Singapore, 1993

Since PLO Chairman Yasser

Arafat shook hands with the Israeli Prime Minister on the

White House lawn, nothing seems impossible any more.

The end of the cold war has opened opportunities to set

aside some of the most intractable, destructive and polarizing

conflicts of our time.

Apartheid is coming to an end in South Africa. Eastern

Europe is free. Russia and the other States of the former

Soviet Union are shaking off the stifling effects of more than

70 years of communism. Germany has been peacefully

reunited.

In Asia, Cambodia is moving towards national

reconciliation after almost 20 years of war. Viet Nam and

Laos are reintegrating themselves into the South-East Asian

community.

China and Taiwan held direct informal talks in

Singapore and Beijing this year. They will continue their

own dialogue at their own pace. They should be encouraged

to build confidence by working together, as they already

have in the Asian Development Bank and the Asia-Pacific

Economic Cooperation Council (APEC) and as they hope to

do in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

Change has its own dynamic. And not all changes are

benign. The post-cold-war problems are legion and well

known. It will be a challenge for the United Nations to

respond. In recent years, there has been a marked expansion

in the number and scope of the operations and activities

authorized by the Security Council.

Established procedures, such as the Security Council-

mandated Commission that has demarcated the boundary

between Iraq and Kuwait, have made and will continue to

make positive contributions to stabilizing the post-cold-war

world, providing authoritative reference points. United

Nations specialized agencies, such as the International

Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), are playing an important

role in holding renegade countries like North Korea to

internationally accepted standards of conduct in the critical

area of nuclear non-proliferation. The international

community must continue to support such tried and tested

measures and organizations.

But there is also an expectation that the end of the cold

war will enable the Security Council to play more ambitious

roles and at last assume "primary responsibility for the

maintenance of international peace and security" under

Chapters V and VII of the Charter. In Cambodia, Haiti and

Somalia, among other places, the United Nations is breaking

new ground by actively interposing itself as a vital

stabilizing actor in situations which would once have been

considered essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of

States.

The legal, diplomatic and political implications of these

developments are still unfolding and are not yet fully

understood. Not everyone is entirely comfortable with them.

But I believe that most Member States regard the trend as

generally positive and as making for a more secure world.

The majority wants a more active and effective Security

Council.

The Secretary-General’s report on the question of

equitable representation on and increase in the membership

of the Security Council, submitted in accordance with

General Assembly resolution 47/62, has thus occasioned

great interest. There is wide consensus that if it is to be

effective in the next century the Security Council cannot

simply extrapolate its mandate from the starting-point of

1945 after the cold-war interregnum, but must accurately

reflect the current configuration of global power.

International order cannot be built on nostalgia. Too great

a disjuncture from reality will doom the Security Council to

eventual irrelevance. As membership of the United Nations

expands, there is also a general expectation that the Security

Council should become more representative of the

Organization as a whole.

The composition of the Security Council is a

compromise between the principle of the sovereign equality

of States and the realities of power politics. That all States

are equal but that some, for better or for worse, have a

disproportionate influence on the international order is a fact

of life. Great-Power leadership is vital. It is a reality.

Recognition of the special status of great Powers is thus a

requisite for effective action by the Security Council. When

it comes to the crunch, only the great Powers can make a

decisive difference. But the temper of our times also

demands that if action is to command a general consensus:

the great must seek the mandate of the many.

Forty-eighth session - 6 October 1993 17

The issue is, however, more easily defined than

resolved. The only previous increase in the size of the

Security Council began in the 1956 session of the General

Assembly with discussions on an increase of non-permanent

seats. Agreement was reached only in 1963 and came into

force two years later, almost a decade after the process had

begun. The lapse of time shows the complexities involved.

The difficulties are still with us. To be sure, there are

established principles laid down in Article 23 (1) of the

Charter to guide the way to a possible further expansion of

non-permanent seats. But there are no such guidelines for

the more crucial question of an increase in permanent

members. The Secretary-General’s report must therefore be

realistically considered as only the beginning of a long

process of debate whose outcome cannot be confidently

predicted at this point.

There are two basic problems. The first is simply to

decide what is the current configuration of international

power that should be reflected in the distribution of

permanent seats. This is not as straightforward as it may

seem. When the Charter was being drafted, the end of the

Second World War, with easily discernible winners and

losers, was in sight and was being prepared for. The

intention was for the winners to have primary responsibility

for guiding the new international order. Yet even then, two

of the "Big Three" victors, the Soviet Union and the United

Kingdom, were sceptical of Roosevelt’s view of China’s

ability to play a major role in the post-war world.

Churchill’s insistence on including France among the elite

group was met with similar scepticism by Roosevelt and

Stalin.

It will be even more difficult to decide who belongs to

the new elite. The end of the cold war took everyone by

surprise and was far from clear-cut in its resolution.

Economic, political and military power no longer necessarily

cohere in one single locus. The United States is victor, but

its economic recovery is slow and its competitiveness

blunted. Russia is in serious economic and political

difficulties but, because it has nuclear weapons, it remains

a military great Power exercising a commanding influence

on its former dominions, where the threat of chaos in the

post-cold-war world is also greatest. Japan and Germany are

clearly world economic powerhouses, but both lack an

internal and regional consensus on the use of military forces

beyond their borders.

The second problem is even more fundamental and

vexing. The United Nations is an international Organization.

It is not and was never intended to be a supranational

organization. The United Nations was created by sovereign

States and can do nothing without their assent, in which

process the permanent members have a more than

proportionate say through their veto. I state this without

rancour as a fact well known to all. Any design for

enhancing the effectiveness of the Security Council therefore

cannot just be based on abstract wisdom concerning the

requisites of the international order. No plan that has any

prospect of succeeding can avoid reckoning with calculations

of the national advantage of the current permanent members.

But if the new Security Council is really to reflect the

current international distribution of power, the process

should logically entail the deposition of some from the elite

as well as the anointment of others. Even if some were to

be elevated without necessarily displacing others, the

expansion of the small group of the select would imply the

relative diminution of the status of the current permanent

members. It is not surprising, therefore, that only one

permanent member has so far come out unambiguously in

favour of an expansion in the number of permanent seats.

It does not take a cynic to wonder whether it was

emboldened to do so because the others have been so

conspicuously coy on this critical point. No country has

ever voluntarily relinquished privilege and power. We are

after all in the company of sovereign States, not saints.

There is no circumventing the veto. There is no

constitutional means of amending the Charter without the

assent of all the permanent members, some of whom may

believe they stand to lose by it. Yet change is imperative if

we are not to squander the opportunity afforded by the end

of the cold war - more so for small States that have few

better choices than an effective United Nations for their

security.

To make progress, there is no alternative but gradually

to shape a consensus through a patient process of debate and

discussion. To force the pace or attempt to impose a

majority agreement will not work. At this preliminary stage,

it would be most useful to try to identify and build

consensus on objective general criteria that all permanent

members, present or aspiring, must fulfil. This is a more

clinical and constructive approach than engaging in a horse

race or a beauty contest to pick specific countries. To

attempt to do so at this stage is premature and would only

be divisive. But the identification of objective criteria will

set a common standard and, if we can agree on them, a

consensus on specific countries will naturally emerge.

This will entail thinking through the role of the United

Nations into the next century. What challenges will the

18 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

United Nations face in the next decade? What will be the

role and priorities of a new Security Council under these

conditions? What capabilities will it need? These difficult

questions demand the most exhaustive possible examination.

The General Assembly should consider the formation of a

working group, representative of the whole membership, to

consider them and formulate agreed objective criteria for the

expansion of the Security Council, especially its permanent

membership.

To stimulate discussion, Singapore suggests the

following:

First, there should be a level playing field with regard

to all present and future members of a possible expanded

Security Council. Anachronistic references to "enemy

States" in Articles 53, 77 and 107 of the Charter should be

removed. It is time to set aside the baggage of the past.

Suggestions that there could be or should be a different set

of permanent members without the veto are also impractical.

No country that is capable of making a contribution as a

new permanent member will accept such second-class status

for long. It will only undermine the principle of great-Power

cooperation, in the absence of which the Security Council

cannot function. Nor is it practical or even desirable to do

away with the veto. The fact that the veto has been abused

does not detract from its intended function. It is a

recognition of the hard reality that great Powers will not

consent to put their power at the disposal of a sheer majority

for the implementation of decisions which they do not agree

with. It is a safety valve that prevents the United Nations

from undertaking commitments that it lacks the power to

fulfil. However, to minimize the misuse of the veto, if

permanent membership is expanded at least two vetoes

should be required to block a resolution.

Secondly, privilege must be paid for. An expanded role

for the Security Council will require more resources. A

United Nations perennially on the brink of financial

insolvency cannot effectively meet the challenges of the next

century. A permanent member should therefore carry a

larger portion of the financial burden of the United Nations.

Each permanent member should pay at least 9 per cent of

the operating expenses of the United Nations as well as

11 per cent of the costs of the peace-keeping operations of

the United Nations, which are the average percentages of the

permanent five’s current collective percentage of these

budgets.

Thirdly, permanent members must have muscle and the

will and the capability to wield it for the cause of the United

Nations. The main mission and primary responsibility of the

Security Council is to maintain international peace and

stability. Force will be needed in pursuit of order and the

Security Council cannot be effective without a sword that is

sharp and ready. All permanent members should be

prepared to give effect to Article 43 of the Charter and be

ready to place their military forces at the disposal of the

United Nations and shed blood to uphold international order

if necessary.

This list is by no means exhaustive. Other members

will have their own suggestions for appropriate criteria. I

urge all members to participate in discussions on the

expansion of the Security Council so that we may have the

benefit of the fullest possible range of views and emerge

with the widest possible consensus.

Finally, Mr. President, I should like to congratulate you

on your unanimous election. I am confident that you will

lead the Assembly at this session effectively. I should also

like to take this opportunity to welcome the six new

Members that have joined the Organization. I am certain

that they will contribute positively to the work of the United

Nations.