The Deputy Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations spoke at Tufts Monday on possible reforms to the U.N. Security Council.
During his speech at the Fletcher School, Dr. Shinichi Kitaoka said the Security Council needs a better balance of representation.
The Security Council has 15 members, including five permanent, veto-holding ones. The Group of Four (G4) - Germany, Japan, India and Brazil - proposal looks to expand the Security Council to 24 members.
According to Kitaoka, the addition of Japan as a permanent member is well supported, perhaps because Japan contributes 19.5 percent of the U.N. budget. "Japan has to be elected to the Security Council. It is really unfair from the Japanese viewpoint," he said.
"The G4 resolution would expand the council to 24 by adding five permanent seats," Kitaoka said. "One seat each would go to Japan, Germany, India, Brazil and a country in Africa." One non-permanent seat would also go to Eastern Europe. The United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom and France now hold the permanent seats.
Three things stand in the way of the proposal, Kitaoka said: "U.S. opposition, Chinese opposition and African indecision."
The United States opposes the G4 proposal but supports some expansion, including at least one additional permanent seat for Japan. Kitaoka agreed that more countries on the Security Council might decrease productivity in one sense, but he said it was not important. "The number of people on the council does not matter. As long as some countries have veto power in the Security Council, deciding things will always take awhile."
Vetoes have rarely been used, Kitaoka said. "The pocket veto is widely used to make adjustments. If Russia suggests that it will veto a bill with a certain wording, the wording gets changed," he said.
Two-thirds of the General Assembly has to support a resolution for it to pass. According to Kitaoka, "Ninety-two to 100 countries, excepting Africa, support the G4 resolution." The African countries' votes were hard to predict, he said, because they want to vote as a bloc and are divided on the issue of expanding the number of veto-wielding seats.
Larger countries like South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt are support more veto seats because it will give Africa a bigger voice, he said, but medium-sized African countries do not favor expansion.
"Right now Algeria and Nigeria are equal. But if Nigeria gets a permanent seat, Algeria will always be below Nigeria," he said. African countries want two permanent, veto-wielding seats and two non-permanent, veto-wielding seats for the continent's 53 countries.
"The idea of expanding the permanence of a veto seat to more countries is unappealing," he said. "Asia and Western Europe do not favor it."
When asked about the Chinese opposition to the G4 resolution, Kitaoka said, "I do not have liberty to speak on the issue. I can say there were ways to calm opposition that weren't tried."
He said he hoped studies on the similarities between the Japanese and Chinese cultures and histories will improve relations between the two countries.
If ten percent of African countries vote for the G4 proposal and the U.S. approves it, Kitaoka said he was cautiously optimistic the proposal would pass.
