Germany's Merkel says U.N. Security Council must be reformed

[kscarbel2]

Reuters / September 26, 2015

It is high time the United Nations Security Council is reformed to reflect the real distribution of power across the world in the 21st century, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday.

"We need a new method of work to solve problems," Merkel said. "That makes reform of the Security Council necessary, reform which reflects the real power in the world better than the situation today."

The appeal was in a summary of Merkel's opening remarks at a meeting with her counterparts from Brazil, India and Japan provided to reporters by the German delegation.

"We have to proceed very wisely," she added, according to the summary. "We have to find allies to reach our goal of reform."

Merkel is in New York for a summit meeting of world leaders on global development at the U.N. General Assembly.

The Security Council, the most powerful U.N. body, has 15 members, five of them permanent. It has the ability to issue legally binding resolutions imposing sanctions or authorizing military action to enforce its decisions.

The 10 temporary members are elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly.

Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, key allies from World War Two, are permanent veto-wielding council members.

Germany, Japan, India and Brazil say the world is very different from what it was in 1945, and the Security Council should reflect that.

Germany and Japan, which are global financial powers and top contributors to the United Nations, argue that they deserve permanent council seats.

"The current atmosphere is that not only we four but many others don't agree with the structure and the working method of the Security Council," Merkel told the other leaders. "We want to take others with us to reach a modern working structure of the Security Council which suits the 21st century."

The goal of expanding the council to include additional permanent and temporary members has long been an elusive one. Many U.N. member states routinely call for Security Council reform and have been working for decades, so far unsuccessfully, to find an acceptable formula for expanding the council.

The five permanent council members can block any such moves. Britain and France say they support council reform. The United States has also cautiously backed it. U.N. diplomats say China, and to a lesser extent Russia, are the principal opponents of the idea.

[kscarbel2]

The veto power of the 5 permanent council members must be cancelled, as it is the main cause for the UN's ineffectiveness.

Owing to the veto power in the security council, the UN has since 1945 been little more than an expensive joke.

Ref.

The United Nations Security Council "power of veto" refers to the veto power wielded solely by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States), enabling them to prevent the adoption of any "substantive" resolution, as well as decide which issues fall under "substantive" title. This de-facto control over the UN Security Council by the five governments is seen by critics, since its creation in 1945, as the most undemocratic character of the UN^.

[RowdyRebel]

I'd be OK with a little change. 9 countries contribute 75% of the UN's operating budget. Give those 9 countries a permanent seat since they are the ones paying the bills, and allow the remaining 6 seats to be filled by vote of the general assembly. I'd even grant those 9 veto powers, since they are the ones writing the checks to make everything that happens there possible. http://www.humanrightsvoices.org/EYEontheUN/un_101/facts/?p=230

[hatcity]

look at the make up of some of the security forces that go out. 48% US, 45% Britain, a tirechanger from Chile, ...
BUT!!! the commanding officer is from Uzebekistan.