Russian foreign minister among long list of UN critics

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov echoed the rising international call for structural reforms at the United Nation Security Council (UNSC) on Monday.  

Speaking at the International Cooperation in a Troubled World conference in Vietnam,  Lavrov said developing regions are inadequately represented in the decision-making body of the international organisation.

Highlighting the dominance of Western powers in the council, Lavrov argued that the inclusion of the countries from developing world to the body is crucial.

"The reform of the UN Security Council is definitely overdue, as it underrepresents the developing regions of the world – Asia, Africa and Latin America,” Lavrov said.

This is not the first time that Lavrov has spoken about the structure of UNSC.

During a press conference at the African Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa in March 2018, he raised the same issue, arguing that UNSC should include representative countries from Latin America, Asia and Africa.

The most powerful UN body - the Security Council - has 15 members with only five being permanent members - Britain, China, France, Russia, and the US - who hold the power to veto any proposed resolution. The permanent members often veto resolutions that conflict with their national interests, as China, Russia and the US have repeatedly done.

“The world is bigger than five”

At the same press conference, along with Lavrov, the Chairman of AU Moussa Faki Mahama, also touched on the issue and expressed his frustration at the lack of action to form a more inclusive council.

“It is quite a legal requirement of the African continent that we have voiced for decades, but as we can see there has not been any progress yet," Mahama said.

The exclusion of countries from Africa, the Middle East and Latin America has long been a vital point in the credibility of the Security Council.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also long advocated reforming the structure of the UN Security Council, repeatedly using the motto: "The world is bigger than five" and has criticised the five permanent council members.

Erdogan accuses the body of being ineffective in preventing mass atrocities from taking place.

During his speech in the UN General Assembly in 2018, he claimed the five members of the council were "standing idle to the oppression in other parts of the world."

Erdogan said past "massacres" in Bosnia, Rwanda and Somalia, the oppression of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and the Israeli occupation in Palestine, have all taken place before the eyes of the Security Council.