Germany is aiming for a non-permanent seat in the Security Council

According to the Society for Threatened Peoples, Germany should promote a comprehensive UN reform and place more emphasis on human rights issues if chosen as a new non-permanent member of the Security Council. “The UN Security Council and the UN as a whole must be able to act! The organization must regain credibility and be given more opportunities to solve the human rights crises of the world. Therefore, Germany should advocate for a reform summit on occasion of the 75th anniversary of the World Organization in 2020,” stated Ulrich Delius, the STP’s director, in Göttingen on Friday.

In order to improve the protection of civilians against crimes against humanity and genocide, Germany should work towards a transparent and open reform process. In the scope of the reform summit, the international community should thus reaffirm its responsibility to protect the civilian population. An overwhelming majority of the states had already agreed to this during the Millennium Summit in 2005. “In the following years, however, the Security Council failed to protect the persecuted people in the major human rights crises in Darfur, Syria, Yemen, and Burma – and the International Criminal Court is still not able to properly prosecute those who are responsible for the violent expulsion of 700,000 Rohingya from Burma,” Delius criticized.

The UN Security Council should not just “keep it up”, as the UN is suffering from a dramatic decline in its credibility, Delius emphasized. The World Organization is in desperate need of a comprehensive structural reform in order to meet the self-imposed goals of the UN Charter. As the reforms would also affect the Security Council, its sphere of influence must be extended by restricting the right of veto of permanent members.

The STP also stated that the civil society must have more say in the scope of the reforms. “Authoritarian states should not be able to force independent non-governmental organizations out of the UN. More and more dictatorships and authoritarian states are talking about UN reforms, trying to undermine the UN’s commitment to peace, democracy, and human rights. This contradicts the spirit of the UN Charter – and the world organization is in danger of becoming powerless when dealing with major crises,” Delius said.

Header Picture: Yerpo via Wikimedia Commons