ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΒΑΡΛΑΓΚΑΣ / PANAGIOTIS VARLAGAS

Revamping the UN Security Council Make-Up

It is high time for a revamping of the UN Security Council, and in particular of the composition of its permanent members. I would propose the following:

1. More than 60 years after the conclusion of WW II it is time to bury the hachet. The three former Axis countries (Germany, Italy, Japan) should be included as permanent members of the Security Council. This means that the Security Council would include all the G8 countries but Canada.

2. India is a population giant of more than 1 billion inhabitants. It is disproportionate for China to be a permanent member of the Security Council and for India with moreorless the same population not to be. Also, the upcoming official acceptance of India to the "club" of nuclear powers would come as adding weight to its inclusion in the Security Council. It shall also serve as the exponent par excellence of the "global south" in the SC.

3. A group of "semi-permanent" SC members should be created to cater for the inclusion of African, Asian, and Latin American powers in the decision-making process. Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th largest country in the world respectively in terms of population. Mexico should be included as the most populous Spanish-speaking Latin-American country, as a counterweight of sorts to Brazil, which is Portuguese-speaking. Nigeria should become a semi-permanent member by way of its being the largest African country. We propose the following scheme:

* Brazil, Bangladesh
* Mexico, Pakistan
* Indonesia, Nigeria

Should this scheme be skewed in disadvantage of Africa (owing to its fragementation into many countries of which only Nigeria exceeds 100,000,000 people in population), then the 2nd and 3rd largest in population countries, both from Northeast Africa, and both historical member of international organizations, namely Egypt and Ethiopia could be included, bringing the numbers of semi-permanent members to 8. Their rotation could then be as follows (by adding Canada too, in order to have all G-8 countries included, and 3 American, 3 African, and 3 Asian countries):

* Indonesia, Ethiopia, Brazil
* Pakistan, Egypt, Mexico
* Bangladesh, Nigeria, Canada

This would bring the number of permanent and semi-permanent members taken together to 9 permanent (China, France, Russia, UK, US + Germany, India, Italy, Japan) + 3 semi-permament = 12. The number of non-permanent members could be increased from 10 this is currently is to 13, so that it continue to be higher than that of the permanent (or now semipermanent) members. An equitable geographical distribution should be followed, building on the current one. The 2 Western European and Others, 1 Eastern European, 2 Latin American, 3 African and 2 Asian (of which 1 Arab), could become 3 European, 1 Oceanian, 3 American, 3 African, 3 Asian.