London: United Kingdom welcomes India, Brazil, Japan and Germany as permanent members of the UN Security Council, alongside permanent African representation, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said.

"Now we don't believe everything is perfect, and we're not standing in the way of reform. In fact, the UK wants to welcome Brazil, India, Japan and Germany as permanent members of the UN Security Council, alongside permanent African representation," Cleverly said.

Talking about the United Nations, he said Britain joined hands with the US, France and nearly 50 other nations to create the group. And the UN General Assembly adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights without a single dissenting vote, proclaiming - and I quote - the "inalienable right of all members of the human family".

In the same era, 23 nations founded what would become the World Trade Organisation and the World Bank began to fund reconstruction and recovery across the globe, he added.

"For all the tragedies and bloodshed of the last 8 decades, the remarkable truth is that by historical standards, that system has worked. Between 1946 and 2020, the number of deaths in state conflicts as a share of global population fell by 95 per cent," UK Foreign Secretary said.

"And only once since the foundation of the UN has a member country been wiped off the map, with its entire national territory annexed by another. That act of aggression, by Iraq against Kuwait in 1990, was swiftly reversed," he added.

The volume of world trade has multiplied 40 times since 1950, generating countless jobs and livelihoods in every corner of the earth. And in recent decades, the fastest economic growth has been concentrated in the developing world.

"When I was born in 1969, around half of all humans lived in absolute poverty. Today that figure is below 10 per cent, which is all the more astonishing when you consider that the world's population has doubled in that same time," he said.

"And ponder the enormity of the simple fact that global infant mortality has been cut in half over the last 3 decades. That's another way of saying that millions of children have been spared what would otherwise be agonising deaths," Foreign Secretary added.

None of this would have been possible without the institutions of the post-war world, protecting billions with global vaccination campaigns, investing in development and infrastructure, upholding freedom of the seas and maintaining open shipping lanes. The international order has allowed more of our fellow human beings to live in peace and prosperity than ever before. And that is the single most important reason why British foreign policy strives to renew its founding principles and its institutions, he said.

"We should remember that we're not propping up a system that only benefits us, or keeps others down. On the contrary, just as we have prospered, so other countries have thrived alongside us - often faster than us," Cleverly said.