Germany and Japan seem to be traversing the globe dangling incentives towards the goal of getting permanent seats on the UN Security Council.
Six decades after defeat in World War II banished them to the sidelines of the UN, Germany and Japan are using their combined $16.3 billion in aid to poor African, Asian and Latin American countries in a drive for insider clout.Posted by Alan at July 25, 2005 05:03 PMThe two governments, along with Brazil and India, are asking the UN's 191 nations to expand the council to 25 from 15 members, including six permanent seats. "The approach is that they are trying to get elected, and they are using whatever means that they have to try to get support, including aid," Ambassador Jagdish Koonjul of Mauritius said. "It is part of the game."
Debate over Security Council expansion, including resolutions from the African Union and a coalition led by Italy, Mexico, Spain and Pakistan, intensified this month, as did reports of aid offers. Lobbying by the Group of Four, as the German-Japanese coalition calls itself, would be "judged as unethical or worse" if it occurred in a national election, Pakistani Ambassador Munir Akram said in a July 11 speech to the General Assembly.
"It's gotten ugly," said Edward Luck, a former UN consultant who runs the Center on International Organization at Columbia University in New York. "It has become a bad habit that countries trying to become non-permanent members offer inducements, and now that some major powers are trying to become permanent members, they have upped the ante."
The U.S., while backing Japan for a permanent seat, opposes Security Council enlargement before achieving improvement in UN management and oversight. While the U.S. supports one more permanent seat in addition to Japan, it has questioned Germany's credentials and hasn't endorsed Brazil or India.
Shirin Tahir-Kheli, a senior aide to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on UN overhaul issues, told the UN that U.S. criteria for permanent seats include economic size, military capacity and geographic balance.
Brazil and India, which aren't major aid donors, haven't been as aggressive as Japan and Germany in their lobbying, according to Latin American and Asian diplomats.