Why in News?

• The UN General Assembly President Csaba Kőrösi during his visit to India highlighted the importance of reforms in the United Nations.

Highlights:

• The UN General Assembly President Csaba Kőrösi during his visit to India said that the reform of the UN Security Council was a member-driven process that would require the members of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) to collaborate and pass a resolution demanding the reforms.
• The process to urge the UN Security Council (UNSC) or P5 to accept a proposal coming from the UN General Assembly for reform starts with the passage of a resolution in the UNGA. 
• However, such a resolution has not yet been passed so far as the UNGA has always been very much divided. 
• According to the UNGA President, among the 193 countries in the UNGA, there are five negotiating groups and they have been neutralising each other’s demands.
• The UNGA President also claimed that the permanent members (P5) were “historically not enthusiastic” about reforms of the UN system and has argued that the role of the UNGA is as important as the P5 members of the UNSC in ensuring reform of the UN system.
• He added that the system of veto in the UNSC was 77 years old and has become an instrument to block the work of the global body with respect to various issues.
• The UNGA President in October 2022, tried to revive the process of introducing reforms by appointing two negotiators for the programme of reform to look after the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) as co-chairs.
• The appointed negotiators included two Permanent Representatives namely Tareq M.A.M. Albanai of Kuwait and Michal Mlynar of Slovakia. 
• The IGN is the team that takes care of the issue of UN reform. 

India’s stand on UN reforms:

• India has shown dissatisfaction over the delay in implementing reforms of the UNSC.
• The External Affairs Minister of India during the recently held Voice of the Global South Summit had described the UN as a “frozen 1945-invented mechanism” and had held that a few of the global powers were singularly focused on advancing their own interests rather than focusing on the well-being of the international community.

India’s role:

• The UNGA President said that India has been playing a crucial role and has contributed a lot to improve the UN systems’ response mechanism.
• He further highlighted India’s role in stabilising the global order which has been affected by the COVID pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.
• He also said that India has become very active in all the negotiating channels that are currently underway in the UN.