HIGHLIGHTS OF REMARKS BY SHASHI THAROOR AT REGULAR GENEVA PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Shashi Tharoor, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, spoke to journalists on 24 May during the regular briefing by the United Nations Information Service at the Palais des Nations about the Secretary-General's UN reform proposals.

Mr. Tharoor said the United Nations was in the middle of a rather interesting sixtieth anniversary year. Usually, 60 was the age at which people at the UN contemplated retirement, but this year, the UN was trying to do better and to think in terms of renewal. The year had already started out on a rather energetic start on the question of renewal. Journalists were aware of course of the Secretary-General's report "In Larger Freedom" which had created a great deal of attention in the media and in capitals. There were a number of proposals on the table in that report which attempted both to face the challenges of development that the United Nations had been confronting for some time, as well as the challenges of security, and tried to link them both together with human rights in a conceptual paradigm. These reforms had certain practical implications, certain conceptual implications and certain institutional implications. Amongst the institutional implications was the reform of the institutions of the Organization. The proposal on the Security Council had moved quite far with the initiative of the G4 - Brazil, India, Germany and Japan - who had collectively put forward a draft resolution last week in New York with an intention of having a vote in June on the principle of the expansion of the Security Council, both in the permanent and non-permanent categories. The rest of the reform package would be the focus of a major summit to take place in September in New York. It would be five years after the Millennium Summit, which was the largest single gathering of Heads of State and Government in human history - 140 Heads of State and Government.

This year, Mr. Tharoor said the United Nations was expecting a larger number, particularly if it was an opportunity both to take stock of progress of the Millennium Development Goals as well as an opportunity to act on the Secretary-General's proposals for reforming and renewing the UN. The General Assembly in New York had been discussing these proposals in some detail, and shortly a report from the President of the General Assembly was expected that summarized the orientations and conclusions of the Member States. It would give an indication of what the outcome of the Summit would be.

A journalist asked if there was a deadline when the reforms had to occur or a decision on the expansion of the Security Council had to be made. Did Mr. Tharoor think it was a good idea to have somebody like John Bolton light a fire under the UN to get it really motivated about the reform process? In response, Mr. Tharoor said that the UN was adequately motivated. The Secretary-General's report reflected a head of an organization who was determined and motivated to see change. As far as the question of deadline was concerned, there was no formal deadline. The Secretary-General's hope was that the September Summit would adopt a number of proposals. If on some issues, Member States felt that they needed more time, that was their prerogative, but the UN would like to see movement in that direction. On the Security Council, again it was very much a matter for Member States. The four Member States which had put forward the draft resolution had proposed a time table under which they would have a vote on the principle of the so-called framework resolution in June. They would then have a vote in early July to name the countries which would fill in the slots approved in this framework resolution. Then if that was accepted, they proposed a vote two weeks later on a Charter amendment. A Charter amendment required a two-thirds majority of the General Assembly, and also ratification by two-thirds of the Member States, which in practise meant ratification by the parliaments of those Member States, including all five Permanent Members of the Security Council. It was at the third stage of the ratification that question of the actions of the Permanent Members of the Security Council became quite important. There was no guarantee that those ratifications could take place within any deadline or time frame. At the last occasion which the Security Council membership was expanded from 11 to 15, the vote in the General Assembly to expand had taken place in 1963, but the ratifications were only concluded in 1965. That was the only precedent that the United Nations had and it showed that it was not possible to impose an artificial deadline on the ratification process.

In a follow-up question, the journalist asked if it was in this Charter amendment that the rights and obligations and privileges of the new members of the Security Council would be laid out, including if they had veto rights. Mr. Tharoor said that was already presented in the first draft of the resolution right now. He recalled that the question of the reform of the Security Council had been discussed for many years and there had been an open-ended Working Group of the General Assembly on this issue. The G4 draft resolution cut through that process, at this stage it was purely a draft and it was open to suggestions from Member States. At some point in June, the guess was sometime in mid-June, the G4 would put the draft resolution forward for a vote. In the draft as it stood at present, there was a section on the new members having the same rights and obligations and privileges as the existing members of the Security Council, which included the veto. There was also a section of the working methods of the Security Council. When this resolution was voted on, it needed two-thirds of the Members to vote for it, which meant 128 votes. If it received those votes, then the second stage was to vote for those countries which would fill these six new seats - two in Asia, two in Africa, one in Latin America and one in Europe. The idea was for the General Assembly to open the list to candidates during a two-week period. If there were more than two Asian, two African, one Latin American and one European candidate countries, then an election would follow. For the election, there would again need to be a two-thirds support. Once the countries had been elected, the third phase was the Charter amendment proposal which would name the countries which would enter the Charter. That Charter amendment would also address other issues. For example, there had been a long-standing demand by Germany, Japan and Italy to remove the so-called "enemy States" clauses from the Charter. So when this Charter amendment would be drafted, it was pretty sure that this would also be added to it. That was the procedure that would be followed.

Asked how the UN viewed the draft resolution on the expansion of the Security Council and if the UN thought it was too fast, especially in light of the fact that many countries probably had not yet decided which countries to chose, Mr. Tharoor said the Secretary-General had been very careful to make it clear that the question of Security Council expansion and reform was a question for Member States. However in his "In Larger Freedom" report, the Secretary-General said that it was impossible to conceive of a reform of the United Nations without reform of the Security Council because of the widespread perception around the world that the Security Council still reflected the geo-political realities of 1945 rather than of 2005. The Secretary-General offered two models but said that these were not the only two models possible. The Secretary-General was conscious that there were divisions among the Member States. There was a group of States which called themselves the "Uniting for Consensus Group" which attempted to argue that the question of Security Council reform should not be started without a consensus among the Member States. Yesterday, the Secretary-General had held a meeting in his office with the members of the G4 and some of the members of the Uniting for Consensus Group to urge them to talk to each other and to find common ground. He was anxious for the Member States to agree on these matters in as amicable a way as possible. But the Secretary-General had also said that if consensus was not possible, then lack of consensus should not be an obstacle to reform.

A journalist asked when the Secretary-General would give a proper press conference in Geneva and suggested that his annual end-of-year press conference could be moved from New York to Geneva. She also asked when UN agencies and bodies would stop launching important reports outside of Geneva. Mr. Tharoor said the Secretary-General had personally told him that he was determined to do a press conference in Geneva this year. Mr. Tharoor knew many journalists did not count his last conference as a press conference, although the Secretary-General did answer questions, going beyond the themes that he said that he would. He was not sure that it would be the end-of-year press conference which the Secretary-General held in New York just before Christmas when he wrapped up the year's work just before taking a short break. Mr. Tharoor said he could not give journalists a specific date because the Secretary-General's travel calendar was very complicated this year and had become even more complicated because of the reform process and the forthcoming summit.

On the issue of reports being launched elsewhere, Mr. Tharoor assured the journalist that this was a point which he had conveyed to the heads of all agencies. Geneva remained an extremely important locus, particularly for issues on human rights and humanitarian affairs, on many aspects of development, on health and labour obviously, and on trade. For the UN, on these issues, Geneva was the first place that reports must be launched. Sometimes there were reports written in New York which were launched either simultaneously or in parallel in a European capital. He was conscious that in some cases, that European centre had not always been Geneva. This was a desire to spread out the outreach a bit more. He believed that the message was coming through. But the UN had no wish to undermine the Geneva correspondents.

Asked if it was pretty certain that the Commission on Human Rights was going to be dissolved and substituted by a permanent Human Rights Council, and if that Council would remain in Geneva, Mr. Tharoor said that as far as the second question was concerned, the UN had left no one in any doubt that the human rights capital of the UN was Geneva and any new institutions that may be created would remain in Geneva. But on the part of the Commission being dissolved, the matter was very much in the hands of Member States, and at the moment, Member States were divided. Discussions were continuing. There had been a serious amount of work done by the High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour and her Office on fleshing out the concept of a Human Rights Council, but the UN would only know if this would work when a majority of Member States decided that they wanted it to work. At this stage, he would say that the debate was still open.

A journalist asked about the criteria for choosing of the two African States for the expansion of the Security Council. He also asked if this was the right time to be talking about reform, if the United Nations was being attacked by many sides, and if a special communication strategy was being formulated to fight this. Mr. Tharoor said that there were no formally established criteria for the new Member States of the Security Council, but the idea was that to be a Permanent Member implied a greater participation in the activities of the United Nations and a greater capacity to make important contributions to the goals of the UN. So in principle, a State which could demonstrate a special contribution towards peacekeeping or funding or development could be a candidate. At this point, the African Union had not specifically proposed any countries. The G4 draft resolution envisaged two African Member States for the Security Council. As for the second part of the question, Mr. Tharoor said that it was a bit late in the day to be talking about developing a communication strategy, the UN had had a strategy for a while. It might sometimes have been drowned out by the noise being made by those who were attacking the UN. A big part of the criticisms and attacks were not justified, while some points were justified. It was for that reason that the Secretary-General had appointed an independent committee led by Mr. Volcker to look into all the accusations. The UN's policy was to find out the truth and make it known, to correct mistakes as far as was within the power of the Secretary-General, and to show the world that anyone found guilty would be punished. But then again, those who were not guilty should be left to do their job. The UN worked on a lot more than the oil-for-food programme, and that was why the reform proposals were important for the UN because they offered a vision for the future.

Asked if the candidacy of Germany to the Security Council was causing a controversial debate, Mr. Tharoor said that each of the four countries had its strong supporters and its strong critics. Journalists had seen the recent trouble in China with the candidacy of Japan, the strong criticism by Italy of the candidacy of Germany, there were criticisms by Pakistan of the candidacy of India, and there had been criticisms in Latin America on the candidacy of Brazil. Equally, these four countries had strong admirers who felt that the claims of these countries to recognition were self evident. This was ultimately an issue on which unanimity was not going to be possible amongst the Member States and the UN recognized that the likely outcome of this process was going to have to be by a vote. But how the numbers would fall, her guess was as good as his.