Mr. President,
Thank you for convening this annual debate.
Since the 2005 World Summit, the call for an early reform of the Security Council has been made many times, just like there have been many appeals to make the Council more representative, efficient and transparent, in order to reflect political realities of the 21st century. Security Council reform is long overdue, and we should all aim for strengthening the legitimacy of this important body.
This is the tenth year of the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) on Security Council Reform. We note some progress achieved during the last three sessions of the IGN, each resulting with an outcome document that clarifies the positions of UN members regarding various aspects of UN Security Council reform. First, the 2015 Framework Document reflects the positions of more than half of the UN membership. A year later, the IGN tried to formulate elements of convergence covering some aspects of the reform. Last IGN session the Co-Chairs prepared “Elements of Commonality and Issues for Further Consideration”. We appreciate the efforts of all former Chairs of the IGN to help to inform IGN work, as well as support of the former and the current Presidents of the General Assembly to advancement of the reform.
Mr. President, Latvia welcomes your decision to appoint Her Excellency Lana Zaki Nusseibeh, Permanent Representative of the United Arab Emirates, and His Excellency Kaha Imnadze, Permanent Representative of Georgia, as Co-Chairs of the Intergovernmental Negotiations at this GA session. We wish them success in this important task and we are committed to work with them and with other Member States in order to facilitate real reform.
The Intergovernmental Negotiations are yet to produce concrete outcome of real negotiation process. It is our view that, rather than entering yet another cycle of discussions and restating well-known positions, the time is right to take a step further and start text-based negotiations on the reform. While we believe that a wide majority of UN members share this view, we trust our distinguished Co-Chairs to confirm such an assessment in a way that they find appropriate.
We do not expect the negotiations to be fast and easy. The result must be achieved through careful consensus building and must receive the widest political acceptance. Latvia is ready to take part in negotiations to achieve long awaited reform of the Security Council, which should be the true goal of our deliberations.
Mr. President,
Moving on to specific aspects of the reform, in our view, all regions must be adequately represented on the Council to ensure its legitimacy. The reform should ensure equitable geographic distribution of both permanent and non-permanent seats in the Council, including allocation of at least one additional non-permanent seat to the Eastern European Group. We also believe that during the nomination and election of non-permanent members of the Council due consideration should be given to adequate representation of small and medium size member states.
The question of the veto, no doubt, is a very important part of the reform. Discussions on the use of this special power in certain circumstances should be continued. Yet some things should be beyond debate. Blocking the work of the Council in matters related to mass atrocities is unacceptable. Council’s members should refrain from using their veto in situations of atrocity crimes. Latvia has signed the Code of Conduct regarding Security Council action against genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes; we are satisfied to see that more than half of the UN membership has done so already.
We also support improvement of the Security Council working methods to increase transparency, inclusiveness and representativeness of its work. That would enhance Council’s legitimacy and facilitate implementation of its decisions.
To conclude, Latvia believes that the United Nations’ capacity to address the current global challenges largely depends on the political will to move forward the Security Council reform. This is long overdue and we should all aim for strengthening the legitimacy of this important body. It is time to move forward and to achieve a concrete outcome in this process. We hope the Intergovernmental Negotiations at this session will produce progress in that direction.
Thank you.