India on Monday warned that the long-in-the-works attempt to reform the United Nations Security Council would border on failure if expansion is limited to the non-permanent category as proposed in the “elements paper” prepared by the co-chairs of the Inter-Governmental Negotiations on UNSC reforms.

“UNSC reform would be grossly inadequate, bordering on failure, if expansion is limited only to the non-permanent category, as it would fundamentally not change the decision-making power structure of the P5. Groups and member states have waited this long for real and meaningful reforms,” India’s permanent representative to the United Nations in New York, Harish Parvathaneni, said at the IGN meeting on security council reforms.

The elements paper is a UN document that tracks member states’ areas of agreement (convergences) and disagreement (divergences) on UNSC reforms. India and other countries which have for years been pushing for UNSC reforms, particularly expanding the permanent membership, want text-based negotiations as is done across the United Nations on other issues where a draft is prepared on which member countries negotiate.

“In our view, it (elements paper) neither captures the overall state of play accurately nor accounts for the overwhelming sentiments of a majority of member states, not unlike similar elements papers of the last two years at least,” Parvathaneni said.

One of the issues India has with the latest elements paper is the proposal to expand the permanent category through fixed regional seats.

“It further adds that member states elected to such seats would serve in their national capacity and not formally represent their respective regions. These present three inherent issues — one, the proposal does in no way expand the permanent category; two, the concept of regionality would not be served if the concerned member states act in their national capacities; and three, it weakens the case of SIDS (Small Island Developing States), a cross-regional group which India has been consistently supportive of. Further, this whole proposal is akin to granting a veto to the E10 (non-permanent members of the UNSC), bereft of convoluted arguments of permanency. This proposal confuses veto power with permanency,” he said.

India has for years been working with other reform-oriented countries through its membership of the G4 (India, Brazil, Germany and Japan) and the L69 (a cross-regional group of developing nations from Asia, Africa and Latin America) to build support among UN member states for UNSC expansion. Other such groupings pushing for UNSC reforms are the African Union and CARICOM (Caribbean Community).