Special Section: Report of the High-Level Panel on Threats,

Challenges and Change

An Unchanged Security Council:

The Sky Aint Falling

THOMAS G. WEISS*
Department of Political Science, The Graduate Center, The City
University of New York, USA

B
IRTHDAYS ARE OFTEN moments
to take stock and then change.
However, the results of the UNs
50th anniversary in 1995 and the Millen-
nium Summit in 2000 lead to profound
skepticism about any major overhaul in
September 2005 for the world organiza-
tions 60th anniversary. The agenda will
advance modestly, but there is no evidence
of Secretary-General Kofi Annans fork in
the road (Annan, 2003), the justification
for the High-Level Panel (HLP) on Threats,
Challenges and Change.
Indeed, an interesting reversal of roles is
taking place around the three documents
before member-states from the HLP
(United Nations, 2004), the Millennium
Project (2005), and the Secretary-General
(Annan, 2005a). Usually it is outside schol-
ars who rant and rave about the untenable
status quo. Once these have made the case
for dramatic reforms, if not revolution,
practical folks in foreign ministries or
international secretariats habitually point
to geopolitics, throw cold water, and call
instead for incremental changes.
This time, we are witnessing the oppo-
site. The refrain from many diplomats,
secretariat officials, and members of
august commissions resembles that of
Chicken Little, and their hyperbolic rheto-
ric amounts to its now or never.
Meanwhile, academics are scratching their
heads and injecting some historical per-
spective into the Secretary-Generals plea
that the UN must undergo the most
sweeping overhaul in its 60-year history
(Annan, 2005b: 66). It seems as though
many observers share the worst negative
judgments of current multilateralism put
forward by Washingtons neocons.
The UNs business is excessively tied to
this mornings headlines. It is essential, for
instance, in evaluating the debate about
humanitarian intervention and multilater-
alism to recall even the recent past. Shortly
after the 1991 Gulf War and allied efforts
in Kurdistan, the word renaissance was
ubiquitous. Apparently, there was noth-
ing the world organization could not do.
But in 1994 there was nothing that it could
do to halt the murder of 800,000 people in
Rwandas nightmare. From that nadir,
1999 was the annus mirabilis or horribilis,
depending on ones views, with interven-
tions in East Timor and Kosovo. And then,
following the decision in March 2003 by
Washington and London to wage war in
Iraq without UN approval and the dis-
ingenuous morphing into a humanitarian
justification, we were once again in the
dark ages.
This roller-coaster is the essence of inter-
national relations, not an aberration. Yet
the dramatic climate of so-called paradigm
changes in the post-9/11 world character-

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368
ized the High-Level Panels deliberations
and report. The latter has many positive
building blocks: the definition of terror-
ism, thoughts about disarmament and
non-proliferation, the Peacebuilding Com-
mission, an intellectual framework linking
security and poverty reduction. None-
theless, it also has at least two basic prob-
lems. The first is the lengthy shopping list
of recommendations unkindly known as
the 101 Dalmatians. Supposedly, these
constitute a grand bargain to which
member-states are to vote thumbs-up or
thumbs-down. The Secretary-General also
speaks of a package.
Former US President Bill Clinton con-
tended that in his student days he smoked
but did not inhale. The HLP and the
Secretary-General, however, seem to have
done both. International negotiations
always occur item-by-item. Only a very
limited number of the HLPs recommenda-
tions will be accepted as is; perhaps a few
more will be modified and approved; but
the vast majority will be debated and left
for further deliberation down the road.
The clearest candidate for no action is a
reformed Security Council, and the second
key problem is the HLPs tactical blunder
of having recommended changing the
Councils numbers and procedures as the
linchpin of its sales pitch. This political
correctness was dead in the water.
Of course, the Security Council reflects
the world of 1945 and not the 21st-
centurys distribution of power, but every
solution brings as many problems as it
solves. Since its establishment in 1993,
the entity with the lengthiest name in the
annals of multilateral negotiations
the Open-Ended Working Group on the
Question of Equitable Representation
and Increase in the Membership of the
Security Council and Other Matters
Related to the Security Council risks
also setting a record for continuing to go
nowhere for the longest period of time.
Reform efforts are a microcosm of a per-
petual problem: the UN is so consumed
with getting the process right that it
routinely neglects consequences. The HLP
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Security Dialogue vol. 36, no. 3, September 2005
argues for increased legitimacy but ignores
the third component, because it is com-
posed of not only process and purpose but
performance as well. A Security Council
that grows into a rump General
Assembly would not stimulate activism. It
would be too large to conduct serious
negotiations, but too small to represent
the membership as a whole. The recom-
mended changes would do nothing to
foster decisionmaking about the use of
force in Darfur or Congo indeed, they
would inhibit it.
The High-Level Panel proposes two
alternatives for an expanded 24-member
Council. In addition to the permanent five
(P-5) and ten elected members, Model
A provides for six new permanent seats
. . . and three new two-year term non-
permanent seats . . . Model B provides for
no new permanent seats but creates a new
category of eight four-year renewable-
term seats and one new two-year term
non-permanent (and non-renewable) seat.
In both, the veto remains the exclusive
prerogative of the P-5, and seats are
divided among the major regional areas.
Article 23 of the UN Charter never speci-
fied diversity as a criterion for member-
ship, but rather the willingness of Council
members to contribute to the maintenance
of international peace and security. The
HLP would like to revive the largely
ignored criterion of financial, military, and
diplomatic contributions as part of the
selection and re-election qualifications of
those aspiring to membership. The panel
suggests a full review in 2020 (United
Nations, 2004).
Everyone can agree that the Councils
decisions would have greater political
clout if they had broader support. How to
get there from here has always been the
conundrum. The HLPs so-called recom-
mendation is a superb illustration of why
there will be no movement. Never has a
major independent international commis-
sion or panel made a recommendation
that is an option. If 16 individuals cannot
come up with a single way ahead, how
will 191 states and their parliaments? Even
Thomas G. Weiss An Unchanged Security Council 369

the Secretary-General by himself did not
decide. He urged Member States to con-
sider the two options . . . or any other
viable proposals (Annan, 2005a: 43) one
more indication of the absence of political
convergence.
In early April, and undoubtedly spurred
by popular protest against Japans cam-
paign for a permanent seat, China dealt a
peremptory blow to the notion of expan-
sion and told the General Assembly that
Beijing was unwilling to rush a decision.
The next day, the USA echoed the senti-
ment with specific references to artificial
deadlines.
If past is prelude, there will be no sub-
stantial changes anytime soon in the
Security Council, and certainly not in
September 2005. Rhetorical fireworks over
the last decade have contributed to a
permissive environment that facilitated
pragmatic modifications in working
methods. These have injected more open-
ness, accountability, and diverse inputs into
Council deliberations and should be
expanded (Weiss & Young, 2005: 131154;
Weiss, 2005; Annan, 1998). They have
not made a dent in the national-interest
decisionmaking, but neither would UN
Charter changes.
Will the inability to move ahead with
dramatic reforms compromise UN credi-
bility on matters related to the future use
of force? The answer is: not more than in
the past.

* Thomas G. Weiss is Presidential Professor of Political Science at The Graduate Center of

The City University of New York and Director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for
International Studies, where he is also Co-Director of the United Nations Intellectual
History Project and Editor of Global Governance.

REFERENCES

Annan, Kofi A., 1998. The Quiet Revolution, Global Governance 4(2): 123138.
Annan, Kofi A., 2003. Secretary-General Address to the General Assembly, New York,
23 September; available at http://www.un.org/webcast/ga/58/statements/
sg2eng030923.htm (accessed 18 May 2005).
Annan, Kofi A., 2005a. In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights
for All, A/59/2005. New York: United Nations.
Annan, Kofi A., 2005b. In Larger Freedom: Decision Time at the UN, Foreign Affairs 84(3):
6374.
Millennium Project, 2005. Investing in Development: A Practical Plan To Achieve the
Millennium Development Goals. New York: United Nations Development Programme.
United Nations, 2004. A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, Report of the
Secretary-Generals High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, A/59/565.
New York: United Nations.
Weiss, Thomas G., 2005. Overcoming the Security Council Impasse: Envisioning Reform,
Occasional Paper 14. Berlin: Friederich Ebert Stiftung.
Weiss, Thomas G. & Karen Young, 2005. Compromise and Credibility: Security Council
Reform?, Security Dialogue 36(2): 131154.

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