The UK presidency of the UN Security Council: A decisive return to the global stage?

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The UK assumed the presidency of the United Nations Security Council today, as it continues to search for a global role post-Brexit.

While the country’s 2021 G7 and COP26 climate conference presidencies receive most of the media coverage concerning “Global Britain”, the opportunity to preside once every 15 months is also an important privilege of the UK’s permanent membership of the Security Council, and its overall international strategy. Each of the Council’s 15 members presides for one month at a time, and the presidency is a chance to set the agenda at the horseshoe table in Turtle Bay, New York and on the global stage.

The UK must use the chance to get its year of multilateral presidencies off to a constructive start and to demonstrate its ability to respond to unforeseen crises, such as the reported coup in Myanmar that took place in the early hours of the morning. A new Chatham House report sets out a broad vision for the UK’s role as a “global broker”, including at the UN. The ability to work together with EU partners like France at the United Nations, away from the politicking of London and Brussels, as well as with the United States, has long enabled the UK to maximise its influence through multilateral diplomacy. “There’s a lot of values and principles which we share with European partners which I think will stand us in good stead”, noted the UK’s new permanent representative in New York, Ambassador Barbara Woodward, in a January interview with the Associated Press. In an effort to lead international cooperation efforts, the UK should prioritise three areas during its presidency among the many issues it will need to tackle: Iran, climate-related security issues, and Covid relief.

Away from the lofty rhetoric of Global Britain, the Security Council enables the UK to advance concrete interests and lead collective responses to the thorny challenges on the Council’s to-do list. As Dominic Raab outlined before the Commons International Development Committee on 26 January, the UK’s mission is be a mediator – a constructive player focused on “problem solving” – and it should begin immediately. Britain has long been a frequent penholder on Security Council resolutions, with influence over the drafting process, but the presidency gives the additional chance to shape the agenda and to serve as the spokesperson for the Council and represent it to the press.

The Iranian nuclear file

First, and as a matter of urgency, the UK should play lead the reset in the Western approach to Iran at the Security Council and beyond. The Iranian parliament passed legislation in December 2020 to increase the country’s uranium enrichment if the international community does not grant sanctions relief by 21 February, just weeks away. Essentially, this requires the US to re-join the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) before that date, and from there work towards a reduction of sanctions in return for Iranian compliance with the deal. Given the Security Council’s oversight role of the JCPOA, the UK must be an effective bridge and willing mediator between the American and Iranian positions, and continue close coordination with France and Germany – the other European signatories to the deal – on mediation efforts.

US re-engagement with multilateral diplomacy on Iran under the new Biden administration also provides the perfect opportunity for Britain to advance shared these shared priorities and make the most of her time in the chair. In the first call with his new US counterpart, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, Raab discussed Iran, climate, and Covid as clear priorities. In Ambassador Woodward’s conversation with the Associated Press, she also noted that the UK’s permanent seat on the Security Council has become “more important” after Brexit, “because the UN has always been the biggest multilateral forum”. After both countries’ various domestic woes – not least their disastrous handling of the pandemic – the UK and the US are desperate to prove they can still be a force for good in the world, individually and collectively.

Climate and security 

Second, the UK should use the presidency highlight conflicts where climate change is driving instability to launch the its COP26 presidency year in earnest. For example, the UK should use debates, press statements, and even a resolution if necessary, to draw attention and resources to the growing risks of famine and flooding in South Sudan, an issue which the International Rescue Committee reported on earlier this month. Ambassador Woodward also highlighted the climate-conflict nexus there in a statement promoting a Covid-19 global ceasefire on January 25, and Boris Johnson is expected to chair a meeting on the issue during the presidency. A focus on food insecure countries like South Sudan fits well with the UK’s ongoing interest in the issue at the UN, and enables it to highlight the links between climate change, humanitarian emergencies, and conflict. It remains to be seen whether effective leadership at the UN can offset the negative impact of the UK’s decision to cut international development spending below the OECD-recommended 0.7% of GDP and the impact this may have on the UK’s international credibility.

Overall, the approach to climate should leverage the UK’s strong record on ambitious climate targets to persuade allies (and even competitors like China and Russia) to set more ambitious targets for themselves as the US re-enters the Paris Climate Accords. The UK should capitalise on optimism among diplomats following President Biden’s decision to ensure that the Security Council takes with concrete steps on climate issues in conflict zones. 

Covid-19

Third, the UK must work with the US and China to restart the Council’s fight against Covid-19 after the Council’s early failures to secure support for a global ceasefire in response to the pandemic. Fighting the pandemic globally, including through vaccine distribution, is part of the UK’s broader 2021 agenda, after Boris Johnson announced a 30 percent increase in UK funding for the World Health Organisation last September. The US decision to join the Covax global vaccine distribution mechanism under the new administration makes this effort more likely to succeed. 

Cooperation with China is necessary in this area, as it is on climate change, because it is essential for democratic countries to build productive relationships with China on issues where compromise may be possible. Ambassador Woodward, who spent five years as ambassador in Beijing before her arrival in New York in December, knows this better than anyone. In part, she likely secured the UN ambassadorship as a result of her understanding of China’s global role, which has become increasingly assertive at the Security Council in recent years. Increasing Chinese alignment with Russia at the Security Council, including through use of the veto, has made attempts at compromise more challenging. While the relationship between the West and China sees no signs of significant thaw under President Biden, limited and specific cooperation on global health and climate change does not preclude tougher action against Beijing on its disinformation campaigns, human rights abuses, and its maritime adventurism. 

Meanwhile, the Russian read-out of President Biden’s first phone call with President Putin also raised the possibility of a leaders’ summit of the permanent five Security Council members. If such a summit would enable a reset in relations, at least at the UN, and enable greater cooperation on vaccine distribution, this would be a welcome step to ease tensions.

A restart on global health and pandemic cooperation with China can occur alongside a US administration that is now more closely aligned with London’s own position toward China. Biden is less interested than his predecessor in scoring cheap rhetorical points over the choice of the name for the virus in Security Council resolutions. Dominic Raab’s planned visit to New York to chair a Covid-19 session, alongside a resolution (or at least a presidential statement) focused on equitable vaccine distribution to conflict-affected and poor countries, would be a good place to start. Countries like Somalia, where the UK has long championed conflict stabilisation through the UN, are ideal candidates for such support.

Whether the UK achieves only some or all of these ambitious goals, a smooth transition to the US presidency in March is essential to ensure continuity of the international Covid response. By sheer stroke of alphabetical luck, the US always chairs the Council the month after the UK. With its own new permanent representative, the respected career diplomat Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, currently awaiting Senate confirmation, the first priority for the US Mission will be to rebuild morale among its own diplomats. Thomas-Greenfield, who declared in a November speech that “multilateralism is back”, will aim to reposition the US at the centre of decision-making at the UN, and the US presidency in March will be the first major chance.

Through smart public and behind-the-scenes cooperation with the US, the UK should work to help facilitate the US return. This will serve the UK government’s broader interest to ingratiate itself with the new administration. It may also benefit the UK to seek to persuade the US to pursue a joint presidency in future, as France and Germany did when they agreed to share one two-month presidency in 2019.

The need for more coordinated international Covid response and vaccination distribution measures provides an immediate substantive reason to work together to ensure a smooth transition from one presidency to the next. In any event, as both countries look to rebuild trust on the international stage, it is in their interests to use the Security Council to work together to do so. The UK should use its presidency to find those areas of common ground, and advance its own interests as a global broker on climate, Covid, and conflict resolution in the process.

Alistair Somerville is the case studies and publications editor at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and co-author of a report published by the Institute last May, “Strategic Re-engagement: Advancing U.S. Leadership in Multilateral Diplomacy.” He is a graduate of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and Worcester College, Oxford. Follow him on Twitter @apsomerville.