Reform subterranean universe of UNSC sanctions regimes: India

India has called for reform in the "subterranean universe" of the UN Security Council's sanctions regimes as it criticised the lack of transparency in their functioning, saying principles of "anonymity and unanimity" absolve individual members of accountability.

There "is the need for change of the processes followed in the subterranean universe of the Council's subsidiary bodies. The subterranean universe I refer to consists of 26 sanctions regimes acting on behalf of the Council," India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin said at a Security Council session on 'Working Methods'.

He said the 26 sanctions regimes cumulatively take 1,000 decisions every year but rarely does the Chair of any of these bodies briefs Member States or the media about the proceedings after their meetings.

He questioned why efforts at transparency are not extended to the "subterranean universe, where more decisions are taken than in formal meetings or informal consultations".

"Why is it that we are blandly informed of positive decisions of this subterranean universe and never told about negative decisions when proposals are not acceded to," he said yesterday as he lamented that in the Council's sanctions regimes no explanations are given about how the members voted and what their positions are.

He further stressed that in the sanctions regimes no rationale is given for accepting requests for listing nor do the applications that are rejected surface in the public space.

"No one indicates who specifically is not supporting a request. Indeed, proposals that can’t make it are buried without public acknowledgement that they were ever considered," he said.

"In the subterranean universe, all decisions are required to be taken by unanimity, a practice that is not in vogue in the Council itself. While the trend now is to consider means to curtail the use of the veto in the Council’s own work and many here support such efforts, however, in the subterranean universe all Council Members have extended vetoes to themselves as members of Sanctions Committees," he said.

He further stressed that in the "subterranean universe of subsidiary bodies, the adoption of principles of anonymity and unanimity has absolved individual members of accountability".

"Taking their cue from the membership of these bodies, other Member States too perhaps have not been implementing many of the decisions taken by these bodies," he said, adding that implementation reports from Member States indicates how outdated they are and in most cases are of  2003 vintage.