Membership of the United Nations has come to be seen as the ultimate symbol of statehood.
But how does a country join the UN?
[MUSIC]
Hi. Welcome to Independent Thinking.
A channel dedicated to statehood, independence, and the origins of countries.
In the modern world, membership of the United Nations is seen as the defining symbol of statehood.
To be a UN member is to be generally accepted as a sovereign and independent state.
And while there are a handful of UN members that are not recognised by every other member
– such as Israel, Armenia and Cyprus – once a state has joined the United Nations it is,
for all intents and purposes, regarded as a full member of the international community.
Joining the UN is therefore the ultimate goal of any territory seeking independence.
But how does a country actually join the UN?
The broad requirements for membership are laid down in Chapter 2 of the Charter of the
United Nations.
Specifically, Article IV states that ‘Membership in the United Nations is open to all other
peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the
judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations.’
It then says that, ‘The admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations
will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly
upon the recommendation of the Security Council.’
In real terms, this means that there are three formal steps in the process.
First of all, any prospective member must actually apply to join.
Under Rule 58 of the Provisional Rules of Procedure of the UN Security Council, any
country hoping to join the UN must start by submitting an application to the UN Secretary-General.
The application must also include a formal declaration that the country accepts the obligations
of membership.
This part of the process is actually relatively straightforward.
All it requires is a letter from an official, usually the head of state or head of government,
with the required declaration attached.
Once the application has been received by the Secretary-General, it must be immediately
passed on to the Security Council.
This marks the start of the second step of the process.
Obtaining the required recommendation from the Council.
This is usually the most complex part of the process.
Unless otherwise agreed, the Council initially refers the application to the ‘Committee
on the Admission of New Members’.
This has to assess the application according to the three factors contained in
Article IV of the Charter.
- Firstly, does the applicant meet the criteria of statehood?
In other words, does it have a defined territory, settled population, government and the ability
to enter into relations with other states.
By the way, for more on this you might like to see my video on the four key attributes
of a state.
I’ve posted the link above and again at the end.
- Next, the Committee has to assess whether the applicant can be considered a peace-loving
state.
- And, finally, it has to assess whether the prospective member is willing and able to
carry out the obligations contained in the UN Charter.
In terms of a timeframe for reaching a decision, under usual circumstances the Committee must give its
opinion not less than 35 days before a regular session of the General Assembly, which usually starts in
the third week of each September.
If the Committee decides that the applicant meets the necessary criteria, then the next
step is for the Security Council to pass a resolution recommending membership.
For this to happen, the application needs the positive support of at least nine of the
15 members of the Council.
Crucially, however, the veto of the five permanent members applies.
China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States all have the power to
block membership.
If even one of those five objects, for whatever reason, then the recommendation for membership
can’t be made.
If the vote passes in the Security Council, then the application goes to the third stage:
formal approval by the General Assembly.
The General Assembly is the main decision-making body of the United Nations and includes all
current members of the organisation.
According to the Assembly’s Rules of Procedure, it too shall consider whether the applicant
is a peace-loving State and is able and willing to carry out the obligations contained in
the Charter.
Assuming that it does, a vote on membership needs to be passed by a two-thirds majority
of the members present and voting.
In actual numerical terms, this means that if every member is present and votes, any
new applicant would need the support of 129 of the current 193 members of the organisation.
If the application is approved by the General Assembly, then it falls to the Secretary-General
to formally inform the country of the decision.
According to the rules of procedure, a country becomes a member on the day of a positive General
Assembly vote.
But what happens if the application is rejected, or a decision is postponed, by the
Security Council?
In this case, the Council has to submit a report to the General Assembly with a complete
record of the discussions leading to the decision.
The last time this happened was in 2011, when Palestine applied to join.
The Committee on New Members had to outline its discussions on the application and explain
why it was unable to make a unanimous decision to recommend membership to the Security Council
as a whole.
I have included a link to this report and other key documents in the description below.
Once it has the report, the General Assembly may then refer the matter back to the Council
with a record of its own discussions and request that the application is reviewed again.
What is less clear is what would happen if a state is rejected by the General Assembly.
To be honest, this seems extremely unlikely.
If an application has made it through the Security Council, and therefore been endorsed
by all the permanent members, there would seem to be little chance that it would then
face opposition in the General Assembly as a whole.
While the process of membership may appear potentially long-winded and time consuming,
in reality it can be done extremely quickly.
For example, in the case of the last two countries to join the United Nations it was a very speedy
process.
In Montenegro’s case, it took three and a half weeks from the declaration of independence,
on 3rd June 2006, to UN membership, on 28th June.
In the case of South Sudan, the most recent country to join, it was even faster.
It declared independence on July 9th 2011 and joined the UN on July 14th.
Altogether, it took less than a week to join the UN.
So, to join the UN, a country needs to complete three steps.
Firstly, it needs to submit a formal application to the UN Secretary General with a declaration
that it can meet the obligations of membership.
Secondly, it needs to obtain a resolution recommending membership from the Security
Council after a full assessment of its suitability.
And, thirdly, it needs to receive the support of two-thirds of the countries taking part
in a vote in the General Assembly.
If a state can pass these three stages, it becomes a member of the United Nations.
Thanks a lot for watching.
I hope you found it useful.
If you did, please don’t forget to press the ‘Like’ button below.
And don’t forget to Subscribe for future episodes.
Also, if you have any suggestions for topics you’d like to see covered in future,
do leave a comment below.
[MUSIC]