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The influence of states and groups of states on and in the Security Council and General Assembly, 1980–94

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Sally Morphet
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Extract

The aim of this paper is to consider the way the main political groups of states, as well as important individual states, promote their interests in the Security Council and, where relevant, the General Assembly. It examines the composition, cohesion, interests and voting behaviour of these states and groups of states (and the way they have changed) between 1980 and 1994. It also discusses how they have used their political assets to increase their power overall within the whole system and how this has affected the development of both the Security Council and the General Assembly as well as their interrelationship.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , October 1995 , pp. 435 - 462
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1995

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References

1 The opinions expressed are the author's own and should not be taken as an expression of official government policy.

2 A short account of the development of the non-aligned is given in my article on ‘The Non-Aligned Movement and the Foreign Ministers' Meeting at Nicosia’, International Relations, 9, No. 5, May 1989, pp. 393–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The subject is well covered in Jackson, Richard L., The Non-Aligned, the UN and the Superpowers (Praeger Special Studies, New York, 1983)Google Scholar. A useful account of the development of the Group of 77 is given in Rothstein, Robert L., The Third World and US Foreign Policy (Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1981)Google Scholar.

3 The non-members of the UN were the PLO and SWAPO, both UN observers, and North Korea which was not then a UN member.

4 The two without votes were Palestine which remains an observer in the U N system, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) which cannot participate in the work of the General Assembly since it cannot automatically continue the membership of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. SCR 777, 19 September 1992.

5 The Group of 77, formed in 1963, meets periodically to discuss economic issues. It consists primarily of members of the African, Asian and Latin American regional groups at the UN. See also n. 2 above.

6 Observers in the movement are states which are eligible to join the movement but have decided not to do so. They can participate in most, but not all, non-aligned activities.

7 The details are taken from two FCO Research and Analysis Department Memoranda produced in January 1994: Summary of United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1946–1993 and Table of Vetoed Resolutions in the United Nations Security Council 1946–1993.

8 Over the forty-nine years the Security Council has been in operation (up to the end of 1994) the number of unanimous resolutions passed has been equal to half or more of the resolutions passed in thirty-two of these years. The last year in which non-unanimous exceeded unanimous resolutions was 1980. The longest sequence of years in which non-unanimous exceeded unanimous resolutions was 1947–53 inclusive.

9 Jackson, , Non-Aligned, pp. 116–19Google Scholar.

10 Taylor, Paul, ‘The United Nations system under stress: financial pressures and their consequences’, Review of International Studies, 17 (1991), p. 369CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This study also shows that this assessment was somewhat simplistic.

11 See p. 207 of the chapter on ‘UN Peacekeeping and Election Monitoring’ in Roberts, Adam and Kingsbury, Benedict (eds.), United Nations, Divided World, 2nd edn (Clarendon Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

12 Jackson, , Non-Aligned, p. 118.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., pp. 128–9.

14 Members of the Security Council, with others, particularly regional groups, continued to attempt to find ways of settling long-standing regional disputes from the early 1980s onwards in the context of Chapter VIII of the UN Charter. These attempts included the peacemaking activities of the Contadora Group in Central America, whose actions were endorsed by the Security Council in 1983; of ASEAN in Asia; and of the United States in southern Africa. These were combined with renewed pressure by the UN Secretary-General to bring about an end to the conflict in Cambodia.

15 See The Singapore Symposium: The Changing Role of the United Nations in Conflict Resolution and Peacekeeping 13–15 March 1991 (UN DPI, New York, 1991).Google Scholar

16 For discussion of this period see my article on ‘The Non-Aligned in “The New World Order”. The Jakarta Summit, September 1982’, International Relations, 11 No. 4, April 1993, pp. 371–3Google Scholar.

17 See The Singapore Symposium, pp. 42–6.

18 The Times, 13 October 1990.

19 A/44/PV.79 of 21 December 1989 for 11 December 1989. The question had been previously brought up in the early 1970s.

20 The texts of these letters are given in A44/965 and A44/973.

21 S/PV.2693, 29 November 1990, pp. 61–2.

22 See Bailey, Sydney D., The Procedure of the UN Security Council, 2nd edn (Oxford 1988), pp. 254–70Google Scholar.

23 See A/45/PV.63 of 28 December 1990 for 10 December 1990.

24 See A/46/PV.70 of 30 December 1991 for 12 December 1991.

25 A/47/PV.106, 12 July 1993.

26 Cuba noted (pp. 39–40) for instance that the consultations held in July 1991 on the need for transparency in the work of the Council did not even rate a mention in the report before them.

27 S/26015,30June 1993.

28 S/26176, 27 July 1993.

29 See GAOR 41st and 42nd plenary meetings of 28 October 1993: A/48/PV.41, 17 November 1993 and A/48/PV.42, 19 November 1993.

30 S/PRST/1994/81, 16 December 1994; see also S/1995/234, 29 March 1995.

31 A/48/985, 18 August 1994.

32 A/46/PV.68, 23 December 1991 for 11 December 1991.

33 A/47/PV.69, 10 December 1992 for 23 November 1992.

34 A/47/PV.84, 8 January 1993 for 11 December 1992.

35 GAOR 61st, 62nd and 64th plenary meetings on 23 and 24 November 1993: A/48/PV.61, 3 December 1993; A/48/PV.62, 3 December 1993; A/48/PV.64, 7 December 1993.

36 The United States vetoed a draft resolution in May 1995 on the invalidity of Israel, as occupying power, expropriating land in East Jerusalem.

37 See also my ‘Non-Aligned in the “New World Order” ’.

38 This also made history” as it was taken by Libya to the ICJ.

39 Translated into percentages the permanent members voted together on 63% of resolutions passed in 1980–5, 86% between 1986 and July 1990, and 92% between August 1990 and December 1994. The equivalent figures for the non-aligned are 95%, 100% and 90%.