Singapore, 1997

Let me congratulate

you, Sir, on your election to the presidency of the fifty-

second session of the General Assembly. I also thank our

outgoing President, Mr. Razali Ismail, for his untiring

efforts. He catalysed a change in our approach to Security

Council reform and set a new trajectory for it.

For several years, we have all recognized the

imperative of United Nations reform. Today, the issue of

the moment is still reform. This summer, the Secretary-

General challenged us with a package of reforms that he

accurately described as the most extensive and far-

reaching in the 52-year history of this Organization. This

is, of course, not the first time a Secretary-General has

attempted to remake this Organization. But now that the

more extravagant of post-cold-war hopes for the United

Nations have faded, I believe that this package represents

a more focused, realistic and practical approach. We

congratulate the Secretary-General for his initiative.

The Secretary-General's objective clearly is to enable

the United Nations to do better what we all require it to

do. We all take the United Nations importance as

axiomatic. Therefore, his intention to reconfigure the

United Nations management and strengthen the United

Nations ability to perform its core functions should be

generally acceptable to the majority, even if every

particular element of his proposals has not been fully

elaborated or may not be entirely to everyone's taste.

In the larger interests of this Organization, we should

all welcome the thrust of the Secretary-General's

proposals and not take issue with too many details.

Singapore adopts such an approach. We have, for

example, questions about some specific details of his

proposals to place the United Nations finances on a

sounder footing and to streamline its operations. But we

have nonetheless contributed actively to the effort to

streamline budgetary and administrative procedures in the

Secretariat and will continue to do so.

By taking a pragmatic and eclectic approach, we

hope to help move the reform process forward, even if we

may have questions on specific aspects. We will continue

to work with the Secretary-General and other Member

States to make the United Nations a more efficient and

effective Organization — one that will serve the interests

of all its Members, big and small, developing as well as

industrialized.

The Secretary-General's proposals on the United

Nations management, administration and structure have

sometimes been directly or indirectly linked to the

ongoing effort by Member States to prepare the United

Nations political leadership for the twenty-first century

through Security Council reform. We are not confident

that this is the correct approach. We have been engaged

in this broader effort for almost four years. It is a fact

that the process has been difficult. Progress has been

slow. We have reached the conclusion that the prospects

for further progress are not good.

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We have arrived at this conclusion with great

reluctance and without rancour. Progress has not been slow

because of the ill will of one State or another. Prospects for

further progress are dim not merely because one country or

another has lacked the will to cut through the web of vested

interests. The reasons are more fundamental. They go

beyond the volitions and intentions of individual countries

and are embedded in the nature and inescapable realities of

international organization in an international system that is

still largely defined by relations between sovereign States.

No great Power, or even a Power with aspirations to

greatness, has ever been willing to submit its own vital

interests to United Nations jurisdiction. This fact of

international life underlies the current reform stalemate. The

necessity of United Nations reform may be widely

accepted. But what the great Powers want is not a strong

United Nations per se. They want a United Nations just

strong and credible enough to serve as an effective

instrument of their will and policies. It is only small

countries that are more inclined to take the United Nations

on its own terms and in its own right. Small countries are

not necessarily more virtuous — we merely have fewer

options.

This reality has been underscored by our discussions

on Security Council reform. The really crucial decisions

that will allow Security Council reform to move decisively

forward or stall it indefinitely are going to be taken in

Washington, London, Paris, Beijing or Moscow. It has not

been clear that the current permanent members really want

change except on their own terms and in circumstances that

will not erode their current status and prerogatives. Critical

ambiguities in their positions have held up progress and

will continue to do so unless clarified.

One school of thought is that we should decide on

Security Council reform during this General Assembly. I

can well sympathize with the frustrations of those who feel

that the current debate is going nowhere. But precisely

because this is so, we need to ask: What is it that we are

going to decide upon? The answer is far from clear. Indeed,

the entire Security Council reform process is in danger of

being lost in a wilderness of logical contradictions and

ambiguities. Please permit me to spell out some of these

contradictions and ambiguities.

Several permanent members have been categoric only

in their desire to see Japan and Germany as new permanent

members. Many other countries, including my own, would

agree that, when general agreement is reached on the

expansion of the Security Council, Japan and Germany

should be new permanent members. But an equally large

number of countries, and I believe Japan and Germany

are among them, would also agree that any general

agreement on expansion must include some developing

countries as new permanent members to reflect new

international realities.

On this point most permanent members have been

far less clear. When challenged, several of them have

recently for the first time conceded that in addition to

Japan and Germany they would in principle be willing to

accept three permanent seats for developing nations from

the regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America. This is

welcome progress. Nevertheless, important ambiguities

still remain.

How will the three developing countries be chosen?

It has been suggested that individual countries be chosen

by a two-thirds vote of the membership as a whole. It has

also been suggested that they could be subject to some

system of rotation within the regions.

Both, however, are problematic concepts. Can a

country really legitimately represent a region if it is

chosen outside the region? Will the two-thirds

membership prescribed by the Charter really be

sufficiently familiar with conditions outside their own

respective regions to make an informed and legitimate

choice, binding on regions of which they are not

members? Then, conceptually, is it not inherently

contradictory for a member to be said to be permanent

but nonetheless be subject to rotation? Who will such a

member represent: its own national interests or the

region's interests? Can it really represent the latter?

Indeed, what is the regional interest? How will it be

determined? Is the regional interest necessarily

synonymous with the interests of the larger members of

a region? Can a rotational system work for any region

except Africa, where it is already an established

principle?

None of these questions will be easy to answer.

They have been debated for the last three years without

satisfactory answers. But unless there are clear answers,

my concern is that suggestions for a differentiated

selection process for permanent members from among the

newly industrialized and newly developing countries will

only lead to permanent stress, divisions and conflict for

most regions, or it will lead to a two-stage decision-

making process where the elevation of Germany and

Japan will not for many years, if ever, be matched by any

degree of consensus for the developing nations of Asia,

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Africa and Latin America. Such a discriminatory situation

would be clearly unacceptable to a majority of Member

States, including many of those that aspire to permanent

status.

But even if we could simultaneously reach agreement

on the identity of the three permanent members from

among the developing countries, together with Japan and

Germany, there are further complexities of equal

importance. What will be the status of the new permanent

members?

Even those current permanent members that have

strongly supported Germany's and Japan's aspirations have

been silent on whether Germany and Japan should have the

veto. Even treaty allies of Japan and Germany, countries

that have pledged to go to war at their side and for them,

have taken no position on this crucial question. This, in our

view, makes it even more difficult to believe that any

developed country permanent member would ever allow

any developing country to acquire the veto, even though

they have made it clear that they want to retain unrestricted

use of the veto for themselves.

The powers of new permanent members are not

questions that can be deferred to a later date merely to

make it easier to quickly determine the identity of the new

permanent members. They are intrinsic to the very notion

and definition of permanent membership. Is a new

permanent member really a permanent member if it does

not have the same powers as the original five permanent

members?

Article 27 has been controversial from the very

founding of the United Nations. There is now a wide

consensus that the use of the veto should be curtailed with

a view to its eventual abolition. The reality, of course, is

that this is not going to happen any time soon. Any attempt

to curtail the veto will be vetoed. Undemocratic though it

may be, the veto will be with us for the foreseeable future.

And it is not without a certain utility in so far as it helps

prevent conflicts among the major Powers which could

undermine the United Nations. It has been argued that the

veto acts as a fail-safe mechanism. The veto will prevent

those countries that are so essential to the maintenance of

peace and security and to the operation of the United

Nations that they deserve permanent status from being

compelled to take any action that would lead to conflicts

among themselves.

Now, if this justification for the retention of the veto

by the original five permanent members has any validity,

then the question that arises is whether any new

permanent member that is not given the veto is really

deserving of that status? Would such countries really

enjoy the international stature and the capability and clout

to make such a crucial contribution to international peace

and security as to warrant being given permanent status?

And if not, why give them permanent status? Could they

not make financial and other contributions to the United

Nations in some other, way as many countries with no

such aspirations already do? If there is a need for new

permanent members, and I believe there is a need, then

the veto is not a question that can be postponed or

discussed separately from the issue of their identities.

Three out of the five current permanent members

have also been adamantly opposed to the expansion of the

Security Council beyond a total of 20 or 21 members.

This effectively blocks any expansion of the Security

Council.

Let us suppose that agreement is reached on the

identity of the five new permanent members: Japan and

Germany and three from the developing countries,

whichever they may be. But if the current permanent

members that argue against an expansion of the Security

Council beyond 21 members remain firm in their position,

this would mean only one additional non-permanent seat

for the 165 remaining members of the United Nations, all

of which have a desire and a right to serve the United

Nations on the Security Council at least occasionally. This

inequitable arrangement would certainly be rejected by

the majority. Moreover, creating five new permanent

members in a Security Council of 21 will seriously upset

the present balance between permanent seats and non-

permanent seats. This is also a situation which will not be

acceptable to the majority of the Member States. It will

certainly not command the support of the two thirds of

the membership required by the Charter to effect any

change to the Security Council's present composition.

Those that have argued for an expansion of the

Security Council to no more than 21 members have done

so on the grounds that this is the maximum number that

can function effectively and efficiently. These are

concerns that we should all share. Nobody wants an

ineffective or inefficient Security Council. But no one has

yet made a convincing argument that a Security Council

of, say, 26 members, as has been proposed by the Non-

Aligned Movement, would be any less efficient or

effective than a Security Council of 21. This is of course

assuming that effectiveness and efficiency are not

narrowly defined as merely making it more difficult for

11

any of the current permanent members and their allies to

ensure that nobody can prevent them from having their own

way.

In any case, can we really decide on the effectiveness

and efficiency of an expanded Security Council before we

know what the powers of the new permanent members are

going to be? This leads us into a tautological situation. We

cannot know how an expanded Security Council consisting

of an expanded number of permanent members will operate

because, as I argued a moment ago, the definition of what

constitutes a new permanent member cannot be separated

from the question of the veto. And the current permanent

members have refused to pronounce on this. At this point,

effectiveness and efficiency as an argument against a

Security Council of more than 21 breaks down completely.

I could go on with my analysis. But I hope I have

demonstrated that several critical aspects of the positions of

the major countries on Security Council reform need further

clarification before progress can be made. I do not believe

that the ambiguities and contradictions are going to be

resolved soon. They are the natural consequence of

sovereign States pursuing their national interests.

The position of permanent members will have a

decisive influence on whether or not Security Council

reform moves forward. As things presently stand, it seems

clear that what will not evoke a veto from any of the

current permanent members will not command the support

of the two-thirds membership required to make the

necessary Charter changes. At the same time, what would

attract the support of the vast majority of United Nations

Members is more likely than not to provoke a veto. This is

where, like it or not, we currently stand.

A similar case could be made on the closely related

question of financial reform. This too, has its own deep

complexities; its own intrinsic contradictions between what

would be acceptable to the majority and what the major

Powers want. Not every change is necessarily for the better.

We should therefore make progress cautiously, especially

on such fundamental questions. This is why the Non-

Aligned Movement has wisely decided that efforts at

restructuring the Security Council should not be subject to

any imposed time-frame.

Of course, there has been an evolution in the positions

of the major Powers over the last four years. There will be

further positive changes over time. But it will certainly take

time. No country readily changes the status quo if it

benefits from the status quo.

My point is therefore that, given this reality, it

would be a historic mistake to artificially link the

Secretary-General's managerial, administrative and

structural reforms to far more contentious questions of

Security Council or other matters that would require the

support of the two-thirds membership needed to effect

Charter amendments as defined in Article 108. There is

no need to handicap ourselves in this way. Not all aspects

of the Secretary-General's proposals are equally

acceptable to all Members. But, taken as a whole, it will

be far easier to reach a general agreement on more

aspects of the Secretary-General's proposals if they are

considered in themselves and not linked to more

politicized and therefore more intractable questions.

This is not to say that Security Council or financial

reforms are unimportant. Of course, they are important.

We should continue to work on them. The issues I have

raised are complex. But there is no avoiding them. I

remain confident that with patience and sincerity we will

eventually find our way out of the thickets of ambiguity

into which we have wandered. I am confident that we will

eventually succeed in our common endeavour to enhance

the ability of the Security Council to exercise leadership

in the management of global affairs and enhance its

legitimacy to do so.

But this is only one facet of United Nations reform.

The Security Council is not necessarily the only United

Nations body that is important, nor even always the most

important. The Security Council is empowered to act on

behalf of the membership as a whole on questions of

international peace and security. It has no direct mandate

to act on behalf of the membership as a whole on many

other urgent international questions. International peace

and security are no longer the only definition of high

international politics. Development and the environment

are two areas that are obvious and of increasing

importance. Such issues in which the Security Council is

not the lead United Nations body have risen in

prominence on the post-cold-war international agenda.

They will remain high priorities for the majority. There

can be no legitimate leadership role for the United

Nations that does not deal with such issues.

Herein lies the critical importance of the Secretary-

General's proposals. They can make an immediate and

tangible difference to issues affecting the entire

international community which are beyond the scope of

the Security Council. Action on the Secretary-General's

proposals, therefore, should not have to await general

agreement on Security Council reform. By focusing on

12

his proposals, by subjecting them to a thorough and positive

discussion, I believe we can move urgently needed United

Nations reforms forward at a faster pace than has hitherto

characterized the reform process. And we can still remain

seized of, but not hostage to, issues that may take more

time to command general agreement or that require Charter

amendment.