widespread unilateral decisions as seen during the Iraq war of 2003 and the “war on terror”.

The 2005 Resolution had expressed strong global will to stop misuse of military power and said, “We are determined to reinvigorate the intergovernmental organs of the United Nations to adopt them to the needs of the twenty-first century”.

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