Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Relations has announced that Brazil has paid off its UN debt of US$ 135 million. That will bring the country’s annual dues up to date,
Brazil’s debt was three years in arrears. The money will also pay for peace operations and criminal courts in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda.
According to Itamaraty, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, with the payment Brazil will not be in arrears with any UN payments for the first time in over ten years.
In the last few years Brazil has been insisting that it be included into the United Nation’s Security Council. On September 14, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva addressed the third meeting of the United Nations Security Council Summit in New York, and called for an expansion in the number of members of the organ, including seats for developing countries from all of the world’s regions.
Lula affirmed that it is unacceptable for the Security Council to continue to function with a "deficit of transparency and representativeness."
The Brazilian President noted that the current makeup of the Council is the same as it was when the organ was created at the end of the Second World War. Only the five permanent members (China, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Russia) have voting and veto powers. The other countries are not permitted to veto resolutions presented before the Council.
"We need to adapt the Security Council to the requirements of a world undergoing profound change," Lula said at the occasion. "Good governance and the democratic principles we esteem should serve as inspiration for methods of collective decision," he observed.
The inclusion of countries such as Brazil as permanent members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council is also defended by the Director of the UN Information Center in Brazil (UNIC-Rio), Carlos dos Santos.
According to Santos, when the UN was first created, there were only 45 member States, and today, there are 191. The number of permanent seats in the Security Council, however, has remained the same during all these 60 years.
"The non-inclusion of other countries as permanent members reduces the institution’s credibility, especially among developing nations. The UN needs to incorporate current world geopolitical dynamics, and this means the inclusion of countries such as Brazil, India, Germany, and African countries," he said.
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