New blood at the UN Security Council

The future global economic order hit the United Nations with full force yesterday as the new members of the Security Council were announced. India and South Africa – emerging and potentially powerful representatives of Asia and Africa in the 21st century – will join Germany and Brazil among the council’s impermanent members. They are to sit alongside the permanent and veto-wielding UK, US, France, China and Russia.

It is an important moment for the world’s newest economic powers, the first time that they have all been fully represented in a global institution that was created in the aftermath of the Second World War. India has not sat on the council since 1992, and will no doubt take advantage of the opportunity to push hard for reform and a permanent seat.

The council has multiple failings and the UN is frequently inept and inefficient. It is entirely possible that expansion could make the council even more sclerotic. The UN is supposed to be sorting out Haiti, yet the disaster zone is still a disaster. The UN is meant to be bringing peace to Sudan, but there are warnings of a fresh civil war. The council imposed fresh sanctions on Iran, but they were weakened by the need to accommodate Russia and China.

Still, the infusion of new blood at the Security Council could be an opportunity to improve its effectiveness. The UN is hardly perfect, but it is what we have, and its members tend rightly to take its standing and pronouncements seriously. The emerging economies often point to the unfairness of a world still run from structures created more than 60 years ago, and claim the ineffectual council is a reflection of its composition. Now they have an opportunity to demonstrate that they can make the body more relevant to the modern age.