Open Debate on Security Council Working Methods

United Nations Security Council
Statement delivered by Ambassador Marc-André Blanchard
Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations

New York, 6 June 2019

Madam, Mister President

I wish to thank Kuwait for holding this open debate and for its leadership in improving the working methods of the Council.

I would also like to thank Ms. Landgren and Dr. Cockayne for their informative briefings.

Today’s debate is a welcome opportunity to reflect on the functioning of a body entrusted by the UN’s membership with no less than the maintenance of international peace and security.

For this reason, Canada welcomes the joint statement by the elected ten members of the Security Council and aligns itself with its content.

We often think of the Security Council as rigid. In reality, the UN Charter affords it flexibility to evolve and adapt as required.

By refining its working methods, we continue the work of translating a paper document into a living institution.

Canada is firmly of the view that the Council can and must evolve to be more responsive, effective, and transparent.

Indeed, since the establishment of the United Nations, the number of Member States has grown 278 percent.

In the last twenty years, the number of subsidiary bodies of the Council has increased threefold.

At the same time, new information and communications technologies have increased both the ability and the expectation of transparency in international institutions.

And as the countries around this table are no doubt aware, geopolitical realities have shifted significantly since the founding of the UN, with a legitimate expectation from elected members for meaningful involvement in all the work of the Council.

There is much left to be done to make the Security Council more democratic, inclusive, and representative.

Fundamentally, by improving the working methods of the Security Council, we are also strengthening the multilateral institutions that underpin the rules-based international order.

As a starting point, the Council’s working methods should empower elected members to be fully involved in collective decision-making.

Elected members bestow legitimacy to the Security Council while injecting a diversity of ideas and perspectives. Over the years, they have been motors of innovation in this chamber.

But in order to reap the benefits of diversity, incoming elected members need access to information and the ability to act on such information.

They should therefore be privy to documents and consultations of the Security Council as soon as possible after they are elected.

In addition, Canada supports calls by elected members of the Council for greater consultation, transparency, and burden-sharing in the distribution of chairs of the subsidiary bodies of the Council.

Similarly, the Council should drop the informal “penholder” system by which certain members exercise an unspoken monopoly in drafting resolutions, often with little or no consultation or meaningful input of the elected members or relevant committee chairs. This practice is undemocratic and has no basis in the UN Charter.

We know that transparency generally improves the quality of governance and decision-making.

Fair and clear procedures and respect for due process should therefore guide the implementation of Security Council sanction regimes, and we support the role of the ombudsperson in this regard.

Furthermore, Canada supports recourse to open meetings of the Security Council as much as possible, the regular use of informal interactive dialogues on the monthly Programme of Work, and greater codification of established procedures of Council.

The Security Council can do more on conflict prevention through regular horizon scan briefings from the Secretariat and more frequent briefings from the heads of UN regional political offices. These briefings should consistently apply gender and climate lenses to better reflect realities on the ground.

The Council can also do more to institutionalize linkages with the Peacebuilding Commission. We welcome the practice of informal interactive dialogues with the PBC and Council on countries and regions where both bodies have important roles to play, such as the Sahel. The Council could also consider inviting the Chair of the PBC or Chairs of country-specific PBC configurations to join Council missions to countries where both bodies are engaged. 

The Council should consider a standing referral to the PBC of countries undergoing UN mission transitions, to ensure adequate attention is paid to addressing root causes of conflict and longer-term risks to peace, so as to avoid relapses and the need for a return of peacekeepers.

A crucial element of the Security Council’s evolution needs to be limitations on the use and threat of use of the veto.  Canada calls on all that have yet to do so to join the French-Mexican initiative and the ACT Code of Conduct regarding Security Council action against genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.

Madam/Mister President,

Above and beyond the incremental recommendations contained in Security Council note 507, Canada believes far more needs to be done to make the Security Council gender-responsive.

Through resolutions and statements, members of the Security Council have stressed the importance of women’s equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security.

And yet, despite constituting half of the world’s population, women are only a small fraction of the permanent representatives around this table and a minority of briefers in this Council.

We commend efforts to increase the number of women civil society briefers speaking to the Security Council on both geographic and thematic agenda items. Their perspectives need to be heard in this chamber.

Moreover, we commend efforts led by Kuwait to increase the use of gender-neutral pronouns and other language in UN documentation.

The creation of a Security Council informal experts group on WPS was a major step in the right direction. It should be fully leveraged, with the participation of all Council Members, to enhance gender perspectives in debates, resolutions, and mission mandates.

When the Security Council undertakes field visits, it should meet with local women civil society groups. Ideally this should be included in the terms of reference of the visits themselves.

If elected to the Security Council for 2021-2022, Canada will seek to ensure that multilateralism works for everyone.

Thank you.