US Edition
James Cleverly calls for India and Brazil to gain permanent role at UN
Foreign Secretary would also like to see Japan and Germany and an African presence added to Security Council in plea for overhaul
The Foreign Secretary has called for an overhaul of the UN that would hand India and Brazil seats on its Security Council.
James Cleverly said the West was living through a 1940s-style “turning point in history” and that the war in Ukraine, the advances made in technology and science, and climate change and mass migration, meant the world was being reshaped.
As such it required a “reformed and reinvigorated multilateralism system”, he said as he also called for Germany and Japan to be made permanent members of the council, which only has the US, UK, France, China and Russia as permanent members.
There has been frustration among Western nations after Moscow last year used its Security Council position to veto a draft council resolution condemning its invasion of Ukraine.
After Russia took over the presidency of the council in April, Ukrainian officials criticised the move, as they said the body’s role is supposed to be to stop conflict and Russia is currently at war.
The make-up of the council was agreed at the end of the Second World War, and Mr Cleverly would like to see it brought up to date.
“We want to see permanent African representation and membership extended to India, Brazil, Germany and Japan,” Mr Cleverly told a conference at the Chatham House think tank. “I know this is a bold reform. But it will usher the Security Council into the 2020s. And the UNSC has grown before – albeit not since 1965.”
‘Permanent African representation’
Mr Cleverly also suggested that there should be an expansion of the G20 to include a “permanent African representation”.
He said that due to the Indo-Pacific tilt, and with Africa’s share of the world’s population due to double by 2100 against a shrinking Europe, “in the coming decades, an ever greater share of the world’s power will be in the hands of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America”.
“Together they will decide whether the international order will endure,” he said.
“I recognise that multilateral reform is exceptionally difficult to bring about. But it will bring hugely significant benefits for the UK and the wider world. The most important of which – by far – is ensuring an enduring international order. One that is fit for today’s challenges rather than yesterday’s battles.”
Mr Cleverly insisted that multilateralism was not “at odds with national sovereignty and democracy”.
“Its purpose is to protect and reinforce them,” he said.
Speaking about the war in Ukraine, Mr Cleverly said: “Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine is a calculated assault on the UN Charter, and on the central principles of an international order that was designed, above all, to bring an end to all attempts at conquest and annexation. But war is not our only challenge. In the 2020s, as in the 1940s, we are living through a turning point in the history of humanity – a period of dizzying and rapid economic, demographic, technological and social change.”
He added that Russia’s illegal invasion, as well as the Covid pandemic, had knocked the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals “off track”, and warned that unless this was addressed the targets could be missed by 88 per cent of them by 2030.
Speaking in a Q&A after his speech, Mr Cleverly said it remained his intention to travel to China this year, despite criticism from senior Conservative MPs over the visit.
Mr Cleverly said he would raise the annexation of Hong Kong, as well as discuss the situation in Taiwan and human rights abuses when he goes to Beijing.
He said: “If I’m going to drive the reform that I intend to drive in the multilateral system, China is a very significant and influential player in many of those institutions, and therefore engagement there is an important part of the agenda I’ve set out.”