Expanding on expansion
Over at Opinio Juris, Kevin Jon Heller asks me to say more about Security Council expansion. He "remain[s] skeptical that P-5 will ever accept more permanent members, especially countries that — like Germany and India — rival them economically." Skepticism about expansion is a good place to start—the issue’s been simmering for almost twenty years ...
Over at Opinio Juris, Kevin Jon Heller asks me to say more about Security Council expansion. He "remain[s] skeptical that P-5 will ever accept more permanent members, especially countries that — like Germany and India — rival them economically." Skepticism about expansion is a good place to start—the issue's been simmering for almost twenty years now without much to show for it.
Over at Opinio Juris, Kevin Jon Heller asks me to say more about Security Council expansion. He "remain[s] skeptical that P-5 will ever accept more permanent members, especially countries that — like Germany and India — rival them economically." Skepticism about expansion is a good place to start—the issue’s been simmering for almost twenty years now without much to show for it.
But I actually think the main obstacle is not the veto power of the permanent members but the General Assembly. Reforming the Council requires amending the UN Charter, which in turn requires two-thirds of the Assembly. And there’s nothing close to that kind of consensus right now. Aspiring permanent members such as Brazil, India, and Germany all have evil twins who agitate against their candidacies (Argentina, Pakistan, and Italy) and argue for new rotating seats instead. One of my favorite Security Council reform stories is told by Madeleine Albright. At a Council meeting in the early 1990s, she reiterated U.S. support for the candidacies of Germany and Japan (the U.S. position at the time). Shortly thereafter, the Italian ambassador, with fists clenched and face flushed, reminded her that the Italians had lost World War II as well.
My hunch is that if most of the Assembly could ever get behind a plan, the P5 would be hard pressed to oppose it. After all, most of them are on the record in support of some kind of reform. Britain and France, who feel simultaneously possessive of and guilty about their Council privileges, would like to see a reform package that defuses awkward questions about why they have seats when behemoths like India and Japan do not.
For what it’s worth, the Obama administration has been mostly silent on the issue and has confined itself to repeating longstanding talking points about the need to maintain Council efficiency and effectiveness. I’ve been told that an internal review is underway, although that could well be code for "we’d rather not talk much about this."
David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist
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