Reform of the United Nations (UN)
The Maldives believes that the principles of equality, representativeness, and fairness that it espouses at the United Nations must also apply to the UN Security Council. The Maldives underscores the need for the UN Security Council to be more efficient and reflect the diverse needs of the international community, especially in a rapidly developing world.
Maldives position on key aspects of UN Security Council reform is as follows;
- Categories of membership – the Maldives supports the expansion of the Security Council membership in both permanent and non-permanent category, especially in order to achieve equitable geographical distribution and to redress the historical injustices against Africa. The Maldives also supports a dedicated seat for Small Island Developing States on the Security Council.
- The question of the veto – the Maldives believes that new permanent members should on principle, have the same rights and obligations as current permanent members with regard to the exercise of the veto. The Maldives advocates to limit the use of the veto on matters pertaining to mass atrocities and peace and security of the international community.
- Working Methods – The Maldives advocates for further improvements to the working methods of the Council in order to make it more democratic and transparent. The Maldives is a member of the Accountability, Coherence, and Transparency (ACT) Group, and in this context, advocates for more dialogue between the Security Council, the General Assembly and other relevant UN bodies to ensure that the Council can meet emerging security challenges as effectively as possible.
The reform of the Security Council is necessary to ensure it can address emerging, non-traditional security threats and threat multipliers efficiently, including climate change, sea-level rise, and pandemics.
On process, the Maldives joins calls to “instill new life” into the deliberations of the Inter-Governmental Negotiations on Security Council Reform. The Maldives supports the move towards a single negotiating text and the incorporation of positions of Member States and groups into this text, with attribution. Such a methods lends itself to transparency and accountability – principles that the Maldives believes should guide the work of the Intergovernmental Negotiations process.