In early 1994 the New Zealand Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Colin Keating, outlined proposals for Security Council reform. In the run up to the fiftieth anniversary year most other ideas centred on an increased membership of the Council, but Keating’s proposals challenged the way in which the Council operated.
New Zealand was one of the Council’s ten non- permanent members, and Keating was concerned that most of the Council’s business was conducted in secret, informal sessions. A lack of transparency in decision making bothered Keating, and one of his suggestions was to record the Council’s secret deliberations on closed-circuit television so that other UN members could know the issues discussed, know what the Council was doing and the policies pursued. The proposal did not go down well with the permanent members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
