Britain Calls for 'Revitalization' of UN Institutions

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, September 06, 2003

Britain Calls for 'Revitalization' of UN Institutions

Britain on Friday published a report on "the United Kingdom in the United Nations", calling for actions to "revitalize" institutions of the international body.

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Britain on Friday published a report on "the United Kingdom in the United Nations", calling for actions to "revitalize" institutions of the international body.

In the first edition of the annual report about the United Nations to the British parliament, the Foreign Office describes the full range of the UN's activities and the British involvement in them, surveys the British contribution to the UN and concludes by setting out a vision for UN reform in the future.

Britain continues to believe that the 15-nation council should expand its number of permanent members who represent the "regionalrealities of the modern world", the report said.

The number of countries that serve for two-year periods as nonpermanent members should also be expanded in number "to allow greater representation by the developing world," it said.

The General Assembly, representing the entire UN membership, was "underperforming," the report said, stressing that its agenda and working methods reflected "the pattern of the Cold War era".

"A relatively modest program of reform of the General Assembly could allow it to regain the status it has lost as the only representative body of all international opinion, able to articulate the views of the international community," the report added.

Claiming that Britain needs to support efforts to make the various parts of the United Nations play to their strengths, the report concluded that the United Nations must rise to meet the newthreat facing the world in the 21st century.

Britain, one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, is assuming the presidency of the council this month.

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