NEW YORK // States will vote for new members of the UN Security Council this week and create what could become the "strongest group of global stakeholders ever assembled" on the 15-nation body.
The council could end up with such powerful countries as Germany, India, Canada, Brazil, South Africa and Nigeria as members. Analysts expect a council that will be less compliant to western interests from next year, with emerging economies challenging the permanent five (P5) members - Britain, France, Russia, China and the United States - and pushing for long-debated reforms to the body. Critics say the Security Council grants too much power to the P5 and reflects political realities from the end of the Second World War. It is the UN's most influential body, an arbiter of international law and the only UN organ able to impose sanctions and authorise war.
"We will have, in this council, a lot of 'big countries'. South Africa and Nigeria from Africa. India and Brazil, and we may have Germany and Canada," a UN diplomat said on condition of anonymity. "Looking at it from the point of view of a western country - it looks like it will be a less amenable council than the one we have right now." Members of the 192-nation General Assembly will vote on Tuesday to appoint five countries to two-year council terms beginning on January 1, with each candidate needing a two-thirds majority, or 128 votes, to secure a seat.
Places are allocated by regional groups, which typically advance candidates in uncontested ballots, meaning South Africa, India and Colombia are almost guaranteed success. The Western European and Others Group sees Germany, Canada and Portugal in a closely fought race for two seats. The Canadian prime minster, Stephen Harper, cites Ottawa's assistance to post-quake Haiti, African aid boosts and leadership within the G8 and G20 economic clubs to support its election bid. However, Mr Harper's vocal support for Israel may cost Canada votes among non-aligned UN members.
Berlin's UN ambassador, Peter Wittig, describes Germany as a "reliable and trustworthy" candidate that leads the way on climate change and peacekeeping, but it could suffer from joining the race too late. Lacking the deep pockets of its rivals, Portugal says it can offer the UN's smaller members "regular briefings and better access to the Security Council", a spokesman for the mission said. Multiple voting rounds can occur when states fail to secure the two-thirds majority, leading to such dramatic events as the 1979 battle between Cuba and Colombia, which went to 155 rounds before Mexico was elected as a compromise candidate. The 2006 vote comprised 48 rounds between Guatemala and Venezuela, with Panama emerging as the compromise candidate after more than two weeks of balloting.
The winners will join a council featuring the veto-wielding P5 and five countries already half-way through their terms - Brazil, Lebanon, Gabon, Nigeria, Bosnia - and replace the outgoing Austria, Turkey, Uganda and Japan. Were Germany and Canada to secure seats, the 2011 Security Council would include rising economic powerhouses from Africa, Asia and South America as well as 10 members of the G20. Security Council Report, a non-profit monitor of the UN body, described it as the "strongest group" ever to take the chamber but warned that it "is difficult to predict whether it will foster a more proactive and effective" body.
A harbinger of future council dynamics occurred in May, when non-permanent members Brazil and Turkey negotiated a uranium swap deal with Iran while Washington was pushing for a fourth round of UN sanctions designed to halt Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Jeffrey Laurenti, a UN expert for the Century Foundation, a liberal think tank based in New York, said the newcomers were "slapped down" when the P5 rejected their diplomatic bid and pushed ahead with sanctions regardless - indicating that a powerful line-up of non-permanent members will not threaten the status quo. "The experience of these emerging powers when they decide to try diplomatic freelancing when the permanent countries are already deeply engaged in it, is that they will get embarrassed. They still can't deliver a result if the P5 doesn't want it," Mr Laurenti said.
"The composition of the council, with the P5 holding vetoes, is that countries are allowed on to the wagon to make it look more formidable to nations daring to stare down a Security Council directive. But the countries which have been added to the wagon cannot grab the reigns." Mark Lagon, a UN expert from Georgetown University, says the heavyweight non-permanent members will show "striking independence" from the US, Britain and France, but hopes a presence of big democracies such as India, Brazil and South Africa will see tougher action against human rights abusers. Next year's council could include three members from the so-called Group of Four, formed by Germany, India, Brazil and Japan in 2004 to collectively push for permanent seats in an expanded council, as well as South Africa and Nigeria, which have claimed rights to a permanent African seat.
"It is almost as if the membership of the UN is trying to show what the council is going to be like were it to have an enlarged set of long-term members," said Mr Lagon, also a fellow from the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. "If this council can be productive, only then would it be reasonable to look at an expansion. If this council suffers from paralysis with a larger membership, then reforms are doomed to deadlock."