India has said that the United Nations Security Council is ‘grossly unrepresentative and has a questionable record in addressing common challenges, pursue the noble cause of responsibility to protect populations and prevent genocide and crimes and humanity’.
Syed Akbaruddin, India’s permanent representative to the UN made these remarks at the UN General Assembly on Monday during a debate on ‘The Responsibility to Protect and the Prevention of Genocide, War Crimes, Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes against Humanity’.
“While Responsibility to Protect, at its core, has an appeal as a ‘noble cause’, its usage has only been selective in the context of a wider geo-strategic balance of power among competing players or groups,” he stated. He also said that addressing of critical questions were necessary for the impartiality of the pursuit.
“How can we ensure commonly accepted legal definitions of the crimes that we are discussing? What will qualify as a trigger for action by the international community? Which body should be competent enough to take such a decision? What happens if such a body is grossly unrepresentative of the wider international community and contemporary global realities? What happens if the record of such a body in addressing common challenges, and consequently its legitimacy is in serious question?” Akbaruddin said to news agency, PTI.
He asserted in cognizance with India’s view that “the current system of collective international security that is sought to be enforced through the UN Security Council cannot isolate the implementation of a concept such as the Responsibility to Protect from double standards, selectivity, arbitrariness and misuse for political gains.”
He also stated the essential requirements for implementation of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) such as a just cause, right intention, last resort, proportional means, reasonable prospects and the right authority to take a decision remained contested and elusive.
