09 Jun 2022
1 Thank you very much, Mr President. Please allow me to take this opportunity to congratulate the newly elected members of the Security Council. And thank you very much for convening the debate on this important agenda item today. I also thank the President of the Security Council for the month of June, the Permanent Representative of Albania, H.E. Ferit Hoxha, for presenting earlier this morning the report of the Security Council on behalf of all members of the Council.
2 Mr President, this annual debate on the report of the Security Council is an extremely important one because it is fundamentally an exercise in transparency and accountability. And where there is greater transparency and accountability, there is greater credibility and legitimacy of the Security Council and its work. We need to always keep in mind that the Security Council acts on behalf of all member states of the United Nations, and has a duty and an obligation under the UN Charter to report back to the General Assembly.
3 As members of the General Assembly, it is our collective duty to consider the annual report seriously and offer constructive feedback on the activities and performance of the Security Council. This process of feedback benefits not only members of the Security Council, it also allows members of the General Assembly to contribute to improving the effectiveness of the Security Council.
4 I will briefly comment on two aspects regarding process, before addressing the content of the report and the Council’s performance from Singapore’s perspective. First, we welcome the Council’s adoption of the report on 20 May, well before the deadline of 30 May as stipulated in Presidential Note S/2019/997. The convening of the debate today is also the earliest in recent years that the General Assembly has met to consider the report. We hope that this trend of the timely adoption of the report by the Security Council and its consideration by the General Assembly continues in this positive direction.
5 Second, there has unfortunately been backsliding on the submission of monthly reports in 2021. We note that only seven monthly reports were submitted last year, just slightly more than half the reports due. Monthly reports should not be seen as a routine, box-checking exercise that can be ignored. They are an important means of allowing the General Assembly to monitor the progress and performance of the Council on a more regular basis, and form a key part of the Council’s accountability to member states. I urge Council members, including those that have been newly elected today, to take this responsibility of submitting monthly reports more seriously. We certainly are keeping track of who submits them and who has yet to complete their monthly reports. I do not wish to mention names.
6 Let me now turn to the substance of the report. I would like to start by commending the Security Council for its important achievements in 2021, despite the fact that the Council was faced with many impediments posed by the pandemic. Some notable achievements include the unanimous adoption of Security Council resolution 2565 on international cooperation to facilitate equitable and affordable access to COVID-19 vaccines in conflict areas and conducting a mission to the Sahel in October 2021, which gave the Council’s work a return to normalcy. We also appreciate very much the continuing good work done by the Informal Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural Questions, led last year by Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, which is aimed at increasing the Council’s transparency and engagement of non-members and other bodies, as well as to continually adapt working methods as the pandemic evolved.
7 Mr President, we would like the annual report to contain a greater level of analysis on the challenges facing the Council, and also an analysis of what the Security Council was not able to achieve or had difficulties in finding consensus. This is important in providing a comprehensive picture of the performance of the Council and of the conflicts or issues on the agenda of the Council that affect international peace and security that the Council has not been able to address. Central to this and of particular concern to many of us has been the threat of and the use of the veto. Here, it has always been the position of my delegation that permanent membership is a privilege that comes with special responsibilities. These are special responsibilities that must be discharged fully and responsibly in support of international peace and security, and to strengthen the multilateral system.
8 Last year, the Security Council failed to adopt an important draft resolution co-sponsored by 113 member states. This was a draft resolution focused on climate-related security risks as an important component of the UN’s conflict-prevention strategies. The large number of co-sponsors of this draft resolution shows clearly that there is an urgent and increasing need to address climate-related security risks around the world. Accordingly, the failure of the Council to adopt this draft resolution is deeply disappointing. We are particularly disappointed that the veto was used to block the adoption of this draft resolution. The reality is that climate change is a critical concern for many member states, particularly the Small Island Developing States and many other vulnerable countries. The Security Council cannot continue to ignore this issue without any risk to its relevance and credibility. Yet, the outcome of this draft resolution was recorded in the annual report simply as “12 votes in favour and 2 against, with 1 abstention, and was therefore not adopted”. I think it would be more useful for the annual report to go beyond cataloguing basic details, which all of us already know, to provide an accounting of the efforts to try to find consensus and an analysis of the impact of the failure of the Council to reach agreement on the situation or issue at hand.
9 The Security Council’s decisions or lack of decisions have serious implications and affect the wider UN membership. There must therefore be greater transparency and accountability each time a veto is cast. This was precisely the reason why Singapore was one of the co-sponsors of the resolution 76/262 on the creation of a standing mandate for a General Assembly debate when a veto is cast in the Security Council. We welcome the debate in the General Assembly earlier this week on strengthening the UN system, which was the first debate convened under the veto initiative.
10 Apart from an analysis of the use of veto by the permanent members, it would also be useful for the annual report to provide an analysis of the role played by the elected members in the Council. Singapore has been a longstanding advocate of greater equity in the distribution of the chairmanship of the Council’s subsidiary bodies and ‘penholderships’. It would be useful for the annual report to analyse the elected members’ role as penholders on various issues and how they contribute to the functioning of the Council in a more effective and inclusive fashion.
11 Mr President, we would also like to see a greater number of interactive dialogues and open meetings convened by the Security Council. We believe that there is a need to increase the opportunities afforded to members of the General Assembly to participate in the work of the Security Council and make their contributions to the discussions during the course of the deliberations of the Security Council. We hope that members of the Council, including the newly elected ones, will endeavour to enhance the number of open debates as well as interactive dialogues convened by the Security Council.
12 Mr President, I would also like to make a suggestion. I think it is good that we have this annual debate much earlier in the year, which is a change from practices that we have had in the past. But I think we need to review whether we should have this annual debate on the day of the vote of new members of the Security Council. I think it is worth reflecting on whether we need to advance the date for the debate. I would submit that it would be useful to have this debate before new members are elected so that new members are present with all of us to have a thorough discussion of the work of the Security Council before we elect new members for the subsequent year. We have also seen this morning how it is the traditional practice of all UN members to congratulate the newly elected members. This is part of our tradition. It is better to have this debate a day or two before the election so that we allow these important practice and traditions to continue, and do not disrupt this important debate or treat this debate as a secondary item to the election process. It is my hope that the Office of the President of the General Assembly will reflect on this suggestion, invite comments from other members, and convey views on this issue to the next President so that we can hopefully make some improvements in this important annual debate.
13 The very last point I would like to make is this. This year, the number of delegations that have inscribed to speak on this agenda item is much lower than in previous years. Why is that so? Is this not an important debate? Is the responsibility of the members of the General Assembly confined to casting a ballot to elect new members? I think it is important that all members of the General Assembly take this opportunity to look at the annual report and treat this debate and dialogue as an important opportunity to give our feedback and views on the work and performance of the Security Council. Once again, I encourage all delegations which have not yet inscribed to speak to perhaps give your views later today or when the debate is resumed. But I hope that in future years, we have many more speakers inscribed because this is a very important debate and the only occasion when many of us who are not members of the Security Council will get the opportunity to comment on the work of the Security Council.
14 Thank you all very much for your attention.
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