Weighted regional representation as a basis for security council reform

Abstract

In recent years, we have witnessed - in the deliberations of the UN General Assembly, in diplomatic negotiations outside the UN and in various academic forums - a plethora of ineffectual attempts to devise a broadly acceptable accord for making the Security Council more representative of the world’s nations and peoples. Almost all such proposals call for an expanded membership with permanent and rotating seats allocated, as at present, to specific member nations. While there is widespread acknowledgment of the excessive power wielded by nations of the ‘global North’, there is considerable disagreement on the regional allocation of seats and on which nations deserve new permanent or, in some formulations, ‘semi-permanent’ seats. Nor is there much accord on which seat holders shall be endowed with the veto and how the veto power might be responsibly employed.