Japan's Bid for Security Council Reform & its Role in the United Nations

June 23, 2009

Speaker:
His Excellency Yukio Takasu, Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary, Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations

Presider:
Michael Green, Senior Adviser & Japan Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Associate Professor, Georgetown University

His Excellency Yukio Takasu, Japan's Ambassador to the UN, spoke at Japan Society about the principles and process of Security Council reform.

In January of this year, Japan began serving a two-year term as a nonpermanent member of the Security Council, Ambassador Takasu noted. This is Japan's tenth such term; aside from the five permanent members, the U.S., China, Russia, the UK and France, Japan has served more years on the Security Council than any other country.

In campaigning for a permanent Security Council seat, Japan aims to make the Council "representative, effective and legitimate," he said. Simply put, "the current structure does not reflect the reality of the world we live in."

"Obviously what North Korea has been doing lately has been a direct threat to the security of Japan," but the threat goes beyond Japan and beyond Northeast Asia, he reflected. Pyongyang's ballistic missile test in early April and its nuclear test on May 25 endanger "the U.S. and global security and the nonproliferation regime itself."

In mid-April, the Security Council issued a presidential statement condemning the missile launch, and a UN sanctions committee subsequently froze the assets of three North Korean companies for aiding the launch. On June 12, the Security Council unanimously issued resolution 1874, "an unusually strong resolution" that included a widened arms embargo, cargo inspection provisions and "very strong financial measures."

Blocking the flow of money "is the most effective way" to bring the North Korean programs to a halt, Ambassador Takasu remarked. Moreover, it sends a message "to Iran and other aspirants waiting in line" that "the Security Council will have zero tolerance" for those who breach the international community's commitment to nuclear nonproliferation.

"This kind of resolution could have been difficult to realize in the Security Council by the U.S. alone," the ambassador declared.

The current struggles to combat piracy off the coast of Somalia likewise illustrate the importance of Japan's UN role, Ambassador Takasu said. In the first six months of this year, there have been 140 cases of piracy in the region, almost as many as in all of 2008. Japan has sent two destroyer ships and two planes, and the Diet just a few days ago passed a new law that will allow Japan's military to expand its antipiracy efforts.

The more fundamental problem, however, is the lack of stability within Somalia; "Japan and the U.S. are working very hard together in the Security Council" on measures to support the Somalian government.

Peacekeeping is not just a matter of troop levels, he added. Japan "has contributed a great deal on the concept of so-called comprehensive security," which holds that true security is attained not simply through military might but through social and economic stability, both at the national level and at the level of individual communities.

At its founding, the UN had 51 members, including only nine independent countries in Asia, Ambassador Takasu continued. The Security Council consisted of the same five countries that serve as permanent members today, plus six nonpermanent members.

Forty-five years ago, the number of nonpermanent members was raised to 10, but there've been no expansions of the Council since then. Meanwhile, the overall membership of the UN has nearly quadrupled, to 192. There are today 54 member countries from Asia, but only two nonpermanent Security Council seats for Asian countries.

There's general agreement that the Security Council should be enlarged, and indeed a "momentum for reform," but "no convergence of views yet" on the modality of the reform package, according to Ambassador Takasu.

Three basic proposals are being debated. Japan, supported by Brazil, Germany, India and a number of other countries, advocates enlarging the Council from 15 to 25, with 11 permanent members. Two of the new permanent seats would go to Asia, two to Africa, one to Western Europe and one to Latin America; and there would be 14 nonpermanent members, four more than the current structure.

African countries, meanwhile, urge expansion to 26, representing 11 permanent and 15 nonpermanent members, with the two new African permanent members having veto powers.

Finally, a group known as United for Consensus, numbering about a dozen countries including Italy and Pakistan, wants the UN to create a new category of nonpermanent members, called intermediate members, who would serve three- or five-year terms.

France and the UK have supported the 25-member plan advocated by Japan, but have recently "expressed readiness to consider the intermediate solution." The U.S. and Russia have both termed a 25- or 26-member plan too big, though the Obama administration is currently in the middle of conducting a policy review and hasn't announced a detailed position. China backs "reform for better representation of Africa in particular," but is waiting to see what other countries do.

Reforming the Security Council is a two-stage process, the ambassador said. First, a minimum of 128 members of the General Assembly must cast an affirmative vote to adopt a reform plan. Those abstaining or absent are not counted, but there's no requirement that all permanent members vote to approve the plan at this stage. Second, once the plan is approved by the General Assembly, it must be ratified by the national legislatures of two-thirds of member countries, including all of the permanent-member countries.

Last year, the UN transferred the debate on Security Council reform from an open-ended working group to the General Assembly itself. This step was very important, according to the ambassador, because the working group's tradition required consensus at every step, even for decisions on procedure. "It was not really a negotiation, it was just discussion--turning round and round every year."

In the General Assembly, however, the matter can be brought to a vote at an appropriate stage, he said. "Today we have finished the second stage, and then the third stage of negotiation is starting in the latter part of July this summer."

The likely end result, he predicted, "would be the relatively compact expansion with no veto extension," but such a result depends much on flexibility on the part of African nations, the U.S., China and Japan as well.

"Japan is a democratic country, like the U.S.," and the activities of its diplomats "must be a reflection of what the people want to achieve. Without strong support of people in Japan, what we're doing in the UN in New York will have very little impact," Ambassador Takasu concluded. "Whichever course Japan will take, our political leaders will take, we here in New York will do our best to achieve the most desirable result. And I have no doubt that Japan will receive full understanding, cooperation and support from our U.S. colleagues."

***

Presider Michael Green began the Q&A:

My guess is that the Obama administration won't be enthusiastic at all about a reform proposal that expands the Council from 15 to 24 or 25, given that support for the UN in the U.S. is not as high as it should be. What are your thoughts on U.S. attitudes?

"You may be right," Ambassador Takasu said. He noted however that a number of countries like Mexico that "never wanted to become involved in the Security Council" have changed their minds, and even small countries such as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg are candidates now. "If you resist" reform, "I think people don't any more listen to you. That's why the question or crisis of legitimacy is approaching. I am not saying that it's to the breaking point," but "I think it's approaching this stage."

Some years ago, there were members of the Diet quite vocally saying that if Japan did not gain a permanent Security Council seat, its contributions to the UN would be in jeopardy. What are the views of domestic politicians on this today?

North Korea's nuclear provocations have led to changes on this subject, the ambassador replied. Political leaders and the public generally "are, I think, now much more aware that Japan should be represented."

The audience joined in the Q&A:

What should be the criteria for selecting a new permanent member of the Security Council, and how do you ensure that the new member will be able to meet those criteria indefinitely?

Discussions on criteria often serve merely to delay the process, "because they know that once you argue for criteria--let's agree on criteria for new permanent members--there is no end of this," Ambassador Takasu responded.

However, he said, he does expect the forthcoming negotiations in the General Assembly to address this issue along a number of dimensions: whether a financial contribution is sufficient, whether the new member must be taking part in peacekeeping operations, whether the criteria include not only troops but also assets, whether the contribution can be in the form of shipping and transportation. "So that it's a very good question, but it's not very well defined at this moment."

"The contribution right now seems to be in the wrong direction," Dr. Green remarked wryly, for according to a study by a colleague at Georgetown, "small countries that become members of the Security Council have a distinct increase in the amount of ODA," or overseas development assistance, that they get from permanent members, as well as "the amount of assistance they receive from the World Bank or the IMF or other international organizations."

Some are calling for a new decision-making body, the Alliance for Democracies, which would be explicitly outside the UN system. They argue that in times of true crisis the Security Council is unwieldy with five members, let alone with 26. I would be keen to hear your thoughts on the feasibility of such a body and on the extent to which it might coexist with a reformed Security Council.

If the Security Council is paralyzed by a potential veto, as it was with Rwanda and Kosovo, countries have no choice but to join in a coalition of the willing of this sort, the ambassador replied. However, no such grouping has the legitimacy of the Security Council or could function as a substitute for the Security Council.

Dr. Green asked a final question:

Where is Japan now on the idea that the international community has a right and obligation to intervene, even using force, when countries are not taking care of their own people?

The idea of the Responsibility to Protect, or RtP, was developed in the 1990s in response to the Rwanda and Kosovo crises, Ambassador Takasu explained. At the time, he was serving in the UN Secretariat under then Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

What RtP does is to address not the power of the potential intervener, but the other side of the coin, namely the meaning and scope of national sovereignty, the ambassador said.

Taken to extremes, the concept of absolute sovereignty means that everything that takes place within a country's borders is an internal matter. If domestic political leaders permit massacres or other atrocities, that's a privilege of sovereignty that other nations must accept.

What the notion of Responsibility to Protect does is to change the concept of sovereignty to one of "responsible sovereignty." RtP thus holds "that political leaders are accountable for what they're doing and what they're not doing."

Initially, RtP permitted the use of force even if not authorized by the Security Council, and applied to all humanitarian catastrophes, he noted. In 2005, however, the General Assembly limited RtP, in the absence of Security Council approval, to the use of peaceful means only, and said it applied only to four types of crimes: genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

It's "an evolving concept, and I think it's very interesting in terms of international law, international politics," Ambassador Takasu concluded. "But I think we have to go very slowly and carefully."

--Katherine Hyde