By Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti
Mr. Chairman,
Thank you for convening this meeting to consider the size of an enlarged Security Council and its working methods.
As my delegation indicated in our meeting last Friday, we should continue focusing on ways to streamline the negotiating text, in order to achieve a shorter, more operational version by the end of this fifth round of intergovernmental negotiations.
With regard to the size of an enlarged Council, there seems to be no disagreement that an increase in the number of members is urgently needed. Considering that the issue of categories of membership will be addressed in a forthcoming meeting, today we should only examine the number of members to add.
The text by the Chair leaves no room for doubt. Most proposals by Member States support the option of an enlargement to mid-twenties. More specifically, most delegations believe the Council should have 25 or 26 members. This number, in Brazil's view, can help strike a balance between representativeness and effectiveness. A Council that is representative but ineffective does not serve the cause of international peace and security. Likewise, the Council will never be fully effective if it is not representative.
Mr. Chairman,
On the question of working methods, my delegation has previously stated that there is a widespread recognition of the need to promote more transparency, accountability and efficiency of the Security Council, within the framework of a comprehensive reform.
In our effort to identify commonalities in the various proposals contained in the negotiating text, it is clear that improving the working methods of the Council is a demand and an expectation of virtually all delegations. The impressive number of contributions submitted in this regard is evidence of a legitimate call for an increasingly transparent decision-making process and better overall access to information. It is precisely the large number and the diversity of proposals that pose a challenge as we strive to make the paper more concise and operational.
What we suggest, Mr. Chairman, is that you organize proposals according to their subject-area and merge those that are identical or very similar in their wording or general purpose.
There are several ways to do this. The Security Council Presidential Note S/2006/507 may be useful as a reference tool for re-structuring this section in a revised version of the paper. As you know, the Note is structured around twelve topics: agenda, briefings, documentation, informal consultations, meetings, programme of work, resolutions and presidential statements, subsidiary bodies, matters of which the Council is seized, communication with the Secretariat and outside, annual report, and newly elected members.
Another possibility - perhaps even more straightforward - would be to group proposals according to broad thematic areas, such as access and transparency or interaction with non-members and other bodies.
This is essentially a matter of editorial organization of the text and should not present serious difficulties. We are flexible in this regard.
What is imperative now is to move forward with determination and a sense of purpose in this area, as well as in all others.
Thank you.
