UNGA president calls for Security Council reform to address ‘historical injustice,’ says Spokesperson

United Nations, Nov 21 United Nations General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock wants the Security Council reformed to correct the “historical injustice”, according to her Spokesperson La Neice Collins.

“She does believe (what) should happen is that there should be a discussion and a debate on reforming the Security Council”, Collins said on Thursday.

“She has expressed repeatedly, for example, not having any state from Africa be part of the permanent member[ship] ... is an historical injustice, and that it (Council) is not representative of the world in which we currently live”, Collins said.

As the president of the Assembly, Braerbock “has not expressed any backing for any particular plan, but she has made clear that this organisation was founded 80 years ago in a very different time, and that it there does need to be reformed to bring it into line with 21st Century realities”, she said.

Braerbock is a former foreign minister of Germany, and while representing the country, she advocated for expanding the number of permanent members on the Council and permanent seats for India and her country on a reformed Council.

Germany is a member of the G4, a group that includes India, Brazil, and Japan, which lobbies for Council reform.

Last year, she participated in a meeting of G4 foreign ministers along with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and signed on to a statement that “reiterated their support for each other’s candidatures as aspiring new permanent members in a reformed Security Council”.

The statement also said the ministers “voiced strong concern over the persistent absence of substantial progress in the IGN (Inter-Governmental Negotiations process for Council reform) and underlined the urgent need to begin text-based negotiations”.

As Assembly president, Braerbock recently appointed Permanent Representatives Tareq M. A. M. AlBanai of Kuwait and Lise Gregoire-van Haaren of the Netherlands as the co-chairs of the IGN to recharge the negotiations.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor