India urges the United Nations Security Council to provide representation for developing countries

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New York: India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj, urged the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to expand access for developing nations if it was to preserve its “effectiveness and credibility.”

“If we continue to perpetuate the 1945 anachronistic mindset, we will continue to lose the faith our people have in the United Nations,” Kamboj asserted addressing the UNSC Open Debate on “Effective Multilateralism through the Defense of the Principles of UN Charter” on Monday, April 24, 2023.

Kamboj reminded Member States of the “inadequacies of the multilateral system” that were unsuccessful in effectively responding to global challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. For good measure, Kamboj added other issues such as  “terrorism, radicalism, climate justice and climate action, disruptive non-state actors, debt and several geopolitical contestations” that pose ongoing challenges to peace and security on the global stage.

“Can we practice “effective multilateralism” by defending a Charter that makes five nations more equal than others, and provides to each of those five the power to ignore the collective will of the remaining 188 member states?” Kamboj asked, adding, “How much longer will we keep decorating ‘effective’ multilateralism with the intent of reforming multilateralism with only words and mere lip service?”

Noting that India was a founding signatory to the UN Charter when it was signed June 26, 1945 in San Francisco, Kamboj pointed out “77 years later, when we see the world’s largest democracy, along with entire continents of Africa and Latin America, being kept out of global decision-making, we rightly call for a major course correction.”

She quoted India’s Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar, who chaired an Open Debate in the Security Council on New Orientation for Reformed Multilateralism on December 14, 2022, who said, “Our Common Agenda and the Summit of the Future will only deliver results, if they respond to the growing calls for reformed multilateralism. Reform is the need of the day. And I am confident that the Global South especially shares India’s determination to persevere.” In September that same year, more than 70 global leaders at the UN General Assembly called for reforms.

At the April 24 meeting, UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, emphasized how no progress would have been made without countries standing together “as a multilateral human family,” to meet challenges ranging “from the ozone layer to the eradication of polio.”

“The multilateral system is under greater strain than at any time since the creation of the United Nations. Tensions between major powers are at an historic high. So are the risks of conflict, through misadventure or miscalculation,” Guterres said. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in violation of the United Nations Charter and international law, is causing massive suffering and devastation to the country and its people, and adding to the global economic dislocation triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

He recalled that the High-level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism that was constituted in 2022 came up with several “transformational shifts to address peace and security challenges, growing economic inequalities, the triple planetary crisis of climate, biodiversity and pollution, and a widening digital divide,” and hoped the Board’s report will provide a strong foundation to the Summit of the Future next year.

As far back as July 17, 2020, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, underscored India’s firm belief, “that the path to achieve sustainable peace and prosperity is through multilateralism… However, multilateralism needs to represent the reality of the contemporary world. Only reformed multilateralism with a reformed United Nations at its center can meet the aspirations of humanity. Today, while celebrating 75 years of the United Nations, let us pledge to reform the global multilateral system.”