Modi pitches for permanent seat: At G4 Summit, PM says UNSC must include world's largest democracies

A day after he pitched strongly for UN Security Council reforms, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday hosted a summit of G-4 countries - India, Brazil, Germany and Japan - that have taken the lead in pressing for the overhaul. This is the first such summit after 2004 and comes after the UN General Assembly has resolved on a text-based negotiation on the Security Council’s reform. Saturday is a big day for India as it tries to gain permanent membership to the exclusive club of the United Nations Security Council. The summit, in progress as we write this, is expected to formulate a collaborative strategy to negotiate UNSC reforms.

PM Modi asserted that global challenges like climate change and sustainable development are the collective responsibility of all nations. He said it was also important to talk about climate justice. “We finally see some moment, the 69th session of General Assembly has taken a significant step forward to commence text based negotiations. This is just the first step. We should aim to take this process to its logical conclusion during the 70th session,” Modi said while addressing the G4 countries on Saturday. “I am delighted that we are meeting again as Heads of Government after ten years. We live in a fundamentally different world from the time the UN was born.” Modi pressed for UNSC reform within a “fixed timeframe” in the current session of the UNGA, saying the world body reflects the mindset of a century “we left behind” and is not in tune with new concerns like terrorism and climate change. Modi also added that the UNSC “must include the world’s largest democracies, major locomotives of the global economy, and voices from all the major continents” to carry “greater credibility and legitimacy”. [caption id=“attachment_2446504” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Image courtesy: @ANI_news[/caption] It will make it more representative and effective in addressing the challenges of the 21st century, he said at the Summit meeting with Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, the first since 2004. Modi noted that “some movement” had been witnessed recently in the decades-old endeavour when the UNGA took the “significant step” to commence text-based negotiations on the reforms but said it has to be taken to its logical conclusion during the current 70th session of the global body. “Our institutions, approaches, and often mindsets, reflect the wisdom of the century we have left behind, not the century we live in. This is especially true of the United Nations Security Council,” the Prime Minister said. “The reform of the Security Council within a fixed time frame has become an urgent and important task,” he said, while talking about the modern age challenges like trends in demography, urbanization and migrations. “Climate change and terrorism are new concerns. Cyber and Space are entirely new frontiers of opportunities and challenges, he said. G-4 is a grouping which has been jointly pushing for reform of the UN Security Council to make it broad-based by including them as permanent members. According to DD News, Modi told the UN summit on Friday, “We must reform the United Nations including its Security Council so that it carries greater credibility and legitimacy and will be more representative and effective in achieving our goals.” PM Modi further said Security Council must include the world’s largest democracies. PM Modi said our lives are getting globalised. The summit came together as an event only after the 14th September consensus adoption by the General Assembly of a negotiating document and the decision to commence text-based negotiations on UNSC reforms in the current session. The Prime Minister, while making initial remarks, pointed out that the subject of reforms in the UNSC has been the focus of global attention for decades but “unfortunately, without progress” so far. “We live in a fundamentally different world from the time the UN was born. The number of Member States has grown four-fold. Threats to peace and security have become more complex, unpredictable and ,” Modi said. “We live in a digital age. The global economy is changed, with new engines of growth, more widely dispersed economic power and widening wealth gap,” he said, adding “In many ways, our lives are becoming globalized, but fault-lines around our identities are growing.” He referred to the recent decision of the UNGA to commence text-based negotiations on UN reforms and said, “after decades, we finally see some movement. The 69th Session of the General Assembly has taken a significant step forward”. At the same time, he said, “this is just the first step. We should aim to take this process to its logical conclusion during the 70th session.” Talking about G-4, he said, “Our Group of four countries came together in 2004, bound by our shared commitment to global peace and prosperity, our faith in multilateralism and our willingness to assume our global responsibilities that the world expects from us.” In her remarks, Merkel said the G-4 was not any “exclusive group” and it believes in taking others also along in its pursuit of ensuring reform of the UNSC. Abe, while terming the meeting as a “golden opportunity”, said there was a “mounting momentum for change” and “voices of great nations should be heard”. Rousseff also underlined the need for urgent reform of the world body. With PTI inputs