Competence of the General Assembly for the Admission of a State to the United Nations - Advisory Opinion of the Court of 3 March 1950

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Unofficial

The following infosmztiofn rom the Registry of the Intcrnstional

Court of Justice has been communicatet do the press:

'Ata public sitkingtoday, March3rd, 1950,theCourt delivered
fts advisoryOpinion on the competence of the Generaï Assembly of the
United Nations to admit a Çtate to the United Nations. This question
had beenreferred to it by the Assenbly in its Resolution dated
November22nd,1949 ;

The question was frzmed in the following tems:

l'Cmtheadmission of a State to membership in the United Nations,
pursuant to Article 4, paragraph 2, of the Charter, be effected by
a decisian of the General Assembly, when the Security Council has
msde no recommendatio for admission by reason of the candidate
failing to obtain the requislte majgrityor of the negative vote of
a permanent Meniber upon a resolution so to re~ommend?~~

1 The Court answeredthe question in thenegative by twelve votes
against two. The tw dissenting Judges - Judge AZverez and Judge

Azeveda - each appended a staternentaf theFr dissenting opinion to
theCourt's Opinion.
X

The Request for Opinion called upon the Court to interpret Article
4, paragraph 2, of the Charter. Before examining the merits of the
question, the Court considered the objections thathad beenmade to its
doing so, either on the ground that it was not competent to interpret
the Charter, or becauseof thealleged political eharacter of the
question.

$O Oar es concerns its competencet, he Court referred to its
Opinion of May 2&h, 1948, in iJnichIt declared that It coud give an
opinion on any legal question and that there was no provision which
prohibited it from exercising, In regard ta Article 4 of theCharter,
a multilaterd. treaty, an iiiterpretativefunction falling within the
normal exercise *ofits fudicial p~wex-S.. With regardto the second
objection, the Court further pointed out thatit could not attribute a
* political character to a Request which, framed in abstract Lems, fivited

it to underMe an essentiam judicial task, the interpretation of a
treaty provision. There was therefore no reason why it should not
mswer the questionput ta it by the Assembly.

That question enviçaged solely the case in wbich the SecxrrityCouncili
having voted upon a recommendation, had concluded from its vote that the
recommendatio was not adopted because it failed ta obtalntherequjsite
majority,or because of the negative vote of a perment Member of the
Gouncil. Itthus had in viewthe case inwhich the Assembïy was
confronted with the ~bsence of a recommondatfo fnromtheCouncil. The '
Court was not asked to determine the &es governhg the Councilts voting
procedure or to esmine whether the negative vote of a permanentMaber
of the Çouncil was effective to defeat a recomndation which had obtained
seven or mrirevotes. Indeed, the text of the question assumed in such a
case the non-existenc e fa recomendation,

The question was therefore'whethe in,the absence of a recommendation
by theCouncil, the Assembly cciuld mke e decision to admit a State.

The Court has no doubt as to the meaning of the relevant clause:
par~graph 2 of Article & 05 the Charter. Two things were required to

effect ... effectadmission: z recomendation by the Couneil and a decision by
the Assembly. The use in the zrticle ~f the wrds ltre~omendation"
and lTuponHInplied'the idea that the recomendatian waa the founktion
of the decision. Both these acts were indiapensable to form the
'judgmentu of the Organizati~ Cnparagraph 1 of Article 41, the
recomendation beingthe.clnditio pnrecedent to the deciaion by dich the
admissio nas effscted.

Pttenpta had been made to attribute a different moaning to this clause
by hvoking the "travaux pr2paratoires ." Eut the first duty 09 a
tribunal.whichwss called upon to interprat a text was to endeavour to
give effect to the words used in the conte& in hich they occurrod, by
attributing t3 them their n~tural and ordinam meaning. In the present
case, therewas no difficulty in ascertainhg the natural and ordinary
meaning of the\words in question, and of givlng effectto then. Having
regard to these considerations, the Court considered thatit was not
permlssiblf or it to rcs?rt to the lltravauxpr4paratoiresu.

The conclusions triwhich the C~urt was leà by its examination of
paragraph 2 of Article 4 were c9~nfirmed by the structure of the Charter,
and particulzrl by the reletinn sstablished betweenthe knercd Asse,
and the S~curity Council. Bath these bodies wre principal orgms of+t e -
UnitedNations, and the Criuncilwas n~t in a subordinate position,
Moreover, the organs ta wliichArticle 4 entrusted the Judpent of the
Organieatim in natter~ of admission had consistentl yecognised that
admissi~n csuld onLybe granted on the basis of a recomendation bp the
Council. If the Assenblyhad powsr ta admit a Statein the absence of
a recommendati ~n the Cmncil, the latter wuid be deprfved of an
hpnrtant rBle in the exercise of 3ne 3f the essential functions of the
Organization, Nor w-dd i-tbe posaible to admit that the absence of a
recomendztion was equivelent to an I7wiavouable recomendationl' upon
wfiich the Generzl i~ssembly couldbase a decision to adrut a State.,

While keeping within the lirnitsof the Request, itwas enough for
the Cmrt to sey that nowhere had the Assembiyreceived the power to chmge,
to the point of reversing, the meaning of z vote by theCouncil. In
consequencei ,t was impossibl eo admitthat the lrissembly had to
,attribute to 2 vote of the Security Corncil the character of a recommenda-
tion, when the Council itself c~nsidered that no suchrecomendation had
been m~do.
+,
Such mre the reasons which led the Court to repu 2n the negetive
to the question put to it by tho C*eneraXjissembly.

The Hepe, 3rd Plarch, 1950.

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