United Nations: India has underlined the
need for the UN General Assembly to play a greater role in the
decision making process of the world body, saying countries
should take concrete measures to reinforce the authority of
the Assembly.
"India has underlined that the General Assembly should
play a greater role in the selection of the Secretary-General
of the UN," Hardeep Singh Puri, India's envoy to the UN said
yesterday.
The General Assembly can be revitalised only when its
position as the chief deliberative, policy-making and
representative organ of the United Nations is respected both
in letter and in spirit, he said.
"The GA should take the lead in setting the global
agenda and restoring the centrality of the United Nations in
formulating multilateral approaches to resolving transnational
issues," he added.
Puri also said the Security Council is "overburdened"
and some of the issues that are "not directly connected to the
real and immediate threats to international peace and
security" could be discussed in the General Assembly.
"This has left the Council with less time to focus on
the real hot-spots that constitute the real threats to
international peace and security," he said.
On the subject of selecting the Secretary-General,
Puri said General Assembly needed to play a bigger role in the
process. It will have to be the General Assembly that claws
back its rightful place in the process of selecting the
Secretary-General," he said.
Under the current process, the Security Council
recommends a candidate for the General Assembly to appoint.
While all the countries can vote on the selection, the five
permanent members of the Security Council only can veto a
contender.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, March 16, 2011, 00:27