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Ammon News - The UN Security Council members will hold closed consultations, followed by an open meeting, to discuss the Palestinian request, conveyed in a 2 April letter to the Secretary-General, for renewed consideration of its 23 September 2011 application for UN membership, according to a UN Security Council report.

The Secretary-General transmitted the request to the Security Council in a 3 April letter (S/2024/286).

The admission of new members to the UN is decided by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. Generally, the next step following an application for membership is for the Council to hold a formal meeting and refer the application to its standing Committee on the Admission of New Members.

On Monday’s consultations, Council members will determine whether the Committee will deliberate this matter or whether the Council addresses it directly, the report said.

Rule 59 of the Security Council’s provisional rules of procedure states: “[u]nless the Security Council decides otherwise, the application shall be referred by the President to a committee of the Security Council upon which each member of the Security Council shall be represented.”

If the Council agrees to refer the State of Palestine’s admission request to the Committee, that Committee meeting could be held tomorrow afternoon. Following its deliberations, if the Committee eventually recommends admission, it usually presents the Council with a draft resolution. If there is no disagreement over the Committee’s recommendation, the Council would then adopt this resolution.

Since 1971, the Council has generally chosen to refer membership applications to its standing Committee, but in the past, it has also made direct recommendations on admission without referral to the Committee.

If there is opposition to referral, the President of the Council could propose that the referral of the matter to the Committee be put on the agenda of the Council and call for a vote. This would be a procedural vote, requiring nine votes and vetoes would not be applicable. If the proposal is not adopted, the application would then be addressed by the Security Council. At this stage, a Council member could choose to table a draft resolution recommending to the General Assembly the applicant’s admission to the UN.

As admission to UN membership is a substantive issue, it requires the agreement of at least nine of the Council’s 15 members and the veto applies. Past practice has shown numerous cases where an applicant’s admission request has been denied due to a veto cast by at least one permanent member of the Security Council. If the Council does not recommend the application or postpones its consideration of the application, the Council then must submit a special report to the General Assembly, which in turn could ask the Council to reconsider. No admission of a new member has been vetoed since 1976.

It seems that the draft text contains language noting that 139 member states have recognised the State of Palestine and expressing the intent to welcome the State of Palestine as a full member of the UN.

It is possible that if the Council is not ready to decide on the Palestinian application, it could choose to send it to the Committee for an indefinite length of time.