India has renewed its call for an overhaul of the United Nations Security Council, arguing that real reform cannot begin until a “de facto veto” stalling the process is dismantled. Addressing the General Assembly, India’s Permanent Representative P. Harish warned that the long-running Inter-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) have been rendered ineffective by a small bloc of nations exploiting procedural loopholes.
Harish said the IGN’s insistence on consensus invoked repeatedly by the group known as Uniting for Consensus (UfC), led by Italy and including Pakistan has morphed into a disguised veto power that blocks even the adoption of a basic negotiating text. Without such a text, he noted, member states have no roadmap for building agreement, leaving the reform debate suspended for 17 years.
The resolution that created the IGN process, Harish reminded delegates, calls for the “widest possible political acceptance,” not unanimity. Yet the procedural deadlock persists, preventing discussions on expanding the Council’s permanent membership and redefining veto authority.
Turning to the use of the veto itself, Harish referenced the General Assembly’s 2022 resolution requiring any permanent member that exercises a veto to appear before the Assembly within ten days to explain its decision. The measure was intended to curb abuse, but he said it has fallen short: permanent members have cast vetoes 20 times since the rule took effect.
Those vetoes, he argued, have left the UN paralyzed on some of the world’s gravest crises from the war in Ukraine to the conflict in Gaza, which the Council was unable to address meaningfully for nearly two years.
General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock echoed the concerns, cautioning that inaction and overuse of the veto threaten the credibility of the UN system itself.
Harish concluded that piecemeal fixes are no longer enough. Only a comprehensive restructuring of the Security Council, he said, can restore its legitimacy and effectiveness.
