Remarks by Hugo Llorens
Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of the United States
Madrid, June 29, 2007
INCIPE
It is a great honor to be here and I want to thank INCIPE and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation for organizing this conference and including me in this distinguished panel. I am grateful for the opportunity to present some thoughts and perspectives on reforming the United Nations so that the premier multilateral body can confront successfully the many challenges of the 21st Century.
As a founding member, the host country, and the largest contributor to the United Nations, the US is committed to supporting this world body as an instrument for peace, security, freedom, human rights and development. Since its establishment more than 60 years ago, the UN has played a vital role in serving the needs of nations around the globe. We look to the UN for assistance with many of the toughest issues that one nation cannot handle on its own, from fighting terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, to bringing relief and stability to the people of warn torn regions, to dealing with transnational crises such as HIV/AIDS, earthquake and tsunami relief, refugee protection, and combating famine. The global community thus places many of its most urgent demands on an institution that is showing its age, and so the need for reform is clear, and the United States is fully committed to this reform effort.
Expansion of the Security Council is only one part of what we believe should be a broader effort to reform the United Nations. At the beginning of the GA’s 60th Session, our heads of state called for an ambitious effort to modernize the UN through significant management and governance reforms, expansion of the Security Council and the establishment of a Human Rights Council and a Peacebuilding Commission. Our collective reform effort to date has so far only yielded modest results. Our limited success to date should serve as a reminder that reform does not inherently engender improvement, unless it is done right and fully completed.
This maxim holds true for Security Council expansion. We believe it is necessary to modernize the Security Council, and we support a modest expansion. Membership in the UN has grown from 51 members in 1945 to 192 members today. The balance of powers has shifted since 1945. Non-state actors and transnational threats such as terrorism and failed states increasingly threaten international peace and security. We believe it is appropriate for the Council to change to meet these new realities.
Nevertheless, we should not forget the urgent and essential work that the Security Council already performs. In the past year alone, the Security Council has acted to mitigate violence in Sudan, to grapple with the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea, and to support Lebanon in the aftermath of conflict. In addition, the Security Council continues to manage the essential European issue of the future of Kosovo as well as peacekeeping missions in critical global hotspots, including Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Western Sahara. Any reform of the Security Council must fundamentally consider whether enlargement will allow the Council to better perform these essential tasks or will provide greater likelihood of deadlock.
Council expansion should be designed to increase the Council’s effectiveness to respond to these challenges. Any expansion must first ensure that the Council’s ability to respond with agility, credibility, and efficacy to threats to international peace and security is preserved.
One reason the Council is able to function efficiently is that its size permits useful and manageable discussion and debate. Expansion to a larger membership must not undermine the efficiency in reaching consensus on the Council.
Proposals to expand the Council presented in the previous two sessions of the General Assembly envisioned a large expansion that could endanger the Council’s efficiency. These proposals did not achieve the broad-based consensus necessary for eventual adoption as a UN Charter amendment. We must search for new and more measured ways of looking at the issues that are capable of achieving wide support. This is why we favor a more modest expansion of the Council.
With regard to permanent membership on the Council, we believe new permanent members must be supremely qualified to undertake the tremendous duties and responsibilities that they will assume. In our view, qualified nations should meet the criteria in the following areas: size of economy and population; military capacity; financial and/or peacekeeping contributions to the UN; commitment to democracy and human rights; strong records on non-proliferation; and equitable geographic balance.
We continue to support Japan, which by all accounts has proven its qualifications, for permanent membership on the Council. Japan would be a constructive and productive permanent member of the Council for a variety of reasons. It has made a very strong commitment to international organizations in general. They are the second largest contributor to the UN regular budget. Japan is also very active in contributing troops to peacekeeping missions, and they are a responsible and accountable state in the international community.
So while we support Japan for permanent membership, we also want to reiterate our strong belief that any decision about the future of the Security Council needs to be taken with care and caution.
At the same time, expanding the Security Council will not prove to be a magic cure for the problems which affect the UN and inhibit its success. As President Bush, Secretary Rice, and Assistant Secretary Kristen Silverburg have said, the United States can only support a Security Council enlargement that takes place within the broader framework of UN reform. In this spirit, we welcomed the comments of Secretary General Moon in January when he said that he was committed to making the UN more efficient, effective and mobile, with the highest level of ethical standards. We feel that every UN institution and operation should demonstrate five key principles: ethics, accountability, transparency, efficiency, and effectiveness.
Another issue which must be addressed is that of overlapping mandates. We would like to see the UN review the mandate of all programs which are more than five years old in order to properly allocate resources to those institutions which are the highest priorities and to do away with those institutions whose mandates are redundant, obsolete or ineffective. One example of this is the overlapping mandate of the UN International Research and Training Institute (INSTRAW) and the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). While INSTRAW has proven to be ineffective and of little value, UNIFEM has been very effective and needs more support. We welcome the UN’s commitment to addressing these overlapping mandates, but we hope that progress will move more quickly than it has thus far.
Before I conclude, I would also like to address one of the common criticisms of the U.S. push for reform, which is that the Unite States only seeks to reform the UN in order to reduce our annual contributions. Nothing could be less true. The United States is extremely proud, and justifiably so, of our role both as host and as the leading contributor to the UN., and we will continue to contribute generously to the UN. However, like any nation, we have a responsibility to our own citizens to ensure the effective, responsible stewardship of our contributions. We believe that the increased use of voluntary contributions will reward those institutions which are succeeding and send a powerful
message to those which are not. For example, the United States has agreed to increase its voluntary contributions to both the World Health Organization and the World Food Program because in our opinion these organizations have shown a strong commitment to the principles I mentioned earlier.
So as we continue this debate on expansion of the Security Council, let us remember the bold vision of the signers of the Charter and achieve an expansion that will truly help the Council “to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations” in discharging its primary responsibility of maintaining international peace and security.
Thank you.
