Every nation should negotiate on UNSC reform text: India

United Nations: With the "path-breaking" decision by the UN General Assembly to advance efforts for UN Security Council reforms, India's top diplomat here today said that countries should now negotiate on the text on the table and give their national positions on the issue.

"We have got something after 23 years which is a document on the table. From now it is going to be much more in terms of what they are used to doing at the UN which is to negotiate with a text in front of us," India's Permanent Representative to the UN Asoke Mukerji said.

"Now the decision today puts the paper on the table and it is now for every country to negotiate on that paper giving their national positions," he told PTI here.

The 193-member General Assembly adopted by consensus yesterday, on the last day of the 69th session, a text that sets the stage for negotiations on the long-pending issue of UNSC reform during the 70th session that commences today.
Mukerji insisted that the decision to carry forward the intergovernmental negotiations on Council reform and the negotiating text is not a roll-over or technical decision.

"It is a substantive decision taken unanimously by the General Assembly fully within the meaning of any decision on UNSC issues. In this case we had a complete census. That is the important part that the entire membership has agreed and it is as much a reflection of commitment of member states as of the President of the General Assembly (Sam Kutesa) who achieved this outcome for us," Mukerji said.

He added that in cases of negotiations on Security Council reforms, there are procedures which the countries have already agreed to on how to take decisions on issues about which there are convergent or divergent views.

He also underscored that the UNGA decision has a "direct impact" on the 2030 Sustainable Development agenda that will be adopted by world leaders later this month.

"You cannot delink the world in which we live, which is being marked by so many crises, from the implementation of the agenda," he said.

India has been a leading voice in the UN to commencing the process of Security Council reform on the basis of a negotiating text.

In a statement after the adoption, Mukerji had said "this is the first time in the history of the Inter-Governmental Negotiation process that a decision on UNSC reform has been adopted through an official formal L Document of the UNGA.

"This is a most positive and unique development, as so far, over the last 7 years we have only been making statements in the air, or at each other, with easily deniable or disputable summaries, or at times compilation text(s), to register our endeavours."