Maintenance of International Peace and Security: “Addressing the historical injustice and enhancing Africa’s effective representation in the UN Security Council”
Expected Council Action
In August, the Security Council is expected to convene for a high-level debate titled “Addressing the historical injustice and enhancing Africa’s effective representation in the UN Security Council” under the “Maintenance of International Peace and Security” agenda item. Sierra Leonean President Julius Maada Bio plans to chair the meeting. The briefers are expected to include UN Secretary-General António Guterres; Dennis Francis, the President of the UN General Assembly; and a civil society representative.
No formal outcome is anticipated.
Background and Recent Developments
In recent years, the struggles of the Security Council in addressing major conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, Syria, Sudan and elsewhere have fuelled long-standing calls for its reform. Many advocates of Council reform note that the composition of the Council, which was founded in 1945, reflects an anachronistic world order. This perspective was echoed in A New Agenda for Peace by the Secretary-General, who wrote, “A Security Council that is more representative of the geopolitical realities of today, and of the contributions that different parts of the world make to global peace, is urgently needed.”
The common position of the African Union (AU) on Security Council reform, known as “The Ezulwini Consensus”, is based on the communiqué it adopted in Addis Ababa in March 2005. It calls for Africa to have “not less than two permanent seats” and five non-permanent seats on the Security Council. (It currently has no permanent seats and three non-permanent seats on the Council.) The common position further states that while Africa is opposed in principle to the veto, “so long as it exists, and as a matter of common justice, it should be made available to all permanent members of the Security Council”. In July 2005, the AU Assembly reaffirmed the Ezulwini Consensus in the Sirte Declaration on the Reform of the United Nations.
The AU’s Committee of Ten (C-10)—a group of ten African states (Algeria, Equatorial Guinea, the Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Libya, Namibia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Zambia) that advocates internationally for the Ezulwini Consensus—held a summit meeting in Oyala, Equatorial Guinea, from 22 to 24 November 2023. In the summit communiqué, the C-10 “reaffirmed that the Common African position, as espoused in the Ezulwini Consensus and the Sirte Declaration remains the only viable option for Africa to successfully achieve its objectives”. The C-10 also decided to strengthen its efforts to promote this position in the UN Security Council reform process, addressing the “historical injustice” of African underrepresentation.
A C-10 ministerial meeting was convened in Algiers, Algeria, from 9 to 10 June. In the outcome document, the C-10 said that Africa’s participation in the September Summit of the Future should be “at the highest level, especially C-10 Heads of State and Government, to further solidify the aspirations of the continent and language input in the Pact for the Future”. (This pact is the envisioned outcome of the Summit of the Future planned for September and designed to provide a blueprint for the future of multilateralism.) It further reiterated that the C-10 ministers should meet with their counterparts among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council during the opening of the UN General Assembly (that is, “high-level week” in September), in keeping with a decision made at the Oyala summit.
The “Intergovernmental Negotiations on the question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council and other related matters to the Security Council” (IGN) is currently negotiating its input to the Pact for the Future. The IGN co-chairs—Ambassador Tareq Albanai (Kuwait) and Ambassador Alexander Marschik (Austria)—circulated the most recent iteration of the document to member states on 14 June. In it, the IGN calls for an enlarged Security Council of 21 to 27 seats, adding that the enlargement should “redress the historical injustice against Africa as a priority and, while treating Africa as a special case, serve to improve the representation of the underrepresented and unrepresented regions and groups”.
Council Dynamics
Algeria, Mozambique, and Sierra Leone—the three African members of the Council—have publicly championed the AU’s perspective on Council reform. At the 16 July ministerial-level open debate on “Multilateral cooperation in the interest of a more just, democratic and sustainable world order”, Algeria and Sierra Leone explicitly referred to the “historical injustice” done to Africa regarding Security Council membership, and Mozambique argued that the need for reform should account for the common African position (that is, the Ezulwini Consensus). Echoing the common position, Sierra Leone, which currently chairs the C-10, called for increasing African representation in both permanent and elected categories, noting that much of the Council’s work focuses on the continent. In this regard, 78 of the Council’s 204 meetings in 2023 on country or region-specific situations (38.24 percent) were on African matters, more than any other region. In addition, of the 49 formal outcomes (45 resolutions and four presidential statements) that the Council adopted in 2023 focusing on country or regional issues, more than half (51.02 percent or 22 resolutions and three presidential statements) dealt with Africa.
The permanent Council members have publicly expressed support for structural reform of the Security Council, including by adding seats for underrepresented regions such as Africa. The US says that it supports expanding the permanent and elected membership of the Council, including permanent seats for Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean. France and the UK have also said that they support expansion of both the permanent and elected membership of the Council, including permanent representation for Africa. At the General Assembly debate on 24 September 2022, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov noted that the Council needed to adapt to today’s reality and that this should be done through a broader representation of African, Asian and Latin American countries. China has indicated that it espouses greater representation of developing countries on the Council.
Notwithstanding generic statements of support for structural reform, it is unclear how the permanent members would react if a critical mass of UN member states coalesced around a concrete reform proposal that required them to vote on it in the General Assembly. Reforming the composition of the Council and the use of the veto would require amending the Charter. The bar to do this is high. Any reform would require a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly membership—as well as ratification by two-thirds of UN member states, including all the permanent members, through “their respective constitutional processes”—in accordance with Article 108 of the UN Charter.
| Security Council Meeting Records | |
| 24 APRIL 2023S/PV.9308 | This was a ministerial-level open debate on “Effective multilateralism through the defense of the principles of the UN Charter”. |
| 14 DECEMBER 2022S/PV.9220 | This was an open debate titled “New Orientation for Reformed Multilateralism” under the agenda item “Maintenance of international peace and security”. |
| 11 OCTOBER 2022S/PV.9149 | This was a debate on “Cooperation between the United Nations and regional and subregional organizations in maintaining international peace and security”. |
| 11 MAY 2021S/2021/456 | This letter transmitted the meeting record of the high-level videoconference briefing on “Maintenance of international peace and security: Upholding multilateralism and the United Nations-centred international system”, which was held on 7 May 2021. |
