AIIS Calls
for a Muslim Seat at the UN Security Council
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
CA
Syed Mahmood, President of the American Institute
for International Studies (AIIS), has called for
a permanent seat for the Muslims in United Nations
Security Council. If the criteria for the seat
is nuclear power status then Pakistan could be
considered as a strong candidate for the permanent
seat, he added.
Addressing a seminar entitled “War or Peace”,
Syed Mahmood said that the United Nations is important
for maintaining global peace and stability; however,
the time has come to re-evaluate, reorganize,
and re-adjust its power structure in view of the
new geopolitical realities. “I am not an
expert, but I believe that the UN should reflect
today’s geopolitical realities.”
Later, in response to questions on the importance
of the UN in global peace and security, he pointed
out that although the Bush administration ignored
the UN while invading Iraq, it had to resort to
the Security Council for approval of various measures
taken after the fall of Saddam.
Syed Mahmood reminded the audience that the UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan on March 19 released
a report to reform the world body. The report
entitled "In Larger Freedom: Towards Development,
Security, and Human Rights For All" calls
for expanding the 15-nation Security Council before
year's end to ensure more democratic representation
on the United Nations' most powerful institution.
On efforts to reform the UN, Syed Mahmood recalled
that President Clinton, in his September 22, 1997
address to the General Assembly, expressed strong
support for expanding the Security Council to
give more countries a voice in the most important
work of the UN. The Clinton administration had
originally suggested expanding the permanent membership
to include only Germany and Japan.
Under the UN Charter, the primary responsibility
of the Security Council is to maintain international
peace and security. At the time of the creation
of the UN in 1945, the Security Council had eleven
members, including the permanent five, out of
a total membership of 51 states. After a subsequent
amendment to the Charter in 1963, the number of
non-permanent members was raised from six to ten.
The Council's ten non-permanent seats are presently
allotted regionally: three to Africa, two each
to Asia, Latin America, and Western Europe, and
one to Eastern Europe. The non-permanent members
rotate through the Council, each elected to a
two-year term.
Syed Mahmood said since the foundation of the
UN global geopolitical situation has changed but
the size and composition of the UN Security Council
remains unchanged. The UN membership now stands
at 191.
Syed Mahmood asked what about Latin America, they
don’t have any representation in the Security
Council? Brazil has expressly campaigned for a
permanent seat while many Latin American countries
have shown little interest.
He went on to say that Africa also deserves appropriate
representation. The 1997 Harare Declaration has
demanded that African countries should be granted
two permanent and three non-permanent Security
Council seats.
Similarly India, a nuclear power with huge population
and one of the largest world economies, may also
be a candidate for a permanent seat, he added.
Strongly arguing for a Muslim seat, Syed Mahmood
said that about 1.2 billion Muslims living on
this planet should be represented on the Security
Council and there could be two Muslim seats. “The
Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) -
with 57 members and three observer countries that
make it the largest single inter-governmental
institution in the world – could decide
which Muslim country should join the Security
Council.”
He said if the criteria will be nuclear power,
then Pakistan is a strong candidate.
It may be recalled that an OIC Foreign Ministers
meeting in New York on September 28, 2004, that
coincided with the 59th annual session of the
General Assembly, declared that any reform proposal,
which neglects the adequate representation of
the Islamic Ummah in any category of members in
an expanded Security Council, will not be acceptable
to the Islamic countries. Meanwhile, Pakistan,
in a statement to the UN on April 7, pointed out
that the Secretary-General’s report did
not address the troubled relationship between
Islam and the West.
Returning to the theme of War and Peace, Syed
Mahmood pointed out that conventional weapons
killed 15 million people in the World War I and
43 million in WWII. “We must recognize this
fact that in any nuclear or conventional war there
are no winners, we are all losers.”
According to rough estimates, since WWII there
were 170-200 wars which claimed about 130-145
million lives. “Most of these wars were
fought in the Third World countries over religion,
territory or against a tyrant.”
He said peace is an ongoing process, a continuing
effort to manage conflicts between nation states
and communities. “Real peace demands a policy
that has elements of fairness and justice and
history has shown us that policies based on only
national interest without any moral obligations
were doomed to failure.”
In his view the United Nations is the appropriate
global entity to maintain peace and stability
in the world. In this respect, Syed Mahmood referred
to the doctrine of President Woodrow Wilson that
the security of America was inseparable from the
security of the rest of mankind.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
