Real need for Security Council reform: UNSG candidate Bachelet

UN Secretary General candidate Michelle Bachelet said there is a “real need” for Security Council reform and greater representation in both permanent and non-permanent categories, vowing to push efforts towards achieving it.

Bachelet, the former Chilean president, is one of the four candidates currently in the fray to be the next Secretary General of the United Nations.

The current UN chief, Antonio Guterres, completes his tenure on December 31, after having served two consecutive five-year terms as the world’s top diplomat.

“I think it’s a real need for a reform of the Security Council,” Bachelet said here Tuesday in response to a question by PTI on the long-pending UNSC reforms and developing countries like India sitting at the powerful table as permanent members to reflect current global realities.

India has been at the forefront of years-long efforts calling for reform of the Security Council, including expansion in both its permanent and non-permanent categories, saying the 15-nation Council, founded in 1945, is not fit for purpose in the 21st Century and does not reflect contemporary geopolitical realities.

New Delhi has consistently underscored that it rightly deserves a permanent seat at the horseshoe table. Bachelet said reforming the Security Council is a decision to be taken by UN member states.

“But I think there is an opportunity,” she said, referring to the Pact of the Future, adopted by world leaders in 2024, that gave a strong clarion call to reform the 15-nation body.

Bachelet, who is also the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said when people around the world look at the UN, they see the Security Council, they see a body “that is not solving the problem, that is paralysed”, has deadlocks on issues that “really means the suffering of millions of people”.

She stressed that while the UN member states will decide how the Security Council is reformed, but “to really be able to be different”, the Council “needs to have representation of member states who are not represented there — as permanent member or non-permanent members as well, because that’s the only possibility to sort of solve the deadlock, the blockage that’s there”.

Bachelet said that while it sounds too much, there won’t be hope for the multilateral system if the Security Council is not reformed.