Reforming the United Nations Security Council, Canadian style: the Trudeau era and beyond

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis essay draws on Canadian archival evidence to examine three Canadian initiatives to promote reform within the United Nations Security Council (UNSC): an effort to institutionalize meetings of council foreign ministers in 1977, one to broaden the Security Council’s mandate in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and Ottawa’s inconsistent attitude toward UNSC enlargement. The Canadian experience reveals both the limitations and the possibilities of non-permanent member and non-member influence on the UNSC in an era of increasing globalization. In short, reform is difficult. Non-permanent members must arrive at the council with a concrete plan, pursue that plan comprehensively, and aim to institute changes that can be sustained without their presence. What came to be known as the human security agenda – an attempt to institutionalize a broader understanding of international security for a post-colonial world – in the mid-1990s ultimately fit those criteria; the other initiatives did not.