First the G-20, Next the UN Security Council

Any ongoing G-20 success will prepare the ground for UN Security Council reform. To push UN reform toward reality, the G-20 first needs regular summits every six months. Second, and urgently, the G-20 should fix its membership further away from Euro-centered powers (no EU Council presidency voting member, Italy out, rotating representation from three remaining EU slots, Australia out) and toward large, economically and politically, non-European nations (Pakistan, Nigeria, Thailand), while also correcting the error of passing over Iran in favor of Saudi Arabia. And third, the G-20 needs a permanent staff.

A working G-20, with semi-annual summits and a staff, will sooner or later threaten the UN and its large bureaucracy. Put simply, the UN doesn’t work because its Security Council doesn’t represent today’s world. And the G-20, particularly revised as I have suggested, does. The UN members talk endlessly about the need for Security Council reform and how to do it. A working G-20 may finally spur the UN’s needed reform.

My suggested Security Council reform would 1) expand permanent membership from five to eight, change Britain and France to two rotating EU slots that would also include Germany, and add Japan, India, and Brazil; 2) modify the veto so that two negative permanent member votes would be required to block a resolution; 3) add seven other members based largely upon the size of their population and economy, and; 4) allow for membership changes based upon revisions in national economic and political power. This new Security Council would be truly representative, accounting for 70% of the world’s people and four-fifths of the world economy [statistics here]. It would be a Security Council that could work.

Representation by continent (exceeds 15 because of overlap): Europe (3), North America (3), South Asia (3), Latin America (2), East Asia (2), Middle East (2), Southeast Asia (1), Africa (1).