AKASH SAMA­ROO

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

For­mer Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly pres­i­dent and Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­al Den­nis Fran­cis is call­ing for ur­gent re­form of the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, warn­ing that its struc­tur­al in­ad­e­qua­cies have fu­elled in­ac­tion in the face of hu­man­i­tar­i­an crises world­wide.

Fran­cis, who presided over the 78th ses­sion of the UN­GA, told Guardian Me­dia, “I do not be­lieve that the ex­ist­ing struc­tures meet the needs and ad­e­quate­ly ad­dress the needs, the con­cerns, and the re­al­i­ties that can en­hance in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty.”

The Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil is one of the six main or­gans of the Unit­ed Na­tions, and it holds the pri­ma­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for main­tain­ing in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty across the globe.

The Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil con­sists of 15 mem­ber states, di­vid­ed in­to two cat­e­gories: per­ma­nent and non-per­ma­nent mem­bers.

There are five per­ma­nent mem­bers, col­lec­tive­ly re­ferred to as the P5, which in­clude Chi­na, France, Rus­sia, the Unit­ed King­dom, and the Unit­ed States. Each of the P5 mem­bers holds the pow­er to ve­to any sub­stan­tive res­o­lu­tion. The oth­er ten non-per­ma­nent mem­bers are elect­ed by the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly for two-year terms.

T&T is ex­pect­ed to be a non-per­ma­nent mem­ber for the 2027-2028 pe­ri­od.

Last Fri­day, dur­ing her ad­dress to the UN­GA, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that T&T sought to be­come a Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil mem­ber, which was met with no ob­jec­tion.

How­ev­er, Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley, in her ad­dress to the UN­GA, called for small is­land de­vel­op­ing states (SIDS) and African na­tions to be giv­en per­ma­nent seats on the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

Mot­t­ley said these coun­tries are of­ten treat­ed like chil­dren in the Unit­ed Na­tions and used on­ly for their votes and not their voic­es.

While Fran­cis did not want to com­ment specif­i­cal­ly on what Mot­t­ley said, he does not be­lieve the cur­rent struc­ture is “cred­i­ble”, giv­en that it was found­ed in 1945 when the UN was formed, which is a far cry from the world to­day.

“What is go­ing on in the Mid­dle East, in Gaza, and what is go­ing on in Ukraine, and what is go­ing on in Su­dan and oth­er places, at­tests to that. The Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil has been un­able and seem­ing­ly un­will­ing to take the ac­tion nec­es­sary to bring about hu­man­i­tar­i­an re­lief and to re­lieve the suf­fer­ing, pain, dis­lo­ca­tion, and as­sault on hu­man dig­ni­ty that is tak­ing place in those the­atres of ac­tion. And there­fore some­thing has to be done.”

Fran­cis added, “The cur­rent struc­tures are not de­liv­er­ing the out­comes that were an­tic­i­pat­ed and con­ceived in the Char­ter of the Unit­ed Na­tions, with a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as­signed specif­i­cal­ly to the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil to ad­dress those con­cerns.”

The for­mer UN­GA pres­i­dent said Cari­com, as a re­gion, had put for­ward a pro­pos­al that, what­ev­er con­fig­u­ra­tion takes place, small is­land de­vel­op­ing states should be fa­cil­i­tat­ed by hav­ing what they re­gard as a ro­tat­ing seat on the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

“In oth­er words, the seat would ro­tate among small is­land de­vel­op­ing states, of which there are sev­er­al in the Pa­cif­ic, there are sev­er­al in the In­di­an Ocean, like Fi­ji, and oth­ers, and then there's the Caribbean. So that has been a Cari­com pro­pos­al of long stand­ing, in ex­cess of 10 years, maybe more like 15 years.”