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Weighted Voting in International Organizations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Elizabeth McIntyre
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Extract

The idea of weighted voting is not new. In 1849 Sir George Cornewall Lewis stated that “history affords instances in which opinions have been weighed instead of counted”, and the subsequent unfolding of a system which finds notable contemporary expression in the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Monetary Fund has seen various manifestations. While it would be extravagant to assert that weighted voting is a crucial issue of the present day, or even a hotly-contested one, its potentialities as a means toward more effective international procedure merit discussion.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , November 1954 , pp. 484 - 497
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1954

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References

1 Quoted in Heinberg, John Gilbert, “Theories of Majority Rule,” The American Political Science Review, XXVI, 1932, p. 469Google Scholar.

2 SirSatow, Ernest, A Guide to Diplomatic Practice, New York, Longmans, Green & Co., 1922, II, p. 133Google Scholar.

3 To differentiate between political and non-political, or technical and non-technical agencies is not entirely satisfactory since the line of demarcation is at best tenuous. Perhaps no greater exactness can be attained than to distinguish between conferences primarily political and those primarily technical.

4 Article 63 (b) of the ITO chapter on Inter-Governmental Commodity Agreements provides that in voting in the commodity councils “participating countries which are mainly interested in imports of the commodity concerned shall, in decisions on substantive matters, have together a number of votes equal to that of those mainly interested in obtaining export markets for the commodity”.

5 United States. Congress (79th). House. Committee on Banking and Currency. Hearings … March 7–23, 1945Google Scholar; Ibid., Senate. Committee on Banking and Currency. Hearings … June 12–28, 1945Google Scholar.

6 From a Netherlands and Belgian memorandum submitted to the London meeting in reply to the British proposal. E/PC/T/CV/21.

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14 Document A/C.l/55.

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16 See above, p. 494.

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