U.S. backs new African seats in Security Council reform push

U.S. backs new African seats in Security Council reform push

Washington says it will support two permanent African seats and a separate seat for small island states, but not new vetoes.

Body The United States says it will back two new permanent seats for African nations on the U.N. Security Council and a separate rotating seat for a small island developing country, in one of Washington’s clearest public statements yet in favor of a broader overhaul of the 15-member body.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield announced the position on 2024-09-12, saying the change would recognize the role African countries should play in decisions on international peace and security. She framed the move as a follow-up to President Joe Biden’s earlier support for expanding both permanent and non-permanent membership.

The proposal does not go as far as some reform advocates have demanded. Thomas-Greenfield said Washington would oppose giving the two new permanent African members veto power, arguing that the veto has made the council too difficult to use. That caveat matters because the five current permanent members - the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France - all hold veto power, which gives them far more authority than elected members.

The announcement also adds a small island developing states seat to the reform discussion. Thomas-Greenfield said those states face distinct security pressures, particularly those linked to climate change, and should not be left out of the council’s future structure.

The U.S. move lands in the middle of a long-running dispute over how to modernize the council without breaking the balance among regional blocs, the permanent five and the wider U.N. membership. According to the supplied reporting, attempts to update the council began decades ago, but the core problem has remained the same: many members want expansion, but they disagree over who should get seats, how many should be permanent and whether any new permanent members should have veto power.

Thomas-Greenfield said the U.S. intends to put its principles into a draft resolution. Even so, she acknowledged that agreement among all 193 U.N. member states is unlikely. That assessment matches the long history of stalled reform efforts.

The Security Council was created in the aftermath of World War II and still reflects that original structure. The body is charged with maintaining international peace and security, but its ability to act is often constrained by the vetoes and competing interests of its permanent members.

The new U.S. position leaves unresolved one of the biggest practical questions in U.N. reform: whether adding new permanent members would actually make the council more representative, or simply create a wider group of states with unequal powers. For now, Washington is backing expansion, but only within limits that preserve the current veto structure for the existing permanent five.