India has called out the dysfunction of the UN Security Council and said that only a comprehensive reform, including expanding the permanent membership, can make it capable of meeting the world’s challenges.

“Many of the flaws in the functioning of the Council are structural”, Pratik Mathur, a minister in India’s UN Mission said on Tuesday.

“The only remedy is a comprehensive reform of the Security Council, involving expansion in its permanent and non-permanent categories”, he said during a debate in the General Assembly on the Security Council’s annual report.

“Only this will enable the Council to manage effectively today’s conflicts around the globe as well as the increasingly complex and interconnected global challenges it faces today”, he said.

Many countries are dissatisfied with the working of the Council and its report, he said, but the UN Charter constrains the General Assembly by allowing it to “neither replicate its discussions nor compensate for its [Council's] shortcomings”, he said.

“It is high time to bring the Council in line with its Charter responsibility to act on behalf of the entire Membership”, but “this will not be achieved without enhancing the membership in both the categories” permanent and non-permanent, he emphasised.

The Council is required to give the Assembly a report on its activities every year.

Hwang Joonkook, the Permanent Representative of South Korea, which holds the Council presidency for this month presented the report.

General Assembly President Dennis Francis said that geopolitical tensions are crippling the Council’s ability to act on the crises “from the Gaza Strip to Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Myanmar, and Ukraine to the Syrian Arab Republic”.

He said that “2023 was a deadly year for civilians trapped in conflict” and the UN recorded over 33,000 civilian deaths – a 72 percent increase when compared to 2022”.

“Throughout these crises, the Security Council’s ability to act to preserve and restore peace has been under severe and constant strain”, he said.

“Geopolitical tensions are stymieing its work – as evident when five resolutions and one amendment were vetoed in 2023”, he said.

Mathur criticised the report as a mere “compendium” lacking in analysis and the discussion of it as a “ritual”.

He cited as an example its treatment of peacekeeping operations the Council alone can mandate and where troops from member countries risk their lives.

It is “short of analysis on the UN peacekeeping operations, the flagship tool for the maintenance of international peace and security”, he said. 

“There is little information on how peacekeeping operations are run, on the problems they face, on why certain mandates are set or changed, or on when and why they are strengthened, scaled down or ended”, he said. 

“As most peacekeepers are contributed by non-Council members, who put the lives of their troops at risk to serve the cause of international peace, a better partnership between the Security Council and the Troop Contributing Countries is needed”, Mathur said.