[Column] Add wings to the ‘global pivot state’

Nam Jeong-ho

The author is a columnist of the JoongAng Ilbo.

To tackle a plethora of urgent issues, including missile launches by North Korea, Foreign Minister Park Jin visited the United States in early February. But his destination was not Washington. It was New York, where the United Nations is headquartered. Park went to the city to help South Korea become a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council again.

Upon meeting UN Secretary-General António Guterres first, the foreign minister kickstarted his election campaign for the country to re-advance to the Security Council by explaining the need to a number of UN ambassadors representing their own countries. The clock was ticking. Less than four months were left before a critical election in June to replace a half of the ten non-permanent members of the Security Council. Ahead of full-fledged campaigning by aspiring countries with just three months left before the voting, let me first check the weight of South Korea becoming a member of the council.

As the Security Council is a top UN body handling international security and peace, UN member countries are compelled to follow its decisions. The highest decision-making group in the UN consists of five permanent members — the United States, the UK, France, Russia and China — and ten non-permanent members, whose term is two years. A half of the ten non-permanent members are replaced each year.

The term of the five members — Albania, Brazil, Gabon, Ghana and the United Arab Emirates — is to expire by the end of 2023, while the other five — Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Switzerland and Ecuador — can keep their seats by the end of 2024.

Fifteen members of the powerful United Nations Security Council, including five permanent members and ten non-permanent members, on Feb 22 are urgently discussing North Korea’s uninterrupted firing of ballistic missiles in violation of the Security Council resolutions. [YONHAP]

South Korea had served as a non-permanent member of the Security Council twice — from 1996 to 1997 and between 2013 and 2014 — yet has launched its third bid for the membership for 2024 to 2025. Why? There are many issues more urgent than grabbing the Security Council membership again — denuclearizing North Korea, improving diplomatic relations with Japan, and establishing a new supply chain, for instance — which are directly related to South Korea’s national security and economic prosperity. Nonetheless, diplomatic aides to President Yoon Suk Yeol prioritize the country’s advance to the Security Council over other issues due to their strong conviction that the membership is pivotal to South Korea’s role as “global pivot state” as championed by the president.

As the 15-member Security Council is the mightiest UN body, which wields great influence on the global community, South Korea can substantially ratchet up the level of its powers through its participation in the decision-making process of the UN entity, let alone the prestige from being a member of the council. South Korea is a member of the Group of Ten in terms of GDP. After taking into account the country’s military and cultural power on top of its economic one, the U.S. News & World Report recently ranked South Korea at 6th in the world. As South Korea ranked 9th in the size of UN contributions, it is desirable — and necessary — for the country to participate in global affairs more aggressively than before.

Now that all international issues are closely interlinked, any one of them affects South Korea. Just look at the soaring energy and food prices from the Ukraine war, which has an enormous impact on our daily lives. The Security Council carries special weight for South Korea because the UN body not only adopts international sanctions on North Korea over its relentless pursuit of nuclear programs but also conducts investigations to see if North Korea kept a promise it made before.

As South Korea is a single candidate for the membership from the Asia-Pacific Group — one of the five regional groups in the United Nations — many experts expect no big problem with its third bid. But the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not lower its guard particularly after its unexpected — and painful — defeat last year in the election to fix members of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). South Korea has never lost in elections for the UN Security Council, the Economic and Social Council and the Human Rights Council.

The country’s defeat in the election last year for membership in the UNHRC was shocking to political circles, too. At that time, the conservative People Power Party (PPP), President Yoon’s party, blamed the liberal Moon Jae-in administration for its repeated refusal to endorse the UNHRC’s resolutions condemning North Korea’s human rights violations. But the liberal Democratic Party (DP) attributed it to the Yoon administration’s diplomatic fumbles.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has come up with the analysis that the defeat was a result of the deep-seated “tit for tat” practice among UN members (In other words, South Korea was running short of “ammunition” at the time of the voting). Since the country “easily” became a non-permanent member of the Security Council and its diplomats often took major posts in UN organizations, other UN member countries have started to demand more opportunities for their memberships. The foreign ministry has rolled up its sleeves to win in the upcoming election in June to determine the five non-permanent members of the Security Council. If a candidate country gets more than two-thirds of valid votes from each regional group, it becomes a non-permanent member, based on the order of votes it received.

The foreign ministry seeks to get solid support from UN members, citing the single candidacy of South Korea from the Asia Pacific. Park Yong-min, a senior official handling multilateral diplomacy in the ministry, said, “We are doing our best to get as many votes as possible to fit the elevated stature of our country in the world.” The ministry said that Minister Park himself has been writing personal letters to his acquaintances around the globe to help the country’s re-admission to the Security Council.

While serving as a non-permanent member of the Security Council twice in the past, South Korea took the lead in providing international aid to refugees and civilians suffering from armed conflicts. The country did help the council issue a statement in the name of the council head after hosting a public debate on protecting their lives and safety. If South Korea is elected a non-permanent member of the council in June, it would expand the scope of the protection to women and children while endeavoring to achieve sustainable peace.

The ministry also plans to initiate a campaign to allow the Security Council to tackle climate change and cybercrimes since they have already emerged as a serious security issue around the globe.

Amid the fierce race for the membership of the Security Council, Kwaak Young-hoon, the new president of the United Nations Association of the Republic of Korea (UNA ROK) — a non-profit organization registered with the foreign ministry to promote international peace and help settle global issues the UN deals with — is on a crusade to help South Korea to become a non-permanent member of the council once again. After studying architecture at MIT and policy studies at Harvard, Kwaak long served as senior consultant for UN Development Programme since 1970 before founding the World Citizens Organization (WCO), an NGO aimed to create an eco-friendly and sustainable development for the future.

Based on his diverse background, Dr. Kwaak now wants to pour his energy into helping South Korea to advance to the powerful UN body again by taking a cue from the Norwegian model. “The UN Association of Norway (UNA Norway) led an effort to canvass diverse public opinion and reach a consensus on top priorities of the country when it becomes the chair of the non-permanent members of the Security Council,” he said. “The Norwegian association strived to encourage the UN body to deal with peace diplomacy, expansion of women’s participation and protection of civilians in wartime by holding many round table discussions after inviting experts in the field.”