UNSC REFORM -- GUIDANCE FOR JUNE 17 OEWG MEETING

UNCLAS STATE 064758 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: UNGA UNSC PREL SUBJECT: UNSC REFORM -- GUIDANCE FOR JUNE 17 OEWG MEETING ¶1. 1. The Department authorizes USUN to draw on the following points in making its statement during the June 17 meeting of the Open-Ended Working Group on the Question of Equitable Representation on and Increase in Membership of the Security Council and Other Matters. ¶2. Begin Statement: -- Thank you, Mr. President, for convening this meeting and for your leadership and commitment to ensuring that the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) approaches the issue of Security Council expansion in a transparent and constructive way. -- I would also like to thank the members of your Task Force for their report on options to expand the Council. We appreciate the serious, detailed, and inclusive manner in which they conducted their work and recognize the personal commitments of time they made to draft this report. -- As I have said before, the United States remains open to a modest expansion of the Security Council in the context of broader reform of the United Nations, and will continue to be a cooperative and constructive partner in this process. -- We continue to believe that a modest expansion of the Council must preserve its effectiveness in responding to threats to international peace and security, that new "extended" or permanent members must be uniquely qualified to assume their duties, and that expansion of the Council cannot be separated from a broader package of reforms to ensure the entire UN system is able to meet the challenges of the 21st century. -- We believe that Japan is qualified for permanent membership on the Security Council, and that other nations should be considered as well. -- In terms of the process before us now, we support the Seven Pillars of the President of the General Assembly as a way forward towards inter-governmental negotiations. We note that the fourth pillar says the Open-Ended Working Group "should carry out consultations on the framework and modalities for these negotiations." -- We attach great importance to the role of the OEWG because we believe an issue as consequential as reform of the United Nations, which requires an amendment to the Charter, must be done only with the broadest possible support from member states. We must not begin inter-governmental negotiations in a way that alienates a significant portion of the membership. -- We also believe that adopting a fixed timeline for these negotiations could be counter-productive. Any expansion of the Security Council should be based on broad consensus; a timeline does not permit the necessary consensus time to develop and risks creating serious ruptures within the UN membership. -- We agree with the Task Force that there should be an improvement in the working methods of the Council. But we continue to believe that the Council itself must address its own working methods, just as other principal organs of the UN should address theirs. The Council has made progress in this regard, and its efforts should continue. -- Lastly, I would like to make a point about the need for comprehensive reform of the UN. We are now considering the path to inter-governmental negotiations on Council expansion. Although several member states endorse the view, articulated by the PGA in the first of his Seven Pillars, that Council expansion must go hand-in-hand with the transformation of the wider UN system, we have seen little progress on this front so far. I encourage UN member states to engage in broader UN reform discussions with the same interest and drive they do UNSC reform. -- We cannot continue to pay lip service to the need for comprehensive reform while trying to expand the Security Council. The two issues cannot be separated from each other, as the Council can only continue to be effective when the broader UN system fulfills its function. We hope to see much more progress towards the goal of comprehensive UN reform in the coming months. End Statement RICE