Loss of Voting Rights in the UN General Assembly of a Member in Default of Its Payments

24 Loss of Voting Rights in the UN General Assembly of a Member in Default of Its Payments

Editorial Note: When the United Nations General Assembly established in 1956, in the wake of the Suez campaign of that year, the “United Nations Emergency Force in the Middle East” (UNEF), the Soviet Union and the Soviet-bloc States argued that the expenses of the Force should be borne by the “aggressor States” (the United Kingdom, France and Israel) and not by the United Nations itself and therefore reduced their contributions to the UN budget, as apportioned by the General Assembly. After the establishment by the Security Council, in 1960, in the former Belgian Congo, of ONUC (“Opération des Nations Unies— Congo”), they were joined also by other States, among them France, Mexico and other Latin-American members of the UN. By the end of 1964 all these States found themselves in financial arrears equalling or exceeding contributions due from them for two full years. Thus, they faced the possibility of the loss of their voting rights in the United Nations General Assembly, turning the “financial crisis” of the United Nations into a situation endangering its very existence.

In its Advisory Opinion, requested by the General Assembly, of 20 July 1962, the International Court of Justice, in the Certain Expenses case, by a majority of nine to five, had already decided that the expenses of UNEF and ONUC were “expenses of the Organization,” within the meaning of Article 17(2) of the UN Charter and shall be borne by members as apportioned by the General Assembly. Since the defaulting States, led by the Soviet Union and France, persevered in their position, it was decided, after lengthy negotiations, at the end of 1964 to ignore their past default, and thus to secure the continuing existence of the UN.

17 October 1963

1. Article 19 of the UN Charter reads as follows:

A Member of the United Nations which is in arrears in the payment of it financial contribution to the Organization shall have no vote in the General Assembly if the amount of its arrears equals or exceeds the

amount of the contributions due from it for the preceding two full years. The General Assembly may, nevertheless, permit such a Member to vote if it is satisfied that the failure to pay is due to conditions beyond the control of the Member (emphasis added).

2. The question of the interpretation of Article 19 has recently arisen over the exchange of letters which took place between UN Secretary-General U Thant and Sir Muhammad Zafarullah Khan, president of the Fourth Special Session of the General Assembly, regarding the voting rights [in the General Assembly] of the delegation of Haiti. In his letter dated 14 May 1963, the Secretary-General notified the President of the General Assembly that “the arrear contributions from the Government of Haiti exceed by 22,400 U.S. Dollars the amount of the contributions due from it for the preceding two full years and a payment exceeding that amount would be necessary in order to reduce the arrears below the limit specified in Arti- cle 19” (UN Press Services, Note No. 2768 of 21 May 1963).

3. In his reply of 15 May 1963, the President of the General Assembly acknowl- edged the receipt of the Secretary-General’s letter, adding that he “would have made an announcement drawing the attention of the Assembly to the loss of voting rights in the Assembly of the Member State just mentioned, under the first sentence of Article 19, had a formal count taken place in the pres- ence of the representative of that State at the opening plenary meeting. As no such vote took place, and as the representative of Haiti was not present, this announcement became unnecessary” (ibid.). He added that he was transmit- ting a copy of the Secretary-General’s letter and of his reply to the Chairman of the Fifth Committee “so that he may be informed of the situation which will give rise to the loss of the voting rights in the Fifth Committee of the Member concerned if the situation is not previously rectified” (ibid.). He further added that according to the information made available to him, Haiti would “very shortly make the payment necessary to render the first sentence of Article 19 inapplicable” (ibid.).

4. It will be noted that, while the Secretary-General has contented himself with stating that Haiti “is in arrears in the payment of its financial contribution to the United Nations,” Sir Muhammad quite obviously takes the view that a default equalling or exceeding the amount of contributions of two years auto- matically brings about the loss of voting rights of the defaulting Member.

5. The exchange of letters between the Secretary-General and the President of the Special Session of the General Assembly prompted the Permanent