UNITED NATIONS: India has urged the UN Security Council to adopt “greater transparency” in the functioning of its subsidiary bodies, flagging the “opaque” process by which requests to designate individuals and entities are sometimes rejected.
Speaking at the UNSC open debate on Working Methods on Friday (local time), India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish, reiterated that the Council—despite being central to maintaining international peace and security—operates with limited membership, making transparent and efficient working methods essential.
“In a world facing multiple crises, the credibility and effectiveness of the Council depend heavily on how it conducts its business,” Harish said, stressing that decisions on listing requests are often taken in unclear ways, with non-Council members left uninformed—unlike de-listing procedures.
He also highlighted that Council committee chairs and pen-holders shoulder significant responsibility, warning that these roles must not be assigned where there are “obvious conflicts of interest” or vested agendas.
Reiterating India’s long-standing call for reform, Harish said the UN’s eight-decade-old Security Council structure must be redesigned to meet present and future global challenges. He emphasised expanding both permanent and non-permanent membership categories, ensuring fair representation for under-represented regions through time-bound, text-based negotiations.
Harish also called for stronger coordination between the Security Council and other UN organs, especially the General Assembly, noting that the annual UNSC report should be more than a procedural compilation and instead offer analytical insights. He stressed that issues on the Council’s agenda must be periodically reviewed for relevance.
On peacekeeping, Harish underlined that as the largest cumulative contributor of troops and police, India expects the perspectives of Troop and Police Contributing Countries to be better reflected in peacekeeping mandates. Mandates that have outlived their purpose, he argued, should not continue due to political interests, as they drain resources in an already constrained environment.
As the UN80 reform efforts push for streamlining, Harish urged the Council to adopt measures such as sunset clauses to ensure mandates remain purposeful and effective.
