The Council hot seat
As the three-way race between Germany, Canada, and Portugal for two Security Council seats continues, a Canadian politician and diplomat ask whether Canada should really covet the diplomatic prize it’s chasing. Membership has its privileges. There have been times when Canada’s membership on the Security Council resulted in some influence over its decisions, notably during ...
As the three-way race between Germany, Canada, and Portugal for two Security Council seats continues, a Canadian politician and diplomat ask whether Canada should really covet the diplomatic prize it's chasing.
Membership has its privileges. There have been times when Canada’s membership on the Security Council resulted in some influence over its decisions, notably during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and during the so-called African diamond wars of the late 1990s. But, for the most part, the Permanent Members — the U.S., U.K., France, Russia and China — call the shots on the big issues.
Membership also has its costs. In the early 2000s, then foreign minister John Manley said: “Canadians have the habit of taking strong stances on any number of international issues, but when it comes time to take action, Canadians take a washroom break.” On the council, you can’t take a washroom break.
As the three-way race between Germany, Canada, and Portugal for two Security Council seats continues, a Canadian politician and diplomat ask whether Canada should really covet the diplomatic prize it’s chasing.
Membership has its privileges. There have been times when Canada’s membership on the Security Council resulted in some influence over its decisions, notably during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and during the so-called African diamond wars of the late 1990s. But, for the most part, the Permanent Members — the U.S., U.K., France, Russia and China — call the shots on the big issues.
Membership also has its costs. In the early 2000s, then foreign minister John Manley said: “Canadians have the habit of taking strong stances on any number of international issues, but when it comes time to take action, Canadians take a washroom break.” On the council, you can’t take a washroom break.
A seat on the council might mean Canada finds itself having to pronounce on — or contribute blood and treasure to — issues that it would rather avoid entirely. Imagine, for example, the political anguish in this country if we were on the council during another Arab-Israeli war. It is hard to imagine Canada would have any influence over the Security Council on a modern-day Arab-Israeli war, yet a heavy price would be paid in domestic discord.
The nonpermanent seats can be a mixed bag, and Mexican diplomats have also wrestled with the question of whether sitting on the Council serves their interests, particularly since it creates the real possibility of getting crosswise with the United States. Lacking permanency and the veto, the nonpermanent members can become particularly vulnerable in Council crack-ups. Germany’s ambassador during the run-up to the Iraq War told me that he and his diplomats were on the receiving end of particular ire from the Americans, who had to treat their Russian and French colleagues more delicately.
For smaller and poorer states, Council votes can sometimes tangle uncomfortably with aid packages. Yemen famously had its U.S. foreign aid yanked when it stuck with Iraq during the first Persian Gulf conflict. On the other hand, there’s some empirical evidence that poorer states are able to extract benefits, in the form of increased foreign aid, from Council membership.
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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