New Delhi: India’s month-long presidency of the United Nations Security Council is taking place when the US is more engaged with the world body, but there is a diminished appetite for ambitious interventions across the world.
From Monday, India takes over the rotating presidency of the Council from France. As per tradition, the Council president organises at least a couple of open debates on a specific theme.
With Council meetings going virtual in the COVID-19, it has become a norm for the head of state or government to chair at least one of these signature events during their presidency.
Next week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be chairing a high-level Council debate on maritime security. The key briefers are likely to be secretary-general’s Chef de Cabinet, Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti and executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Ghada Fathi Waly.
Indian foreign minister S. Jaishankar will be chairing two Council meetings on counter-terrorism and technology in peacekeeping.
India is hoping to have at least two statements from the special discussions on maritime security and peacekeeping.
In an op-ed for the Times of India, India’s permanent representative to UN, T.S. Tirumurti, noted that India’s presidency is being held against a backdrop of considerable pressure on UN resources due to rising conflict while the Council remains deeply divided on significant issues on the agenda.
While the UNSC presidential handover is usually smooth, it has not always been so in the past. Former permanent representative, Chinmaya R. Gharekhan, recounts in his book that India’s presidency was supposed to start from one minute past midnight on October 1, 1991. Still, France convened last-minute informal consultations on the coup in its former colonial possession, Haiti, at 11 pm on September 30. Gharekhan decided to “stop the clock” instead of immediately taking over from midnight, as the talks chaired by the French envoy were likely to spill over into the new day.
The first presidency in India’s sixth term as a non-permanent member is also remembered for kickstarting the selection process that made Egyptian foreign minister Boutros Boutros-Ghali the first African to become the UN secretary-general.
Thank you Ambassador @NDeRiviere, PR of France for steering the UN #SecurityCouncil for the month of July. 👏
India takes over the Presidency for August ⬇️ @MEAIndia @IndiaembFrance @franceonu @FranceinIndia @afpfr @Yoshita_Singh pic.twitter.com/fCAdYj244g
— PR/Amb T S Tirumurti (@ambtstirumurti) August 1, 2021
In August 2011, India took over the presidency of the Council after a gap of over 18 years. India’s then permanent representative, Hardeep Puri, had stated that India would push a more expansive agenda beyond New Delhi’s core concerns. “The manner in which you conduct yourself in the deliberations of the Council, the kind of positions you take, the political maturity which you display not only as the member of the Council but more in the presidency, those ultimately reflect on the country’s credentials”.
The signature event for India during its August 2011 presidency was an open debate on peacekeeping.
August generally has a light work schedule, as it is a time for vacation for many Council officials.
But that year, it was anything but a slow starter. With the world reverberating from the Arab Spring, the acute international crisis when India took over was Syria, where opposition protests had broken out in several cities, followed by a brutal crackdown from government security forces.
The UNSC had been discussing a resolution, drafted by the UK, for several months, but it was not going anywhere.
After back-to-back consultations on Syria, a presidential statement was issued on the first day of India’s presidency on August 3. It condemned widespread human rights violations against civilians by Syrian authorities and called on both sides to refrain from reprisals, “including attacks against state institutions”.
In his book, Puri said that India had considered the unanimous presidential statement as “quite an achievement in light of the double vetoes by China and Russia”.
Former diplomat and current Union minister Hardeep S. Puri. Photo: PTI
Since 2011, most vetoes cast by Russia and China have been to stop Syria-related draft resolutions. Out of their 11 double vetoes, ten were about Syria.
A presidential statement requires a green light from all the members of the 15-member Council, but Lebanon, a non-permanent member and a neighbour of Syria, expressed difficulty in accepting the text. Since India was keen on pushing out the presidential statement, Puri recounted that the UNSC secretariat suggested blowing off the dust from precedents used over 40 years ago during the Iran-Iraq war.
During the Council session, Puri issued the presidential statement, following which Lebanon’s deputy permanent representative disassociated her country as it “does not help to address the current situation in Syria”.
Exactly ten years later, the conflict in Syria remains unresolved – and has become more complicated. For India’s 2021 UNSC presidency, the Syria issue does not have a similar urgency as the Council showed unexpected unity last month in extending the mandate for the cross-border mechanism to deliver aid supplies to rebel-held territory in Syria’s northwest region.
While India’s presidency has value in terms of public diplomacy and domestic politics, the Council’s role itself has become even more limited due to deep divisions among the Permanent Five.
In an interview with India Ahead news, India’s former permanent representative to the UN, Syed Akbaruddin had pointed out that the Council is not the organisation that it was in the post-cold war era.
“[The] security council itself is not the organisation it was just after the cold war. Because we are now in a phase of contestation between states, great power competition rather than collaboration. So, by definition, the instrument which is a concert of great powers will have difficulties in moving ahead,” he said.
The record of the UNSC after the Biden administration promised to re-embrace multilateralism has been a mixed bag.
During the Israel-Hamas violent flare-up, the US did not allow the Council to issue a single statement. However, the Americans have worked with Russia to show progress on other divisive files like Libya and Syria.
A commentary piece by the International Crisis Group’s Richard Gowan noted that the new US envoy to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, after coming to office had “seemed keen to secure as many ‘Council products’ (UN parlance for statements and resolutions) about these emergencies as possible”.
The latest addition to the string of ‘products’ on which the US has accommodated the Russians was on the extension of the sanctions regime against the Central African Republic (CAR) for another year.
On the last day of France’s presidency for July, the Council adopted the resolution by 14 votes in favour and abstention by China. Last year, it was passed unanimously.
Russia agreed to back the resolution after the text provided for exemption in the arms embargo of 60 mm and 82 mm calibre mortars. Moscow claims that Russian instructors advise the CAR government forces, while UN experts have also alleged that the Russian troops are taking part in combat operations.
While Russia and China had argued for lifting the arms embargo during talks and proposed exemptions in negotiations, only China finally abstained. India did not give any explanation for its vote.
Kenya, one of the three African countries on the Council, reminded the Council that the regional organisations and the CAR government had called for the arms embargo to be lifted.
The Central African Republic had also, in a letter to the Council, noted that the rebel groups had weapons, which included mortars ranging from 60 to 120 millimetres.
Kenya indicated that it supported the resolution as it was “an improvement on the preceding one in re-equipping the security forces of the Central African Republic to ensure the effective discharge of their duties”.
During India’s month as UNSC president, hotspots in Myanmar, Haiti and Tigray in Ethiopia are likely to remain on the list of topics that the Council is expected to follow developments closely.
But, if recent events are any indications, the Council is unlikely to take any interventionist stance, with its non-permanent members also reluctant to let the UNSC (read the P-5 states) take the lead in resolving issues in their backyard.
“Council members’ collective ambition to play a significant role in crisis management appears to be shrinking for reasons that go beyond big power friction, with diplomats often investing a lot of energy in debates over issues – such as whether to make press statements on particular crises – with low-stakes outcomes,” Gowan wrote.
He cited India and Vietnam joining hands with China in urging a cautious approach on Myanmar, with the Council eventually handing over the reins to the Association of South East Nations. Similarly, the three African non-permanent members had not been keen to meet on Tigray or pressurise the Ethiopian government.
Myanmar’s junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who ousted the elected government in a coup on February 1, presides an army parade on Armed Forces Day in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, March 27, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Stringer/File Photo
This week in UNSC
A presidential statement on the withdrawal of the AU/UN hybrid operation in Darfur is expected to kick off the week. At a Council discussion on July 27, a senior UN official had stated that all personnel had been withdrawn by June 30 as per the deadline set by the UNSC. India had termed it as among the UN’s “most successful peacekeeping operations”.
The two other meetings this week are on Syria chemical weapons and UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
This is a weekly column that tracks the UNSC during India’s current term as a non-permanent member. Previous columns can be found here.
