The InterDependent

The Pacific Island nations succeeded in their big push for better recognition within the United Nations system through a name change from the Asian Group, to which they all belong, to the Asia-Pacific Group. It is only the third time since the creation of the UN in 1945 that such a "change of Group nomenclature,” as it is called, has occurred.

At a plenary meeting of the group on Aug. 23, it was decided that the formal name should be Group of Asia and the Pacific Small Island Developing States, and that the shortened version for everyday UN parlance would be Asia-Pacific Group.

After a 72-hour silent procedure during which no member country raised any objection, the decision was considered final on Aug. 26, and the mission of Laos, which held the presidency of the group that month, sent a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to inform him of the change. The letter emphasized that the change would not alter the group's membership or working methods.

The issue related to the debate that had been raging among the 192 member countries on the need to adjust the UN system to the realities of today's world, as opposed to the early post-World War II period.

The proposal came from the Asian Group's 11 Pacific Island member countries: Micronesia, Fiji, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. A 12th Pacific country, Kiribati, is a UN member but does not have a permanent mission yet. When it does, it is expected to join the group. All these nations gained their independence between 1970 and 2000.

With the requirement in 1946 to elect nonpermanent members for seats in the Security Council, five informal regional groups were set up to provide equal geographic distribution of seats. These were the Asian and African Group; the British Commonwealth; the Eastern Europe Group; the Latin American Group; and the Western Europe and Others Group (Weog), comprising Western Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

In 1965, a major change of nomenclature was introduced after the big wave of decolonization. The five groups were rearranged as the African Group, the Asian Group, the Eastern Europe Group, the Latin American Group and Weog.

Another change took place in 1988, when the Latin American Group became the Group of Latin American and Caribbean countries, known delightfully as Grulac. This was requested by the Caribbean nations, many of which gained independence between 1962 and 1983, on the grounds that most of them were English-speaking islands, distinct from the mostly Spanish-speaking continental Latin American nations.

Today, the 11 Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS), totaling 21 percent of the 53-member Asian Group, contended that the name did not reflect its diversity. The group's plenary had sole authority to make such a consideration, but it had to achieve consensus to do so. Besides information the secretary-general, it also notifies the president of the General Assembly.

Merbabu/Wikipedia

Navali village on Fiji island. Fiji is one of 11 members of the Pacific Small Island Developing States at the UN. They succeeded in petitioning that the Asian Group, of which they are a member, be renamed Asia-Pacific Group to better reflect their representation.

According to a working paper distributed to the group members, other arguments for changing the name included:
- Though the Pacific Islands are culturally connected to Asia, they are not in Asia geographically. The Asian continent is generally defined as stretching in the west from the Bosphorus Strait and the Suez Canal to the extremities of Japan and Indonesia in the east. That makes the Pacific Islands part of Oceania.
- At a time when the Asian Group, which represents 64 percent of the world population but only 53 of 192 votes in the General Assembly, is pushing for more representation in the UN system based on logic, fairness and geopolitical reality, it is right for the group to apply the same principles to the Pacific Islands' representation.
- The change would demonstrate the ability of the Asian Group to adjust to the geopolitical realities of the 21st century, thereby signaling to the UN its readiness for other reforms in the UN system.

The move was "all about the desire of the Pacific Island countries to perform to their full rights and responsibilities in the UN system," Peter Thomson, the Fijian ambassador, told The InterDependent. The working paper was drafted by the Fiji mission at the request of the Asian Group.

The Pacific Small Island Developing States emphasized that the name change would have no impact on the group's membership. The point was made that two international organizations, the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Escap), and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec), used the nomenclature Asia-Pacific and that their Pacific membership was wider, meaning that they include Australia and New Zealand and/or Pacific Rim countries like the U.S. or Chile.

Paulo Filgueiras/UN Photo

Peter Thomson, Fiji's ambassador to the UN.

The concern was that adopting the name Asia-Pacific might open the group's membership to these countries, which are currently members of Grulac or Weog. The Pacific Islands stressed that this concern was unfounded, since it was up to the group to declare who were members. But if this becames an obstacle, they said, the group's new name should be more specific. In that case, they suggested that an alternative could be the Group of Asian and Pacific Island States, or Gap.

Emphasizing that the proposal had clear precedence from the case of Grulac in 1988 (when the Latin American Group became the Group of Latin American and Caribbean countries), the Pacific States were optimistic.

The proposal was "gaining wide approval among the Asian Group ahead of the plenary," said a source close to the issue. But the missions of two big regional players, China and India, both refused to comment for this article, saying that the issue was an internal matter for the Asian Group and that the proposal was still under consideration.