It is no surprise that the two sets of proposals for restructuring the United Nations Security Council unveiled by Secretary General Kofi Annan, about a week ago, fall short of the expectations of many people in the Third World. The sixteen member Advisory Panel which was constituted by Annan about a year ago was charged with the task of producing a comprehensive report on how to make the UN system a more credible and effective instrument of peace and progress in the world.

The committee in turn has come out with a report containing six sets of recommendations covering subjects ranging from economic development to terrorism, apart from reform of the world body itself-the recommendations for restructuring the UN system being by far the most important. For, it is only after the world body is restructured to make it a more representative, and a more consensual and credible instrument of international opinion that its effectiveness in such areas as the fight against economic underdevelopment or terrorism can be established.

The two sets of proposals advanced by the Advisory Panel have one thing in common. Neither of these gives the right to veto to any member-country outside the five permanent members. This means that the so called new permanent members shall be treated as another category, who can sit and debate, but shall not be accepted as equal permanent members. Whether they are termed as ‘quasi-permanent members’ or as rotational permanent members without a veto is purely a matter of nomenclature. The terminology hides the basic unwillingness of the 'Big Five'-as they are often called-to share power in the Council.

It must be kept in view that the whole point of restructuring the UN system is to make it more representative of the nations of the world. The situation at present is that the vast majority of members in the General Assembly are from the Third World. But when it comes to the decision-making processes in the Security Council, the Third World hardly finds any voice in that forum.

The countries of Latin America, Africa and Asia (except for China) do not find a place in the all-important top rung of that decision making body. There is a certain disjunction between the General Assembly which is dominated by the non-western, non-Big Power countries, and the decision-making nations in the Security Council, who are mostly western and representing the Big Powers. Sooner this hiatus is bridged, better it would be for the world body.

Leading among the countries that are in the line up for admission to a permanent place on the Council are Brazil, Germany, Japan and India. Brazil would represent the Latin American nations; Germany and Japan would come in as two economic powers from Europe and Asia; while India, apart from accounting for a sixth of the human race, has some claim to fame as a Third World leader.

The initial response of the four countries has been that they will “carefully considerâ€Â