CARICOM presses UN for urgent security council reform

Nov 26, 2025 News

…cites veto power

(Kaieteur News) – Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN), Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, has renewed the Caribbean Community (CARICOM’s) call for urgent reform of the UN Security Council, warning that the veto remains a central obstacle to effective global action.

Delivering a recent address on behalf of the 14 CARICOM member states at the general assembly’s 44th plenary meeting on equitable representation, Ambassador Rodrigues-Birkett reminded member states of their commitment in the pact for the future to “reform the UN Security Council, recognising the urgent need to make it more representative, inclusive, transparent, efficient, effective, democratic and accountable.”

CARICOM presses UN for urgent security council reform

Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett

She said the pledge reflects a longstanding aspiration held by many member states that have pushed for reform on the basis that the council’s current structure does not reflect the growth of the UN’s membership, nor does it adequately serve its mandate to maintain peace and security, 80 years into the establishment of the organisation.

“CARICOM therefore urges all member states to fully recommit to the goal of urgent reform and to take tangible steps to securing it,” the ambassador stated. She added that the reform is achievable if member states commit to make it happen. “We only need to engage in good faith to make it happen,” she added.

While noting that current threats to global peace fall squarely within the council’s mandate, she stressed that geopolitical tensions within the body often stymie action sometimes at the peril of lives and livelihoods.

“The United Nations could have a much more effective role in many of the conflicts that we are currently witnessing, should the security council be less prone to geo-political maneuverings. On this note, CARICOM continues to lament the continuing use of the veto which represents one of the biggest impediments to council action many times in situations where such action is desperately needed,” she added.

The veto, held exclusively by the United States, China, France, Russia and the United Kingdom, allows any one of them to block a resolution regardless of broad international support.

Ambassador Rodrigues-Birkett said the General Assembly must keep examining the veto with the aim of reducing, “the proclivity for it to be used solely in pursuit of political interests, even when engendering grave consequences.” She added that it is in that context that CARICOM remains supportive of the veto initiative as a necessary first step toward accountability in its use.

“We urge continued efforts of this nature with the goal of aligning action by the security council with the will of the general assembly. This is necessary to counter narratives about the ineffectiveness of the United Nations as a whole in response to conflict situations,” she noted.

Further, the ambassador also cautioned that meaningful reform will remain elusive unless the process itself is improved. While acknowledging incremental progress in the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN), she said better working methods are critical to addressing underrepresentation on the council.

“Delays in this regard translate into delays in remedying the underrepresentation of regions such as Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean. These delays also hinder the aspirations of groups such as Small Island Developing States for guaranteed representation on the security council,” she said.

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CARICOM, Reform, Security Council, UN, urgent

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