Palestine: the UN's 194th Member?

(PA President Mahmoud Abbas announces his application for UN Membership.

NB: The 1967 Borders includes the Old City; this includes some of the stuff in my helpful visual aide.)

Well, looks like Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has decided to go for full UN Membership next week. Back in March, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Barak warned that international momentum to recognise a Palestinian State on the 1967 borders constituted a "diplomatic tsunami" - and it appears to be getting ready to break in the next fortnight.

There are two issues to deal with when considering applications for UN Membership - the UN's own membership criteria and the process of obtaining membership. Paradoxically, the process is probably more important (and bizarrely, more interesting) than the criteria - which, as will be seen, can and have been fudged.

(Meanwhile, on the East River...)

So what is the process? Initially, a prospective member applies to the Secretary-General (S-G), including an instrument of willingness to accept the obligations contained within the UN Charter. The S-G then passes this across to the UNSC under Article 4(2) of the UN charter which reads:

"4.2 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."

This double-action element requires the UNSC to approve and recommend membership to the UNGA, meaning that any application has to be approved by at least 9 Security Council Members, with no veto thrown by one or more of the Permanent Members. Two things are noteworthy. First, that the UNGA has never rejected a membership application recommended by the UNSC, and second, that an applicant does not become a member until the application has been approved by a two-thirds vote in the UNGA.

Admission as a political, not legal, process

As strange as it may seem to modern eyes where UN membership is assumed to be near universal - Taiwan, Palestine and Western Sahara being the obvious non-members - between 1946 and 1955 membership applications were completely constrained by the Cold War causing States to link applications together. The situation got so bad that in November 1947 the UN General Assembly asked the ICJ for an Advisory Opinion on Admission, which rejected the notion that an application could be rejected for reasons other than the criteria in Article 4(1). The UNGA went further in UNGA Resolution 197/III of December 8, 1948, in effect calling for the UNSC to give up the veto power on applications (a subject that the Security Council has given a stiff ignoring to since then).

During this period, only 9 of 31 membership applications were approved, and the Soviet Union casting 47 vetoes on membership applications in this period. (Recall, that the US didn't use the veto at all until 1972). Ironically, in light of the Obama Administration's statement that it will veto a Palestinian application for UN Membership, the 1948 US Senate Vandenburg Resolution - a key step on the road to establishing NATO - calls in Article 1 for applications to be exempt from the veto.

What criteria can apply?

Article 4(1) sets out the requirements for UN Membership. Prospective UN Members must:

          (i) be a State; 

          (ii) be peace-loving; 

          (iii) accept the obligations of the Charter;

          (iv) be able to carry out these obligations; and
          (v) be willing to do so.

(i) Is Palestine a State - 1933 Montevideo Convention
So the first question is whether Palestine is a "State"? The classical view of Statehood is the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, which require:

          (i) a permanent population;
          (ii) a defined territory;
          (iii) government; and
          (iv) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

There is an interesting debate about whether the Montevideo Criteria are still applicable or whether something more amorphous reflects the current position. However, let's apply Montevideo to Palestine. In their application for UN Membership, it is reported that the Palestinian Authority (PA) will be doing so on the basis of the border of June 4, 1967 - ie, the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War. 

Within these boundaries, there is a permanent population, including over 500,000 Israeli settlers, whose presence is illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention, there is a defined territory, the PA is a government of sorts - namely, it has limited powers over a delimited area - and its' writ does not run in Gaza - but is arguably a lot more effective than other UN member state governments - e.g. Somalia's Transitional Federal Government. Finally, the PA is clearly capable of entering into international relations - it has Embassies around the world, and has had UN Observer Status since 22 November 1974.

So even on the Montevideo Criteria, Palestine appears to be a State.

(Unlike Gaddafi's effort, a Green Book to revere: Justice Simma's brilliant Commentary on the UN Charter.)

(ii) Is Palestine "Peace-Loving"?
Of all of the arguments that those who oppose Palestinian UN Membership, this is superficially the most attractive - after all, hasn't there been a stream of terrorist attacks on Israel from Gaza and the West Bank? Certainly there have been some, and rocket attacks from Gaza against civilian targets inside Israel - and vice versa - should be unambiguously condemned. But as Prof. Konrad Ginther as the University of Graz notes in Simma's Commentary,

"With regard to the admission of the large number of new States resulting from decolonization, however, the criterion 'peace-loving State' was of no practical importance at all." (Ginther in Simma, Commentary, p. 182).

On this basis, the criteria is irrelevant, and we can move on. Ginther offers a more detailed explanation of the historical position: 

"More frequently, an applicant State was judged 'peace-loving' or non-'peace-loving' by reference to its current international behaviour, such as non-compliance with UN Resolutions, interference with innocent passage in territorial waters, recourse to peaceful means for the settlement of disputes, and respect for the principle of non-intervention." (Ginther in Simma, Commentary, p. 182).

Given the effort that Israel is putting into defeating a Palestinian UN membership application, it is an interesting exercise to consider whether on these criteria Israel itself could pass the requirement of being a 'peace-loving' nation.  

International good citizenship: (iii) accept the obligations of the Charter / (iv) be able to carry out these obligations / (v) be willing to do so.

It is pretty clear that the PA would comply with these five requirements - at least as well as the least effective of the UN's existing members. So I would argue that none would preclude a Palestinian membership application.  

 (President Obama speaking at Cairo University in 2009, setting out the his Administration's new approach to the Islamic World in general and the Middle East Peace Process in particular. Ah.)

Avoiding the Trainwreck
Given their public statements, it is essentially inconceivable that the Obama Administration could now back down and vote in favour of Palestinian UN membership - even though in my personal view this is the correct legal and policy choice; to do so would look ridiculous and would open the Obama Administration up to further domestic political attack that it is insufficiently supportive of Israel.*

But a veto - especially a solo veto - is far from a zero-cost option for the US. It is clear that a US veto will isolate the US internationally and in particular in the Arab and Islamic worlds, opening Obama in particular up to a reasonable charge of double standards between his support for pro-democratic forces in the Arab Spring, and the continued Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and blockade of Gaza.

There is another option; the UNSC can refer an application to a Committee on Admission - a process used only once since 1952 in the case of Bangladesh in 1971/72. This provides a route for avoiding the negative fallout for the US and the region occasioned by a US veto, and buys a limited amount of time - probably up to 12 months - for real negotiations to get underway. The NY Times editorial of September 12th suggests that the Quartet (UN, US, EU, Russia) place a map on the table and essentially force both sides to negotiate the land-swaps, water rights and right of return that are at the centre of the final status agreements.  Given the circumstances, therefore, a Committee on Admission and a big-step up in the diplomatic pressure on both sides to achieve a settlement is probably the best of a number of bad options.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the niceties of international law are irrelevant if the Obama Administration has already decided to veto any resolution to allow Palestinian UN Membership. But given the above, if the US wants to veto, then they should be forced to do so alone, and the EU, and in particular Britain and France as fellow P5 members should not offer them any cover. If Palestine qualifies for Membership - and for the reasons outlined above, legally I think that it does - then let the UNSCR fail by 14-1-0 (United States).

*In fact, the Obama May 2011 speech was fair and balanced, and simply reflected the position that everyone else is working to - a two-state solution with agreed land swaps, and final status issues to be negotiated.