New York : India on Monday (local time) reiterated its call for comprehensive reforms of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), describing them as an "urgent global imperative" to effectively address contemporary global challenges.
India's Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Harish Parvathaneni, during the UNSC Open Debate on "Leadership for Peace", criticised the Council's outdated structure, noting that eight-decade-old practices have increasingly become obstacles to the body's ability to maintain international peace and security.
He said the current configuration of the Security Council is largely frozen in time and no longer reflects present-day geopolitical realities. "Structural and systemic elements in the eight-decade-old architecture of the Council act as retardants in efforts to maintain international peace and security. The current Security Council configuration is largely frozen in time," he stated.
Quoting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the Indian envoy said, "We can't create a future fit for our grandchildren with systems built for our grandparents," underscoring the urgency of reforming the Council to make it fit for purpose in tackling modern challenges.
"Reforming the Security Council to make it fit-for-purpose to tackle contemporary challenges is an urgent global imperative," the Ambassador added. Parvathaneni stressed that reforming the Security Council is a pressing global necessity and called for the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) framework on UNSC reform to move forward in a meaningful manner.
He said the framework, launched to advance Council reform, has so far remained largely unproductive and must transition to time-bound, text-based negotiations at the earliest, emphasising the need to enhance representation from under-represented and unrepresented regions, in line with current global realities.
"The Inter-Governmental Negotiations framework launched for Council reform, which has largely remained barren and bereft of productive outcomes, must move towards time-bound text-based negotiations at the earliest to enhance representation from under-represented and unrepresented geographies in tune with today's realities in both the permanent and elected categories of membership," the Indian Envoy said.
India has consistently advocated for reforms of the UNSC to make it more representative, inclusive, transparent, and effective. Last month, Ambassador Parvathaneni also addressed the UNSC, advocating for reforms to make the Council more representative and effective, emphasising the need for transparency, accountability, and inclusivity, and highlighting India's own contributions to UN peacekeeping.