India calls for attempts to introduce new parameters such as religion, with faith as the basis for representation

The United Nations in India has called for the introduction of new parameters, such as religion and belief, as the basis for representation in the reformed UN Security Council, and asserted that this is completely contrary to the accepted basis of regional representatives.

India’s permanent representative of UN Ambassador P Harish told the Intergovernmental Negotiation (IGN) meeting on “future council size and cluster discussions on regional representatives” that those who oppose text-based negotiations did not seek progress on UNSC reform.

Harish, speaking with his national capacity, said: “Trying to introduce new parameters such as religion and belief to serve as the basis for representatives of the Reform Commission, to fully respond to regional representatives, has become a recognized basis for representatives of the United Nations.”
He added that the argument that the expanded and reformed Security Council would not be effective was to try to prevent real reform.

“The reform of the Council through appropriate working methods and accountability mechanisms will work effectively and meaningfully on pressing global issues,” he said.

India asserted that a merger model that does not cover expansion in the permanent and non-permanent categories would not achieve the purpose of reform, further consolidating the status quo. Before making his statement in his national capacity, Harish issued a statement on behalf of the G4 countries of Brazil, Germany, Japan and India, in which the subgroup emphasized that regional representation is a recognized practice that has been tested by UN time. “Proposals to propose new parameters, such as religious beliefs going against established United Nations practices and add considerable complexity to already difficult discussions,” G4 said.

The team noted that existing UN architecture comes from another era that no longer exists, and that current geopolitical reality deserves a review of such architecture.

“Those who do not recognize real reforms that reflect contemporary reality fall into the wrong aspects of history, which is harmful to all of us,” Harish said in a statement on behalf of the G4 country.

Harish outlines the broad outline of the UNSC reform model, which was presented and elaborated by a panel during the 2024 IGN meeting, and Harish said that membership of the Security Council needs to increase from the current 15 or 25 or 26 to 25 or 26, consisting of 11 reform committee members, consisting of 11 permanent members and 14 or 15 non-serving members.

Currently, the powerful UN members include five permanent members – China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States.

The remaining 10 members were elected as non-permanent members on the horse shoe table for two years.

India last sat on the council as a non-permanent member since 2021-22.

The G4 countries reiterate that among a wide range of members, any reforms that do not accompany the expansion of permanent and non-permanent categories will be incomplete.

“Members only acknowledge that the expansion of only non-permanent categories ignores the existing imbalances in the permanent category. This approach cannot address the issue of non-representative and underrepresentative in the category,” the subgroup said, adding that it did not address the legitimate aspirations of the African developing world, as well as the legitimate aspirations of multiple individuals, and did not address the legitimate aspirations of these groups.

“Only non-permanent members only change the power dynamics in the Council and therefore it is likely to further change the power of permanent members,” G4 said.

Furthermore, the four groups stress that like other UN processes, the path to real reform is text-based negotiations involving well-defined timelines and milestones.

Given that the future contract last year recognized the urgency of this reform process, G4 encouraged member states and regional groups to submit further reform models to facilitate text-based negotiations.

“We invite the Chair to start text-based negotiations now, ideally, by the end of the current IGN,” they said.

G4 further stressed that decisions on member states would become permanent members of the Reform Commission, a decision taken by the General Assembly in a democratic manner.

The Consensus (UFC) Group consists of Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Malta, Mexico, Pakistan, Republic of Korea, San Marino, Spain, Turks, Italy and Italy, reaffirms its exclusive position among residents of African descent.

The UFC proposed a Security Council of 27 members, with no increase in the number of permanent members, currently at 5.

Bahrain issued a statement on behalf of the Arab Group, reaffirming the need for Arab representatives and having privileges in the category of permanent seats in the expanded Council.

“We also reiterate that only representation requires a proportion of Arab representation in the category of non-permanent seats within the Security Council,” the Arab Group said. He added that its requirements are based on objective criteria, namely the population size of the Arab countries, as well as the number of Arab countries of the United Nations and the number of Arab members of the United Nations, as well as many facts between the Arab Commission and the Council.

“This requires fair and proportional Arab representatives within the expanded Security Council,” the Arab Group said.

France reiterated its support for India and sat on the council as a permanent member. Representative UN Jay Dharmadhikari, Deputy Representative of France, said: “We favor the granting of two permanent seats to Africa, India, Germany and Japan for permanent seats to be created for their geographical groups.”

“France believes that future permanent members require all privileges (including vetos) related to this identity,” Dharmadhikari said.