United Nations: India has strongly criticised the UN Security Council for its inaction on implementing key resolutions on counter-terrorism and failure to check brazen violations of the sanctions regime, as it sought urgent UNSC reforms to include more nations in the powerful body. India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Asoke Mukerji said at an open debate in the powerful 15-nation Council that it is a matter of concern for nations like itself, “who are not privileged to sit permanently in the Council”.
Mukherji said that Council’s invocation of the Charter’s purposes and principles “appear selective, to suit the national interests of powerful member states.” He said India endorses tackling global challenges together in a cooperative manner, especially to implement the developmental agenda. Citing the example of terrorism, he said that the very nature of such challenges, which are increasingly trans-boundary in nature, requires concerted action.
Noting that terrorism directly threatens development, especially in many developing countries, Mukerji expressed concern that action by the Council is “absent” to implement its landmark decisions, including resolutions which impose counter-terrorism obligations on all member states. “Counter-terrorism sanctions regimes are administered ambivalently and opaquely by the Council,” he said at the session ‘Maintenance of International Peace and Security: Reflect on History, Reaffirm the Strong Commitment to the Purposes and Principles of the Charter of the United Nations’ here yesterday. Mukerji said that the listing of the perpetrators of the most heinous of terrorist crimes is also “subject to whims of powerful member states.” “Even brazen public violations of the sanctions regime by listed individuals and entities, far from attracting punitive measures, do not even elicit the mildest censure of the Council,” he said. “This inaction is a serious deviation from the responsibilities given to the Council by the Charter,” he said. Mukerji stressed that the Council’s decisions on issues not directly linked with maintaining international peace and security cannot encroach upon the jurisdiction of the General Assembly, where 193 nations are equally represented. (PTI)
