Saifullah Sani
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The possible separation of Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom could potentially be good news for India.
The Scots will vote Sept 18 on whether they want to secede from the U.K.
If they vote for a breakup, there’s a tiny chance that it would give India a shot at getting something it has coveted for years: a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
At the moment, only the U.K., the U.S., China, Russia and France, hold a permanent seat on this council, with the right to veto any decision taken by the 15-member international body. Other members of the council each serve a two-year term with no power of veto.
Countries like India, Japan, Germany and Brazil have long envied a permanent position and have argued that the U.N. council be reformed to give them greater representation and better reflect “the geopolitical realities of the 21st Century.”
India has held a non-permanent seat in the council seven times, most recently in 2012. A reform of the Security Council remains a “seemingly distant dream,” India’s Ambassador to the U.N. Asoke Mukerji said earlier this year.
A breakup of the U.K. could theoretically trigger this reform.
If the Scottish people vote to be separated, under international law the U.K. would need the backing of a newly-independent Scotland to continue as the so-called successor state, giving it the same rights, privileges and membership of international organizations as it held before. Think of this a bit like a divorce in which the husband agrees to let the wife keep the family gym membership, rather than tearing it up and making her apply again.
But if Scotland didn’t give its backing to the U.K. and instead said, “‘We want to be the successor state, or we should both be the successor state, or neither of us’,” there could be problems, says James Ker-Lindsay, a senior research fellow at the European Institute at the London School of Economics who works on issues of secession.
Mr. Ker-Lindsay thinks it is “highly unlikely” this will happen, because Scotland would need to keep London on its side– particularly in any negotiations about joining the European Union. But if this scenario were to pan out, he says there could be significant consequences for the U.K. and the broader international community.
These could include an immediate wholesale review of the U.N. Security Council membership, with no guarantee that either Scotland or the rest of the U.K. would be one of the permanent members, according to evidence given by Matthew Craven, professor of international law at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London to the U.K.’s parliament, on the issue of Scottish independence.
In other words, this could potentially create an opening on the Security Council’s permanent membership.
Some academics suggest that irrespective of Scotland’s stance on the U.K.’s status, countries like India could use the possible breakup of the U.K. as a chance to precipitate a shake-up in the current Security Council.
“It would be very difficult for the (new) U.K. to resist change if it were to be isolated with the vast majority of member states pushing for a change to the permanent membership,” said Nigel D. White, a professor of international law at The University of Nottingham in the U.K. in a paper titled “The UK’s Membership of the UN in the Event of Scottish Independence”
Mr. White noted, however, that there are precedents for states to remain members of the international body after secession of part of their territory — the prime example being India after its partition from Pakistan.
He also noted that as a founder-member of the U.N., the U.K. is in a strong position to maintain its permanent seat, like Russia did after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Mr. Ker-Lindsay of the LSE suggests that were Scotland indeed to go independent, the question of the U.K.’s continuing position in international bodies such as the U.N. would be “the first thing to get off the table” in negotiations between the two nations and is a big bargaining chip in Scotland’s favor. “The U.K.’s permanent membership of the Security Council is one of the greatest symbols of British prestige, there’s no way that London is going to want to give that up,” Mr. Ker-Lindsay said. “Scotland is not going to challenge that, but it can say, ‘You can have that, if we can have other things’ such as support for membership of the E.U.”
A spokesman for the U.K. Foreign Office said that an independent legal opinion on Scottish independence published by the British government said that if Scotland became a new, independent state, the U.K. would continue as before, “and its membership of international organizations and institutions would continue on existing terms.”
A spokesman from India’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment on speculations about Security Council membership..
Could India Gain From Scottish Independence? - India Real Time - WSJ
The Scots will vote Sept 18 on whether they want to secede from the U.K.
If they vote for a breakup, there’s a tiny chance that it would give India a shot at getting something it has coveted for years: a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
At the moment, only the U.K., the U.S., China, Russia and France, hold a permanent seat on this council, with the right to veto any decision taken by the 15-member international body. Other members of the council each serve a two-year term with no power of veto.
Countries like India, Japan, Germany and Brazil have long envied a permanent position and have argued that the U.N. council be reformed to give them greater representation and better reflect “the geopolitical realities of the 21st Century.”
India has held a non-permanent seat in the council seven times, most recently in 2012. A reform of the Security Council remains a “seemingly distant dream,” India’s Ambassador to the U.N. Asoke Mukerji said earlier this year.
A breakup of the U.K. could theoretically trigger this reform.
If the Scottish people vote to be separated, under international law the U.K. would need the backing of a newly-independent Scotland to continue as the so-called successor state, giving it the same rights, privileges and membership of international organizations as it held before. Think of this a bit like a divorce in which the husband agrees to let the wife keep the family gym membership, rather than tearing it up and making her apply again.
But if Scotland didn’t give its backing to the U.K. and instead said, “‘We want to be the successor state, or we should both be the successor state, or neither of us’,” there could be problems, says James Ker-Lindsay, a senior research fellow at the European Institute at the London School of Economics who works on issues of secession.
Mr. Ker-Lindsay thinks it is “highly unlikely” this will happen, because Scotland would need to keep London on its side– particularly in any negotiations about joining the European Union. But if this scenario were to pan out, he says there could be significant consequences for the U.K. and the broader international community.
These could include an immediate wholesale review of the U.N. Security Council membership, with no guarantee that either Scotland or the rest of the U.K. would be one of the permanent members, according to evidence given by Matthew Craven, professor of international law at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London to the U.K.’s parliament, on the issue of Scottish independence.
In other words, this could potentially create an opening on the Security Council’s permanent membership.
Some academics suggest that irrespective of Scotland’s stance on the U.K.’s status, countries like India could use the possible breakup of the U.K. as a chance to precipitate a shake-up in the current Security Council.
“It would be very difficult for the (new) U.K. to resist change if it were to be isolated with the vast majority of member states pushing for a change to the permanent membership,” said Nigel D. White, a professor of international law at The University of Nottingham in the U.K. in a paper titled “The UK’s Membership of the UN in the Event of Scottish Independence”
Mr. White noted, however, that there are precedents for states to remain members of the international body after secession of part of their territory — the prime example being India after its partition from Pakistan.
He also noted that as a founder-member of the U.N., the U.K. is in a strong position to maintain its permanent seat, like Russia did after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Mr. Ker-Lindsay of the LSE suggests that were Scotland indeed to go independent, the question of the U.K.’s continuing position in international bodies such as the U.N. would be “the first thing to get off the table” in negotiations between the two nations and is a big bargaining chip in Scotland’s favor. “The U.K.’s permanent membership of the Security Council is one of the greatest symbols of British prestige, there’s no way that London is going to want to give that up,” Mr. Ker-Lindsay said. “Scotland is not going to challenge that, but it can say, ‘You can have that, if we can have other things’ such as support for membership of the E.U.”
A spokesman for the U.K. Foreign Office said that an independent legal opinion on Scottish independence published by the British government said that if Scotland became a new, independent state, the U.K. would continue as before, “and its membership of international organizations and institutions would continue on existing terms.”
A spokesman from India’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment on speculations about Security Council membership..
Could India Gain From Scottish Independence? - India Real Time - WSJ
