As I understand it the UN Security Council (UNSC) has 5 permanent members. I know China, the US. What are the rest? Russia, the UK?
Also, what happens when a permanent country on the council ceases to exist via conquest, revolution/civil war, or otherwise? Who takes their spot?
The information about members can be found here.
USA,China,Russia,France and UK are permanent members.
“A Member State against which preventive or enforcement action has been taken by the Security Council may be suspended from the exercise of the rights and privileges of membership by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council. A Member State which has persistently violated the principles of the Charter may be expelled from the United Nations by the Assembly on the Council’s recommendation.”
At international law, there’s the concept of succession. When a country ceases to exist, usually some part of the country succeeds to the former country’s international rights and obligations.
That’s exactly what happened when the U.S.S.R. imploded - the new nation of Russia succeeded to most of the U.S.S.R.'s general rights and obligations, including the seat on the Security Council.
Note that the Communist takeover of China in 1949 did not trigger similar succession analysis, since the nation-state of China continued to exist - it went through a radical change of government internally, but that did not amount to a change in China’s status as a sovereign state, nor affect its seat on the Security Council.
Curiously, the EU (which I hate) theoretically has designs on a common foreign policy; it should be interesting to see how this translates into the security council votes. Will the UK align itself with France against the US or will the French move more towards a pro-US stance. Or is the whole idea of 15 countries having a single foreign policy (ditto for a common economic policy) completely crackers?
Sorry for the hijack.
I think you’ve got things mixed up on China. IMHO Mainland China was excluded, until after Nixon started playing ping-pong with them. Who’s responsible for the research?
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*Originally posted by Northern Piper *
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…though until 1971 functional control of the seat was retained by the government of the “Republic Of China”(Taipei) as opposed to the “People’s Republic of China”(Beijing). The RoC had not so much been overthrown as shoved off into a rump territory, and still claimed to be the legit government of the nation. That it held on to the seat so long was in great part due to US pressure, but also to Mao’s regime not assuming some obligations incurred pre-1948 and having joined North Korea in a war against a U.N. Force.
So it also depends on who gets recognized by the world community as your legitimate successor state – in the case of USSR/Russia it was pretty much a no-brainer that the remnant state with most of the land, people and strategic nuclear weapons(let’s not kid ourselves) would have the seat for the taking if she were willing to assume the obligations. In the case of China it took 22 years to build up a majority of nations who recognized the PRC as “The” China.
In the case of a “Vichy” scenario the affected country’s leaders could set up a “Free” government-in-exile and if it had a sympathetic ear abroad, it could retain control of the SC seat. If there’s an actual situation in which the nation-state ceases to have legal continuity, the seat could be declared vacant and the GA try to amend the charter to adjust the permanent membership to a “Big Four.”
Ya know, I’ve never thought about this before, but what was the mechanics of replacing Taipei with Beijing on the Security Council? Couldn’t Taipei simply have vetoed any attempt to replace them?
Sua
Votes on admitting/expelling a country from the UN require a 2/3 majority vote in the General Assembly. This is what happened in October 1971, when the General Assembly voted to replace the Taipei government with the Beijing government. As Taipei’s technical “successor”, Beijing inherited its Security Council seat.
Sidebar: The same vote took place in 1950 after a motion by India, but it did not pass.
IIRC, a General Assembly delegate from an African country literally danced in the aisle after Taiwan was booted out of the UN. I don’t believe that a lot of people in the U.S. foreign policy establishment were happy about that.
So after that move, Taiwan was not only no longer on the security council, but not a member of the UN at all? I don’t think that there’s any dispute (except from mainland China) that Taiwan is a country; the disputed point is just whether Taiwan is China. Or am I mistaken on this?
Actually, there is a dispute that Tawain isn’t a country - from Taiwan itself. While their practical policies has changed significantly in the past decade, Taipei still officially asserts that it is the legitimate government of all of China. Hence, when the General Assembly recognized Beijing as the legitimate government (thanks MrDeath, there simply was no place for Tawain in the UN - it was a rebel faction within China.
Sua
Sorry, I should have been clearer about what I meant about China. China has always held a seat at the U.N. - the question was, which was the goverment of China? That’s different from a succession, where a new country is formed and takes over the obligations of the old one. That is what happened with Russia - the Societ Union ceased to exist, and the new state of Russia succeeded.
The disagreement over China was not whether the state of China had ceased to exist, but which of two competing governments represented that state. ASJRDelerious notes, the question then becomes one of recognition by the international community.
In 1997 I had to consult twice on drafts of organizational resolutions of support for Taiwan, drafts which were provided by the nearest Taiwan (RoC) “Business” Office. The position they proposed IRT international recognition was to say that, in a way similar to Korea today or Germany before 1990, China is one nation, but with the running of its territory split for the foreseeable future among two stable states pending eventual reunification. Until then, the RoC-proposed text indicated, it should be acceptable in this case, as it was in the German and Korean case [sub](their analogy, not mine)[/sub], for the international community to recognize and carry out normal government-to-government business with both states without abandoning the idea of One China.
Meanwhile, in the UN… China has adopted a position of abstaining when a vote is taken on whether to admit new members (such as Tuvalu or Vanuatu) who hold diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The SC does get to file a report to the GA recommending for or against admission, but the GA may act contrary to the report.
Have they formally proposed that to the UN yet? I know that is the position Tawain will likely take (if Beijing ever gets back to it) in negotiations with PRC, but I haven’t heard Beijing going ape***t, so I don’t think they’ve gone to the UN yet.
Sua.
For the past ten or fifteen years India and other countries have hankered for a permanent seat on the Security Council. The front-runners at present seem to be Japan, India, and perhaps Germany. Here is a good discussion of the issues.
There is also talk (quite rightly, IMO) about France and the UK per se being stripped of their permanent membership. Then the EU could have one or two seats on the Council to fill as they wished. This reform would eliminate the whining from Germany and Italy for a permanent seat. The rest of the world is a bit trickier, and while Clinton seemed ready to accept all comers on the Security Council (India and Japan, anyway), the obvious inefficiencies in adding more countries with veto power may not be seen so favorably by the new administration.
As for a common European foreign policy: Increased trade, integration, and homogenation of the continent will effectively lead to a united states of Europe, a phrase despised by Europhobes in Britain and on the continent. On the military/foreign policy side of this, we already see a rapid reaction force being formed. This will be an integrated force compiled of units in each country ready for deployment at short notice. Claims by London to the contrary, this is the first step toward a common army.
So no, the idea’s not completely crackers, although they won’t be as well integrated as the USA. Sorry if I wandered a bit into GD.
Of course this is despite the assurances from Prodi among others that the EU will always remain a union of nation states. I can’t see how they can ‘homogenise’ us. Put us in a blender maybe?
As for a United States of Europe, any plan to bring this about has always been vigourously denied by all the leading EU politicians (when reported in the UK media, lol), although I suspect that this is just a matter of semantics, and the USE will be created in all but name. What we’ve learnt from the IRA should come in pretty handy at last!
Europhobe: did you intentionally use this term? Even among the rabidly europhilic left, the term isn’t really used, they seem to think that eurosceptic is an adequate term for those sceptical about a self determined uncheckable political force superior to national parliaments…
I read somewhere that despite the common myth that the UK votes with the USA nearly every time (thus praised for its ‘special relationship’ with America - and derided as a US lackey elsewhere) and France automatically votes against the US as if it was a Stalinist regime; in reality France and the UK aren’t that much different in their overall UNSC voting. For example, both oppose the US embargo on Cuba, both have relations with Iran, Libya, and most of the other regimes America labels as bogeymen, both are nowhere near as pro-Israel as the US and so on.
I’d like to be able to confirm this, but I had a hell of a time trying to find UN records of votes online. It’s not like the US Congress, where ‘score cards’ are compiled by all the interest groups.
The only one I found was from a Canadian Jewish site, which evaluated “pro-Israel” and “anti-Israel” votes, by what were probably strict standards.
http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/un/record9899.html
‘Special Relationship’ :rolleyes:
It makes me cringe every time I see this phrase.
I don’t think it means anything really, certainly not to the Americans at any rate.
A few Brit politicians will continue to delude themselves I suppose.
Jaimest: I hadn’t meant to imply that the UK always votes with and France against the US, as the final vote is usually a rather artificial construction arrived at through much deal-making. I was suggesting the tendancies of the two countries.
Sorry it took so long to reply, my ISP was kaputt.
Euroskeptic was the word that first came to mind, but I wasn’t sure that it fully encompasses the movement, fearing that it relates more to the common currency issue. Perhaps I was overcautious; the nuances are trickier to come by when I only see stories on the issue every few weeks.
Special Relationship - You’re right, I doubt Bush would risk relations with Latin America for the UK’s sake, in the way Reagan did during the Falklands War. On the bright side, you can still claim a special relationship with Canada. Most of it, anyway.
It’s been a long time, but IIRC the Republic of China (Taiwan) left the UN in protest at the admittance of the People’s Republic of China. That is, if the PRC joined the UN, then Taiwan didn’t want any part of that organization. Bad move in hindsight.