Hyderabad: India has asserted that any reform of the UN Security Council that creates a new category of permanent members without veto powers would effectively relegate them to “second-class” status, leaving the existing five permanent powers in control of decision-making.
India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Harish Parvathaneni, said on Monday that the veto must be held by all permanent members of a reformed Council for as long as the provision exists, adding that fairness and justice demand equal rights and responsibilities for them. He was speaking at the Inter-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) plenary of the UN General Assembly during the cluster debate on the question of the veto.
China, France, Russia, the UK and the US are the five permanent members of the 15-nation Security Council and enjoy veto powers. The Council also has 10 non-permanent members elected for two-year terms.
Parvathaneni said a new category of long-term members without the veto would not change the P5’s decision-making dynamic. He also argued that creating a new category of permanent members, with or without veto powers, would complicate an already difficult discussion and entrench the inequity the reform seeks to correct. Periodic elections and the concept of permanency, he said, are fundamentally contradictory.
He cited the only expansion of the Council, in 1965, which raised non-permanent members from six to 10 while retaining five permanent members. That, he said, shifted the ratio of permanent to elected members from 5:6 to 5:10 and strengthened the P5’s relative power.
The envoy said the veto should be exercised with great restraint on matters of international peace and security and should not serve narrow political expediency. He said limiting the veto cannot be considered in isolation from membership categories, regional representation, the Council’s size and its working methods.
On working methods, Parvathaneni said the veto is not limited to votes formally cast by permanent members. An effective or de facto veto, he said, can be exercised by any Council member over presidential statements, press statements and sanctions committee decisions, where the unwritten rule of consensus lets a single member block a proposal, often without explanation. He was referring to the sanctions committees that designate and de-list terror outfits and individuals. He also criticised the use of consensus in the IGN process itself as a disguised veto, saying the General Assembly resolution establishing the framework sets widest possible political acceptance as the guiding principle. “Seventeen cycles later, we have no outcome to show for it,” he said.
India called for text-based negotiations to begin at the earliest, with clear timelines and milestones, saying the Council’s credibility, legitimacy and effectiveness cannot be restored by addressing the veto alone.
The position is consistent with India’s earlier statements. At the General Assembly in November 2024, Parvathaneni said the five permanent members had used the veto nearly 200 times over eight decades, called it a tool of political interests and said India supports the common African position on the veto. The opposing camp has long argued the other way. The Uniting for Consensus group has argued for enlarging the Council through democratically elected members and has opposed adding new permanent members.
India last served on the Council in 2021-22, its eighth term. It is seeking a non-permanent seat for 2028-29, with elections scheduled for June next year, when India and Tajikistan will contest the single seat allocated to the Asia-Pacific Group.