U.N. Member States Torn Over Security Council Expansion
At the heart of the debate over reform at the United Nations lies a fundamental battle over the future of the organization's top decision-making body, the Security Council. How best to reconfigure the Council has plagued U.N. leadership since Secretary-General Kofi Annan put forth the idea of expanding it in 2004.

Part of a wider overhaul meant to strengthen and re-legitimize the United Nations following tensions over the Iraq war, the reform of the council also stems from demands from third-world countries and newly emerging economic and political powers for inclusion in a council they say fails to reflect the international community.

"There is no reason that the five countries that were the world's most powerful in 1945 should continue to be accorded the same disproportionate influence over security matters six decades later," Brookings Institution senior fellow Michael O'Hanlon wrote in a December 2004 Washington Times editorial on the status of the council's current permanent members.

But which countries would form an expanded council remains a point of contention.

"I urge member states to make the Security Council more broadly representative of the international community as a whole, as well as of the geopolitical realities of today," Annan urged in a March 2005 statement to the General Assembly.

Since then, member states have fought bitterly over which of the 191 nations would gain the choicest seats on the council, perhaps joining Britain, France, China, Russia and United States -- the councils only veto-holding, permanent nations -- as the world community's judge and jury. Currently, the council is made up of five permanent members and 10 members with two-year seats.

The debate has produced several proposals -- two from the United Nations, and others from individual nations or groups of nations hoping that joining forces will exact more power.

One plan, presented by Germany, Brazil, India and Japan, the self-proclaimed Group of Four, or G-4, would see their nations and two others become permanent members of the council, though with no veto power, and four other states become non-permanent members. Such a proposal would expand the council to 25 members.

A proposal by the African Union -- the 3-year-old organization that is hoping to emulate the European Union -- insists that any expansion include two veto-wielding permanent seats for African countries.

Annan's proposals, meanwhile, vary somewhat.

As part of his reform package -- which includes proposals to strengthen U.N. management and oversight, add new commissions and overhaul the Human Rights program -- Annan has proposed two separate expansion plans, both of which call for adding nine members. One would add six permanent seats with no veto power and three non-permanent seats, the other would add no new permanent members but nine termed seats.

Both plans would divide the seats among key global regions. Neither would afford added veto power.
"What we tried to do was two things: to make the Security Council more representative of power in the world of 2004 than in 1945, but at the same time not reduce its ability to act," Brent Scowcroft, former U.S. national security adviser and a member of the committee that created the U.N. models, told the NewsHour in 2004. "Any time you add members who have veto, you limit the ability to act."

Foundations of the Council
The structure of the current Security Council dates back 60 years when, at the close of World War II, world leaders sought to resurrect the failed League of Nations by establishing a more forceful United Nations. The framers charged the Security Council, the most powerful arm of the organization, with maintaining international peace and security.

War victors China, France, the Soviet Union, Britain and the United States, became the council's first permanent members and six other nations enjoyed non-permanent member status.

"In 1945, when the U.N. was formed, interstate war was the issue of conflict," Scowcroft said. "Now, that is really receding. ... Instead, it's internal wars; it's terrorism ... a very different kind of war.

By 1965, the emergence of several new democracies following decolonization in Africa, South America and the Caribbean, led the United Nations to expand the council by four members, bringing its total membership to 15, according to German foreign policy group Auswartiges.

Despite the expansion, the Security Council members still were able to use their pull within the organization to ensure their security. For example, all the members of the council by 1967 had developed nuclear weapons and, under the U.N.-backed Treaty for the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, were the only nations internationally sanctioned to possess such arms.

Although there is the contention that council members have used it to advance their own interests, the group of 15 nations has the responsibility of monitoring international disputes, intervening in global threats and imposing sanctions -- economic and other -- on international aggressors.

In one of its first major tests, the council passed a resolution authorizing the intervention of troops to help South Korea defend itself against North Korea's 1950 invasion. The conflict tested the cohesiveness of member nations, particularly the Soviet Union, which sided with North Korea, and the United States, which sided with South Korea. On the day of the vote allowing the U.N. to intervene, Soviet officials were boycotting the United Nations over a separate conflict in China. The resolution, which the Soviet Union surely would have vetoed, passed 11-9 at the urging of the United States.

A 2002 council resolution establishing the International Criminal Court, a world tribunal responsible for prosecuting war crimes and genocide, also weighed heavily on internal Security Council relations. While European countries fought for the court's creation, the United States sought exemption, arguing no international court should have jurisdiction over American troops abroad.

The lead up to the Iraq war presented perhaps the most serious challenge to the U.N. Security Council, when member states -- including the five permanent members -- split over whether to authorize the United States to invade Iraq and oust its dictator.

Political Infighting
The deep political tensions stirred by the 2003 Iraq dispute and by past conflicts have created a complicated environment of infighting that already is hampering efforts to reach an agreement on expansion. Though most nations agree the current makeup of the council is outdated, politics and regional rivalries make agreeing on any one plan difficult.

The United States opposes Germany's bid for a permanent seat despite Germany's status as the United Nations' third largest financial contributor and despite its backing from its European allies Britain, France and Russia.

Some argue Germany's lack of support during the Iraq war conflict may be to blame, though at a June meeting with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States wanted more discussion on all the reform proposals and was not rejecting Germany alone.

"We were given to understand by the United States that their concerns about this procedure are not motivated by anti-German consensus," Wolfgang Ischinger, the German ambassador to the United States, said in a New York Times report.

Regional disputes also persist.

North Korea and South Korea dislike the idea of a permanent seat for Japan, the United Nations' second largest financial contributor after the United States. The United States has no objection to a permanent seat for Japan though it refuses to give the former World War II power veto power.

Within Africa, a fight between South Africa and Nigeria, which represent the continent's two largest economies, has emerged over which nation should get a seat. Egypt, the Arab world's most populous country, also is vying for a place on the council. The African Union's request for two veto-wielding seats has also dashed the hopes of the G-4, which needs African backing to gain seats.

And though India is a natural choice for a permanent seat since it is home to a fifth of the world's population, its nuclear rival Pakistan opposes its inclusion.

In Latin America, Mexico and Argentina say Portuguese-speaking Brazil, the largest country in South America, should not represent a mainly Spanish-speaking continent.

Annan, who had called for a consensus on the expansion by September 2005 has since pushed the date to December.

Still, many experts view any resolution as unlikely.

"There's no timeframe that's realistic," O'Hanlon told the NewsHour. "It's not going to happen. The problem is any kind of Security Council reform in terms of size and membership has to be a fundamental reassessment of the structure of world politics today."

O'Hanlon said none of the proposals could work because of the magnitude of the change.

"People could probably agree on one of these countries at a time," he said. "If you try to do this entire expansion, you get into the questions: Should Germany have a seat? Then it's too many seats for Europe. Should Egypt have a seat when it's not a democracy? Should Nigeria have a seat when its one of the most corrupt countries in the world? There's almost no chance of a consensus."

If countries do manage to agree on any of the proposals, as Annan has directed, an expansion would require an amendment to the U.N. charter, which two-thirds of the 191 member states -- the five permanent members included -- must first approve.

-- By Kristina Nwazota, Online NewsHour