India on Monday said the United Nations Security Council was grossly unrepresentative of the wider international community and questioned how it can pursue the responsibility to prevent genocide, crimes and humanity.

India’s permanent representative to the UN Syed Akbaruddin made the remarks during a General Assembly debate about “The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and the Prevention of Genocide, War Crimes, Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes against Humanity”.

“How can we ensure commonly accepted legal definitions of the crimes that we are discussing?” asked Akbaruddin. “Which body should be competent enough to take such a decision? What happens if such a body is grossly unrepresentative of the wider international community and contemporary global realities?”

He also said the security council’s record of addressing challenges and its legitimacy were under “serious question”.

Akbaruddin said India’s position is that the responsibility to protect its population is one of the foremost responsibilities. He, however, said the ability of the international community to take appropriate collective action if a state fails to fulfill its responsibility to protect its population, is ridden with serious gaps that need to be answered.

“The quest for a more just global order should not take place in a manner that will undermine international order itself,” Akbaruddin said.

He said that experience shows that the implementation of the notion of Responsibility to Protect so as to prevent, or stop major internal abuses within a state has been used to frame or justify interventions by external powers in several instances.

Earlier on Tuesday, India objected to Pakistan’s reference to alleged “egregious crimes” in Jammu and Kashmir at the United Nations General Assembly. No amount of “empty rhetoric” by Pakistan will change the reality that the state is an “inalienable” part of India, the Indian representative said.