[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 130 (Thursday, September 19, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1647]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

[[Page E1647]]


               IT'S TIME TO DIVERSIFY THE UNITED NATIONS

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                       HON. ROBERT G. TORRICELLI

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 19, 1996

  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Speaker, as the 104th Congress comes to an end, 
it may be time to again address the issue of United Nations reform. 
Earlier this Congress the new Republican majority attempted to gut 
America's commitment to the United Nations under the guise of reforming 
that institution. Their attempt went too far, and it was wisely 
rejected by the Senate and by the Clinton administration. But the need 
to reform the United Nations is still as present today as it was last 
year. Indeed, in early 1993 President Clinton announced his own plans 
for U.N. reform.
  As soon as it took office, the Clinton administration signaled that, 
for the first time, America would actively promote the restructuring of 
the United Nations Security Council to recognize the emerging power 
realities of the 21st century. It boldly advanced a plan and pressed 
for U.N. action by 1995. The administration's laudable goal was to make 
the Council look more like the rest of the world.
  Today, the administration plan for Security Council restructuring is 
dead in the water, a victim of bureaucratic infighting and a diminution 
of the image of the United Nations in the eyes of many Americans. 
President Clinton deserves credit for moving the issue of Council 
restructuring to the front burner. His predecessors had stonewalled 
growing pressures for reform, hoping to continue indefinitely the cozy 
arrangements of 1945 that gave the five victorious powers of World War 
II permanent seats and a veto in the Council.
  But a half-century later, those five countries no longer have the 
collective dominance to maintain world security on their own. The 
empires of Britain, France, and Soviet Russia have all dissolved. The 
U.S. share of world economic output has been halved, from 50 percent in 
1945 to 26 percent today, though America remains a military giant. Only 
China has grown in relative standing, but it is still essentially a 
non-contributor to world peace and security.
  The defeated Axis countries have rebounded in economic and political 
influence, and leading developing countries such as India, Egypt, 
Brazil, and Pakistan have become frequent contributors to U.N. peace 
operations. As we increasingly rely on a complex mix of peacekeeping 
forces, economic sanctions, and occasional military enforcement to 
maintain international security, it has become more and more important 
for the Security Council to include this next tier of states with 
significant military, economic, and political resources.

  Mr. Speaker, I believe it is time again to consider restructuring the 
Security Council.
  Neither the United States nor the world at large needs to add more 
veto-wielding members to the Security Council. The Council does not 
need more countries that can gum up decisionmaking with a veto, or to 
impede American-led initiatives to protect our global allies. If 
anything, it needs fewer. And Americans have had enough experience with 
China's subtle linkage of its Security Council veto power to bilateral 
Sino-American relations to want to invite more countries to play that 
kind of game.
  For their part, the developing countries have made it clear they will 
not allow veto power on the Council to be tilted even more heavily 
toward the Northern industrial countries. But the proposed solution of 
many--adding some large developing countries as permanent members with 
veto power--would make the Security Council virtually unworkable.
  It would be preposterous to grant Nigeria--or India, Brazil, 
Pakistan, or even Germany or Japan--a veto over Council decisions. None 
of them has the power in the real world to take decisive action beyond 
their borders, or to prevent the major powers from taking such action. 
Moreover, each of these regional actors is distrusted by the smaller 
countries in its region.
  But it is equally preposterous to simply assume that we can continue 
to control the United Nations with a small group of nations that 
reflect neither the current and future centers of global power, nor the 
reality of ethnic and religious diversity. The Clinton administration 
had the right idea: we need to make the Security Council look more like 
the rest of the world, and we need to do it sooner rather than later.
  This could be accomplished by expanding the Council's regional 
representation.
  One way of expanding the Council by region is by calculating which 
two or three states in each region make the most substantial 
contribution to U.N. peace operations, and for a seat for each region 
to rotate between those states. The criteria for making this 
calculation would include their U.N. financial contributions; the 
number of troops and other military assets they provide and precommit 
to U.N. peace operations; their participation in U.N. arms control 
treaties; and their adherence to recognized human rights standards.
  An ancillary benefit of this reform plan is that it would broaden the 
representation of the world's major ethnic and religious groups in the 
Security Council. Currently, only the Christian faith is represented; 
China, whose population is predominantly Buddhist, is represented by an 
ideologically secular government. By opening up the Council to regional 
representation the important voices of the Jewish, Islamic, and Hindu 
community would also be heard during critical deliberations on 
international crises. While not a central element for the United 
Nations, religion has become a growing undercurrent to many of its 
challenges and conflicts. Perhaps, by indirectly providing a voice for 
diverse religious beliefs, the United Nations may be better able to 
resolve particularly difficult and longstanding conflicts.
  Because Israel is not a member of a friendly regional bloc, I propose 
that Israel be given permanent status on the Security Council. Many 
Middle East countries are, in varying degrees, hostile to the State of 
Israel, and would thus not represent its interests in the Council to 
the degree an African, Asian, or Latin American nation might represents 
its neighbors. In an expanded Security Council with greater regional 
representation, Israel would only be protected by having a permanent 
voice in the Council's deliberations.
  On its merits, this framework gives the Council the benefit of 
regular participation by ten major states at the price of only six new 
seats. It avoids new vetoes. And with one exception, it does not lock 
in by name states whose influence or contributions may decline in the 
future. And, perhaps most important, it stabilizes the Security Council 
by making it more reflective of the world's ethnic, religious, and 
economic realities.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope that when the 105th Congress convenes, the issue 
of United Nations reform will be a top priority.

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