The following is an archived copy of a message sent to a Discussion List run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
Views expressed in this archived message are those of the author, not of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
[Main archive index/search] [List information] [Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq Homepage]
> UNMOVIC was created by resolution 1284 of 17 December 1999. As you all > remember, three of the five permanent members of the Security > Council (namely > France, China and Russia) abstained from voting on this > resolution. According to > Article 27 of the Charter of the UN, this resolution should NOT > have even been > adopted, because it did not fulfill the requirement laid down by > the Charter: it > did not acquire the CONCURRING VOTE OF ALL FIVE PERMANENT MEMBERS. Article 27 reads: > Decisions of the Security Council on all other matters shall be made by an affirmative vote > of nine members including the concurring votes of the permanent members; provided that, > in decisions under Chapter VI, and under paragraph 3 of Article 52, a party to a dispute > shall abstain from voting." [http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/] The first clause is the relevant one here. It does not require the concurring votes of all five permanent members, merely "the permanent members". While it may have been clearer to phrase this as "those permanent members voting", I have heard nothing to suggest that this is not how it has always been interpreted. Thus, a single vote against a resolution by a permanent member is sufficient to block a resolution, but abstentions have never, to my knowledge, been so interpreted. It is certainly the case that the abstentions of China, France, Russia and Malaysia (a non-permanent member) reduced the perceived support for the resolution. Colin Rowat work | Room 406, Department of Economics | The University of Birmingham | Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK | web.bham.ac.uk/c.rowat | (+44/0) 121 414 3754 | (+44/0) 121 414 7377 (fax) | c.rowat@bham.ac.uk personal | (+44/0) 7768 056 984 (mobile) | (+44/0) 7092 378 517 (fax) | (707) 221 3672 (US fax) | c.rowat@espero.org.uk _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk