UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has suggested setting up a standing committee to ensure the implementation of UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, such as those on the Kashmir dispute.

At a debate on the council’s working on Tuesday, Pakistan also warned the UNSC that ‘one state’ (a veiled reference to India) appeared determ­ined to destroy a long-running global process for making the 15-member body more representative.

“Pakistan suggests that the Security Council establish a standing committee on the implementation of its own resolutions,” Pakistan’s UN envoy Munir Akram told the council during the debate. He also suggested making the committee an integral part of the council’s annual report to the UN General Assembly.

“It is disingenuous of those who refuse to implement Security Council resolutions to then argue that ‘obsolete’ items be removed from the agenda,” said the Pakistan envoy in an indirect reference to India’s demands on the council’s resolutions on Kashmir.

Security Council urged to establish committee on implementation of its own resolutions

“Security Council resolutions do not have an expiry date. They must be implemented.”

Without naming India, Ambassador Akram said that “to serve its misplaced ambitions, one ‘state’ appears willing to destroy the Inter­govern­mental negotiations (IGN) process, which was established by the consensus support of the entire UN membership.”

The IGN is a group of nation-states working within the United Nations to further the Security Council’s reforms. On July 27, 2016, the IGN issued a statement of consensus for making the council more global by giving representation to various regions.

The Security Council currently includes five permanent — Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States — and 10 non-permanent members elected to a two-year term.

Since 2009, India — along with Brazil, Germany and Japan — known as G-4 — has been pushing for a permanent seat on the council, which is strongly opposed by the Italy/Pakistan-led Uniting for Consensus (UfC) group.

The UfC group opposes adding more permanent members to the council and instead has proposed a new category of non-permanent members with longer duration in terms and a possibility to get re-elected.

On Sept 3, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated New Delhi’s demand, claiming that mid-20th century approach could no longer serve the world in the 21st century. “International institutions need to recognise changing realities, re-look at their priorities,” he said.

But on Sept 5, India rejected as ‘unwarranted, presumptive, and misleading” a UN report on “serious human rights violations and abuses” in Manipur. The report accused the state’s Hindu majority of committing “acts of sexual violence, extrajudicial killings, home destruction, forced displacement, torture and ill-treatment” against the state’s Christian minority.

In June, when the General Assembly rolled over the Security Council reform to the 78th session, India lashed out at the move, calling it a “wasted opportunity.” Indian Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj admitted that India was “looking beyond the IGN ... as the only viable pathway to a future UN Security Council that would better reflect the world of today”.

In his statement on “Working Methods of the Security Council”, Ambassador Akram said that Pakistan’s position on the world body’s working methods was based on its desire for “democracy, accountability, transparency and effectiveness” within the council.

“Pakistan advocates openness and transparency in the work of the UNSC,” he said and urged the members to make closed-door meetings an exception.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2023