US wants two African states to have permanent Security Council seats

UN body is charged with maintaining international peace and security and has power to impose sanctions and authorise use of force

US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield. Getty / AFP

The US supports two permanent seats for African nations on the UN Security Council, alongside a rotating seat for small island developing states, Washington's UN envoy announced on Thursday.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the council on foreign relations in New York that there is need for reform to reflect the growing influence of these regions in global governance.

Each year, the General Assembly elects five new members from different geographical groups for two-year terms on the Security Council. Africa has three seats rotated among states.

“As it stands, there are currently three non-permanent seats on the Security Council allocated to African countries on a rotating basis for two years,” she stated.

“The problem is these elected seats don't enable African countries to deliver the full benefit of their knowledge and voices to the work of the council … that is why, in addition to non-permanent memberships for African countries, the United States supports creating two permanent seats for Africa on the council.”

She said this is “what our African partners seek”.

Ms Thomas-Greenfield said that the US also “supports creating a new elected seat on the Security Council for small island developing states”.

She said there are 39 small island developing states that are home to 65 million people and they deserve a rotating elected seat because they offer “critical insights on a range of international peace and security issues including, notably, the impact of climate change”.

“The truth is, even countries that border each other can be more different than similar, and conversely, even countries miles apart are more similar than different,” Ms Thomas-Greenfield said.

She said she hoped this will “move this agenda forward in a way that we can achieve Security Council reform at some point in the future”, and described it as part of US President Joe Biden's legacy.

Ms Thomas-Greenfield said, however, that Washington does not support expanding the power of veto beyond the five countries that hold it.

“We don't want to give up our veto power, and we do think if we expand that veto power across the board, it will make the council more dysfunctional,” she said.

The Security Council is charged with maintaining international peace and security and has the power to impose sanctions and arms embargoes and authorise the use of force.

Any changes to the membership of the UN Security Council must be made by amending the organisation's founding charter, a process that requires approval from two thirds of the 193-member General Assembly and ratification by the council's five veto-wielding powers.

The General Assembly has debated Security Council reform for more than a decade, but momentum has accelerated in recent years as geopolitical tension has increasingly paralysed the body on key global issues.

“Much of the conversation around Security Council reform has been just that – a conversation,” Ms Thomas-Greenfield said, adding that Washington supports moving to negotiations on a draft text to amend the UN Charter to expand the council.

“So many of these countries I've talked to spanning vastly different approaches and opinions, agree that it's time to stop talking in circles, stop repeating what we've said year in and year out, and take action to actually put down our principles on paper and begin the process of getting a resolution over the finish line. The status quo was just not cutting it and it's time to make change.”

Richard Gowan, UN director for the International Crisis Group, told The National that the Biden team has made positive gestures to African states, such as securing the African Union a place at the G20.

“This is part of a broader contest for influence on the continent with China and Russia,” Mr Gowan said. “However, this declaration may actually make African members of the UN a little uncomfortable.

"It raises the problem of which two powers could take these permanent seats. It could lead to a fair bit of bickering between potential candidates like South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria and Egypt.”

The UN welcomed the announcement as an “important one”.

“I think all of the details of how this will work will have to be decided by member states," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

"But it goes along the lines, the broad lines of what the Secretary General has said, has lamented, which is a lack of African representation on the permanent members of the Security Council."

In September 2022, Mr Biden threw his weight behind reform of the council, supporting calls for permanent seats for Africa and Latin America.

“As we head into the final high-level week of the Biden administration,” said Ms Thomas-Greenfield, “I'm eager to have even more of these honest, productive conversations, to collaborate on solutions to make the UN development system more accountable and more coherent and the UN humanitarian system more efficient and more effective – and finally, finally began building a representative, inclusive council fit for the 21st century.”