TEHRAN - Majid Takht-Ravanchi, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, said on Monday that the UN Security Council is facing a legitimacy and credibility crisis.

“Now the Council is facing a legitimacy and credibility crisis as well as a serious trust and confidence deficit and is not keeping pace with the significant changes of our time,” Takht-Ravanchi said at a United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York entitled “Question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council and related matters.”

He noted that the only way to evaluate the council’s performance is the “principles of justice and international law” which has been stipulated in the UN Charter.

To ensure justice and rule of law and preserve and promote multilateralism, reforming the Security Council is neither an option, rather it is the only solution.“A short look at the Council’s performance in the past and present reveals that, by any measure, it is not meeting our expectations; its actions have not been consistently in conformity with the UN Charter; it is not truly preventative, democratic, transparent, accountable and rule-based; in many cases, it has been inactive or ineffective; in certain cases, its actions have been ultra vires; and it has been seriously exploited by certain permanent members,” he said.

He also suggested that in order to ensure justice and rule of law and preserve and promote multilateralism, the council’s reform is neither an option nor an optional choice, rather it is the only solution.

“Nevertheless, none of the five core issues -- namely membership categories, veto, regional representation, the size of an enlarged Council, and Council’s working methods -- which are interlinked and therefore need to be discussed comprehensively within a package-- should be considered less important than the others,” he added.

Elsewhere, he criticized domination of the Western countries over the council, saying the main regions are poorly represented in terms of number and have less rights and privileges in terms of veto power or permanent membership.

“To date, one-third of UN members have never found a chance to become a Council member while there have been 20 countries that have each served between 10-22 years in this body,” he said.

Takht-Ravanchi said that this “disproportionality” and “injustice” must be addressed and rectified.

“This is essential in ensuring equal opportunities for all States to become a Council member as well as in preventing the domination of a certain regional or geopolitical group over the Council. As a result of the Council’s reform, it should be ensured that its members decide based not on their own national interests but based on the common interests of the entire UN membership. Likewise, we must not neglect such important issues as the Council’s working methods as they cannot be addressed only through enlarging the Council.” 

Elsewhere, Takht-Ravanchi said that the council must also stop increasing the excessive and expeditious resort to its Chapter VII functions.

“Chapter VII must be invoked as a measure of last resort, if necessary,” he said.

For several years, the Islamic Republic of Iran remained under sanctions based on a resolution passed by the UN Security Council enacted under the Chapter VII of the UN Charter, until the Resolution 2231 endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, and took the country out of the Chapter VII, according to Press TV.

NA/PA