‘Membership must not be used to legitimise terrorists’: India seeks transparency in UNSC
India, speaking at the United Nations, urged that Security Council membership must not be used to legitimise terrorists or to pursue narrow political interests
India flagged that prolonged delays in appointing chairs and vice-chairs of the Council's subsidiary bodies, including sanctions committees, are affecting the Council's effectiveness and credibility
India called for elected (non-permanent) members to be given greater involvement in key UN processes, including matters currently treated as the preserve of a smaller group of members
India reiterated that the Security Council's structure needs to reflect the global changes that have occurred since the United Nations was founded in 1945
UN Security Council Subsidiary Bodies — Composition and the Chair-Allocation Bottleneck
The Security Council operates numerous subsidiary bodies — including sanctions committees, the Counter-Terrorism Committee, and working groups — that carry out much of its detailed, ongoing work between formal Council sessions. Chairs of these bodies are conventionally allocated among the ten elected (non-permanent) members, but the process requires informal consensus among Council members, including the five permanent members.
Key Details
- The Security Council has 15 members: 5 permanent members (P5 — US, UK, France, Russia, China) with veto power under Article 27(3) of the UN Charter, and 10 non-permanent members elected by the UN General Assembly for two-year terms, not eligible for immediate re-election
- Subsidiary body chairs are typically distributed among elected members at the start of each Council year; when P5 or other members withhold consensus over a nominee, appointments can remain unresolved for extended periods, leaving committees without formal leadership
- Sanctions committees affected by such delays include those linked to Council resolutions on terrorism-related listings (such as the Al-Qaida/ISIL sanctions regime under Resolutions 1267, 1989 and 2253), where an unfilled chair can slow decision-making on listing, delisting and monitoring reports
India's complaint about unresolved subsidiary-body leadership is a structural transparency issue distinct from (though related to) its separate, longstanding criticism of the 1267 sanctions committee's consensus-based "technical hold" procedure — both stem from the same underlying problem of a small set of members controlling processes that formally belong to the whole 15-member Council.
Elected (Non-Permanent) Members and Underused UN Processes
India's call for greater involvement of elected members in "key processes" reflects a recurring critique that certain Council and UN Secretariat processes — such as consultations on selecting the UN Secretary-General — remain effectively controlled by the P5, even though elected members formally participate as full Council members during their term.
Key Details
- Non-permanent members are elected regionally (Africa: 3, Asia-Pacific: 2, Eastern Europe: 1, Latin America & Caribbean: 2, Western Europe & Others: 2) by a two-thirds majority of the UN General Assembly
- India has served as a non-permanent member eight times — 1950-51, 1967-68, 1972-73, 1977-78, 1984-85, 1991-92, 2011-12 and 2021-22 — and is currently campaigning for the 2028-29 term under its "SHANTI" candidature, with the General Assembly election due in 2027
- Selection of the UN Secretary-General formally involves a Security Council recommendation (where the P5 veto applies) followed by General Assembly approval — a process elected members and the wider UN membership have sought to make more transparent through initiatives such as informal "straw polls," without altering the Charter-based procedure
India's push for wider elected-member involvement fits its broader, decades-long advocacy — pursued through the G4 and the UN's Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) framework — for a Security Council whose working methods and composition better reflect the full UN membership rather than P5 preferences alone.
Security Council Reform — Reflecting a Post-1945 World
India's reference to the Council's structure needing to reflect changes since 1945 restates the core argument for UN Security Council reform: that the Council's permanent membership was fixed at the end of the Second World War and has never been expanded, even as UN membership has more than tripled.
Key Details
- The UN had 51 founding members in 1945; it now has 193 member states, but the Security Council's five permanent seats have remained unchanged since the UN Charter's adoption
- India is a founding member of the G4 (with Brazil, Germany and Japan), which proposes expanding the Council to around 25-26 members, including new permanent seats for Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America/Caribbean and Western Europe, alongside more non-permanent seats
- Reform proposals are negotiated through the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) process at the UN General Assembly, which has continued for over a decade without a text-based negotiation format, reflecting resistance from groupings such as Uniting for Consensus, which opposes new permanent seats
India's transparency demands on subsidiary bodies and elected-member roles function as an incremental, working-methods-level push for reform, run in parallel with its structural push (via the G4) for an expanded, more representative permanent membership.
- UNSC composition: 5 permanent members (veto power, Article 27(3) UN Charter) + 10 non-permanent members (2-year terms, no immediate re-election)
- Non-permanent seats by region: Africa 3, Asia-Pacific 2, Eastern Europe 1, Latin America & Caribbean 2, Western Europe & Others 2
- India's non-permanent UNSC terms: 1950-51, 1967-68, 1972-73, 1977-78, 1984-85, 1991-92, 2011-12, 2021-22 (eight terms); campaigning for 2028-29 term, election in 2027
- UN founding membership (1945): 51 states; current UN membership: 193 states — Security Council permanent membership unchanged since 1945
- G4 grouping (India, Brazil, Germany, Japan): proposes expanding UNSC to roughly 25-26 members with new permanent seats