Kishore Mahbubani, a Singaporean diplomat and geopolitical consultant who served as Permanent Representative of Singapore to the UN between 1984 and 1989, and again between 1998 and 2004, and also as the President of the UN Security Council (UNSC) between 2001 and 2002, recently said that the UK should relinquish the UNSC seat to India! As expected, his comment has triggered a sensation across the globe. According to Mahbubani, the UK, which had colonised India for nearly 200 years, is no longer a great power!
The Security Council is one of the six main principal organs of the Global Body that is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly and approving any changes to the UN Charter. The UNSC is the only organ of the World Body that can issue legally binding resolutions on all member states. In other words, all UN members have to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council. The first session of the UNSC was held on January 17, 1946.
However, the organisation was virtually non-functional in the following decades due to the Cold War between the US and the erstwhile Soviet Union. Still, the UNSC intervened militarily in the Korean War and the Congo crisis, apart from conducting peacekeeping operations in Cyprus, Western New Guinea and the Sinai Peninsula. With the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the importance of the UNSC increased exponentially. The Council took the responsibility for major military and peacekeeping operations in Kuwait, Namibia, Cambodia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, Somalia and the Republic of Congo.
The UNSC is composed of 15 members, including five permanent members (China, France, Russian Federation, the UK and the US) and 10 non-permanent members who are elected for two-year terms by the UN General Assembly (with end of term year). The presidency of the Security Council rotates among the 15 member countries each month. However, the five permanent members enjoy the power to veto any decision, other than a procedural decision.
The UK has been a permanent member of the UNSC since its inception. Now, Mahbubani wants the UK to relinquish its permanent seat to India! He has advocated India's inclusion as a permanent member of the Security Council while emphasising the need to reform the UN structure. He has argued that India has become the third most-powerful country after the US and China, stating that the South Asian nation deserves a special permanent membership. He said that India became the fifth-largest economy in the world, surpassing the UK in September 2022. According to the seasoned diplomat, the way Britain's economy is collapsing, it should not retain its position as a permanent member of the Council.
Mahbubani told the press: "There is absolutely no question that India is the third most-powerful country today after the US and China. Great Britain is no longer great. Fearing backlash, the UK has not used its veto power for decades." He stressed: "So, the logical thing is to give up its seat to India." Although the former UN official admitted that France, too, refrained from using its veto power, he claimed that France should remain a permanent member as the main driving force of the European Union (EU).
Meanwhile, Mahbubani recalled that it was decided at the time of the creation of the UN that the most powerful countries would be the ones to ensure global peace at different times. He stated: "The lesson that (UN's founders) learned from the collapse of the League of Nations early in the 20th Century is that if a great power leaves, the organisation collapses. But they also believed that you must have the great powers of today, not the great powers of yesterday. Unfortunately, they did not create a mechanism for changing the seats." Mahbubani further said: "Another reason for the UK to give up its seat is that it will free them up to act independently."
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