G4: UNSC losing its credibility, unable to maintain global peace
Foreign ministers of the G4 grouping — India, Brazil, Germany and Japan — met on the sidelines of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York and issued a joint ministerial statement.
The statement said the UN Security Council (UNSC), in its current "anachronistic," eight-decades-old form, is unable to effectively discharge its core responsibility of maintaining international peace and security.
The G4 called for Security Council reform to be implemented at the earliest, with expansion in both the permanent and non-permanent membership categories as central to the process.
The four countries reiterated support for greater representation of Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean in an expanded Council.
The G4 grouping and its UNSC reform agenda
The G4 is an informal coalition of India, Brazil, Germany and Japan formed in 2004 to jointly campaign for permanent seats on the UN Security Council, with each country supporting the others' candidature. The grouping argues that the UNSC's composition, frozen since 1965, no longer reflects contemporary geopolitical, economic and demographic realities, particularly the near-total absence of permanent representation for Africa and Latin America.
Key Details
- G4 formed in 2004; leaders' summit that year marked the start of coordinated campaigning.
- The last structural expansion of the Council (from 11 to 15 members, adding four non-permanent seats) took effect in 1965, via a 1963 General Assembly resolution.
- The Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) process at the UN, the current forum for Council reform talks, has produced no structural change despite running for close to two decades.
The 2026 joint statement is the G4's latest push within the stalled IGN framework, using the language of "credibility" and "inability to maintain peace" to press for movement after years of deadlock.
UNSC composition and the veto power of the P5
The UNSC has 15 members: five permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) holding an absolute veto, and ten non-permanent members elected by the UN General Assembly for two-year terms on a regional-rotation basis, with five replaced each year. The veto power of the P5, provided under Article 27 of the UN Charter, means any one permanent member can block a substantive resolution regardless of the votes of the other fourteen members.
Key Details
- Non-permanent members: 10 seats, 2-year terms, no immediate re-election, distributed by UN regional groups.
- Substantive UNSC decisions need 9 of 15 affirmative votes, with no negative vote (veto) from any P5 member (Article 27(3), UN Charter).
- India has been elected a non-permanent UNSC member eight times, most recently for 2021–22.
G4 reform proposals seek to add new permanent seats (without necessarily extending the veto to new members in the initial phase) — precisely the category of expansion the P5's veto-protected consent makes hardest to achieve.
UN Charter amendment procedure (Articles 108 and 109)
Any expansion of the Security Council requires formally amending the UN Charter. Under Article 108, amendments take effect only after adoption by a two-thirds vote of the UN General Assembly and ratification by two-thirds of all UN member states, including ratification by all five permanent Security Council members. Article 109 provides an alternative route — a General Conference to review the Charter, callable by a two-thirds General Assembly vote plus any nine Security Council members — but any amendments it proposes still require the same two-thirds-plus-all-P5 ratification to enter into force.
Key Details
- Article 108: two-thirds UNGA vote + ratification by two-thirds of members including all P5.
- Article 109: alternative review-conference route, but final ratification threshold is identical.
- This dual requirement (near-universal support and unanimous P5 consent) is the structural reason reform has stalled for decades.
The G4's call for reform "at the earliest" runs into this very ratification bar — any concrete expansion still needs unanimous buy-in from the P5, several of whom have historically been non-committal or opposed to expanding the permanent category.
- G4 members: India, Brazil, Germany, Japan; grouping formed in 2004.
- UNSC: 15 total members — 5 permanent (with veto) + 10 non-permanent (2-year terms).
- Last Council expansion: General Assembly resolution in 1963, entered into force 31 August 1965 (Council grew from 11 to 15 members).
- Charter amendment threshold: two-thirds of UNGA members plus ratification by two-thirds of members including all five permanent Security Council members (Article 108).
- The 2026 statement was issued on the sidelines of the 81st UN General Assembly session in New York.