Washington's New Twist on Security Council Reform
Friday, September 13, 2024
In the run-up to this year’s UN General Assembly meetings, the United States has rolled out a new policy on the vexed and seemingly insoluble question of how to reform the Security Council. For almost two decades, UN member countries have been engaged in fitful negotiations on the subject, and U.S. policy has evolved along the way.
In remarks this week, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield marked a new phase in that process. In his 2022 speech to the General Assembly, President Biden announced support for “countries in Africa [and] Latin America and the Caribbean.” Building on that, Thomas-Greenfield has now added important detail:
[I]n addition to non-permanent membership for African countries, the United States supports creating two permanent seats for Africa on the Council. It’s what our African partners seek, and we believe, this is what it’s what is just.
From Kenya’s contributions to the Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti, to Gabon’s support to protect our planet, we have seen how African leadership not only benefits the lives of Africans, but people across the globe.
So now, it’s time for African leadership to have a permanent place on the Security Council too.
This pledge, Thomas-Greenfield made clear, adds to rather than displaces commitments Washington has already made, specifically to support permanent seats for Germany, Japan, and India. (It’s a bit less clear whether the U.S. sees itself as fully committed to a Latin America permanent seat).
As always on this issue, the question is whether the United States is adopting Council reform positions merely in response to shifting geopolitical currents or whether it has, as a policy matter, actually decided to help unstick the process.
There’s ample grounds for a cynical reading. Since the war in Gaza erupted, the US has been bleeding support in the global south, a development that China and Russia have relished. Public backing of Africa’s Council aspirations could help mitigate the damage. It’s notable that the US announcement came on the heels of China’s annual conference with African states. The joint declaration that emerged from that session supports Council reform but stopped well short of expressing Beijing’s support for new African permanent seats:
We call for necessary reform and strengthening of the U.N. including its Security Council, redressing the historical injustices done to Africa, and increasing the representation of developing countries, African countries in particular, in the U.N. and its Security Council. China supports making special arrangements on the U.N. Security Council reform to meet Africa’s aspiration as a priority.
By now backing two permanent African seats, the Biden administration is moving a notable step beyond China. And that wasn’t the only way that the Biden administration upped the ante for Chinese diplomats. Thomas-Greenfield stated explicitly that the U.S. backs “text-based negotiations” on reforming the Council. That may seem like an inconsequential detail, but whether countries should negotiate based on a text or at the conceptual level has emerged as a fault line in Council reform talks. In those sessions, Beijing has often argued against text-based talks, which it has characterized as “hasty.” By publicly disagreeing, the Biden administration is giving African states a procedural as well as a substantive boost.
(It’s important to note that Thomas-Greenfield did not go quite as far as the African group at the United Nations would like. The consensus African view is that Africa should not only have several permanent seats but that those seats should carry the veto power. In her remarks, Thomas-Greenfield delicately avoided the veto question.)
Caveats and mixed motives aside, will the US move change anything? It’s very unlikely. The main obstacle to Council reform is not the preferences of the permanent members but disunity in the General Assembly, and there’s no reason to think this new tweak to American policy will change that. The divide between the G4 countries (Brazil, Germany, Japan, and South Africa) and the Uniting for Consensus group appears as unbridgeable as ever.
What might change the equation would be an energetic U.S. campaign to help forge consensus amongst the broader UN membership. It’s unlikely the United States will make that kind of time-consuming diplomatic effort, particularly when it will already have reaped the public-relations benefits of its new posture.
Other Multilateral Notes:
The International Monetary Fund is sending its first mission to Moscow since the Ukraine invasion—and some European countries are not pleased.
A group of experts convened by the UN Human Rights Council is warning about the situation in Nicaragua.
The United States and Ecuador want the Kenya-led mission in Haiti to become a UN peacekeeping operation.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan visited Ukraine. And in a new interview, the prosecutor spoke about the state of both the Ukraine and Gaza investigations.
Apple Bitten: Europe’s top court handed the European Commission a big win over Apple and Google.
Turkey is still tip-toeing toward BRICS membership; it would be the first NATO member to join the grouping.
Kenya has joined the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). The development bank, which began operating in 2016, now has 110 member states.
Go Fish: The World Trade Organization is reportedly having a hard time agreeing to end fishing subsidies.
The Elders, a collection of former heads of state and other international eminences, called for a UN commission to examine the Venezuela election.
NATO’s deputy secretary general, the Romanian politician Mircea Geoană, is stepping down.