In a briefing called Saturday morning for “Arabic” journalists [only] in Ramallah, Nabil Shaath reportedly said — according to a account in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, published here — that
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas “will apply for membership to the Security Council, which may take few days to bring it up for discussion and then a vote. However, he [Shaath] said, in case the Security Council stalls in its procedures and delays discussion of the membership application, the Palestinian Authority may then go to the UN General Assembly to ask for a non-member state post”.
Well, in order to do that, the Palestinians would have to withdraw any request they’d submitted to the UN Security Council — for the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly cannot both be “seized of” the same matter at the same time.
Why? Because the UN Charter says so, here, in Article 12 (1):
“While the Security Council is exercising in respect of any dispute or situations the functions assigned to it in the present Charter, the General Assembly shall not make any recommendation with regard to that dispute or situation unless the Security Council so requests.”
Once the Palestinians submit their request for full membership — which will be in the form of a letter to the UN Secretary General, who will forward it to the UN Security Council — then it would present problems to ask the UN General Assembly at the same time, or while the matter is still pending in the UN Security Council [which could effectively sit on it, for months or even years] to consider a request to upgrade the status of Palestine to observer [though still non-member] state.
One reason why it would be good strategy to go to the UNGA first, to upgrade observer status of Palestine to state [non-member], before going to UNSC, is:
– the UN Charter says, in Article 4(1) that
“Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states [emphasis added here] which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations”;
and Article 4 (2) says:
“The admission of any such state [emphasis added again] to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council [emphasis added here, too]”…
RECOMMENDED READING TODAY:
(1) AMIR TURKI AL-FAISAL – VETO A STATE, LOSE AN ALLY, published on 11 September here.
(2) SIMONE DAUD [PALESTINIAN PROFESSOR] – a nom de plume – ARAB SOURCES: AZMI BISHARA ON PALESTINE’S UN BID [on Mondoweiss blog], published on 16 September, here
(3) JOEL GREENBERG, ABBAS FORMALLY DECLARES STATEHOOD BID, published last night here.