How UN will decide whether to grant Taliban a seat at the table

The United Nations General Assembly, an annual ritual in New York for the world’s 193 member states, is facing a unique dilemma this year.

It’s grappling with whether to allow the Taliban a seat in the debating chambers after the group took control of the central Asian country in a move that took the world by surprise.

This is after Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi wrote to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres requesting to participate in the 76th session of the UN General Assembly.

A published schedule shows Afghanistan is expected to speak on Monday, September 27, on the same day as North Korea, Myanmar and Guinea.

Although the Taliban seized power last month after the US and allied forces pulled out of the country, no member of the UN has publicly recognised the Taliban, which was proscribed as a terrorist group, as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

But on Tuesday night, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told a virtual press event in New York that the world must be prepared for a new reality that the Taliban is back in formal politics.

“How do you engage with them? Do you engage with them by recognising them? Do you engage with them knowing that they are a reality?” he posed at a Foreign Press Association virtual event on Tuesday night, indicating that the Taliban should be “constructively engaged” if they show signs of reform.

How the UN will decide

So how will the UN decide whether or not to allow the Taliban to speak? The answer lies in a straightforward majority vote by member states, even though the decisions have in the past been politically delayed or frustrated.

For this year, a committee made up of Russia, China, the United States, Sweden, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Chile, Bhutan and the Bahamas is supposed to decide on this issue before it is put to a vote.

But it may be complicated, as China once saw in the past. Membership of the UN “is open to all peace-loving States that accept the obligations contained in the United Nations Charter and, in the judgment of the Organisation, are able to carry out these obligations”, says the UN Charter.

That means all states and their governments must be ready to abide by its rules or be punished. North Korea, for example, has remained a member although it is under heavy sanctions from the UN Security Council for running a proscribed nuclear programme.

Recognition: first steps

Usually, recognition for a state or government begins with a letter from its representative. In this case, Mr Muttaqi indicated that the old government of President Ashraf Ghani and the then permanent representative to the UN, Ghulam Isaczai, “no longer represents” the interests of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the new name for the country.

The Taliban nominated Suhail Shaheen, who had been the group’s spokesman at their talks in Qatar, as Afghanistan's permanent representative to the UN.

To decide whether the Taliban become recognised at the UN, the decision will move from the committee to the General Assembly, but only after the recommendation of the Security Council. Usually a new government or state is admitted on a two-thirds majority vote.

In 1971, China (officially, the People’s Republic of China) replaced Taiwan (officially Republic of China) as a member of the UN and a permanent member of the UN Security Council. The official capital of China was recognised as Peking (now Beijing), from Taipei in Taiwan. At the time, China’s Mao Zedong profited from massive support from African and Asian countries with which he had built relations during their liberation struggles.

The Communist Party of China had been fighting for recognition from the Nationalists in Taipei and the vote had been rejected before. In September 1950, the Fifth UN General Assembly voted down resolutions on the restoration of the People's Republic of China in the United Nations respectively put forward by the Soviet Union and India.

It instead set up a special committee composed of Canada, Ecuador, India, Iraq, Mexico, the Philippines and Poland to review China's representation. In the meantime, China was ordered to accept representation from the ‘Republic of China’ but the vote did not make a breakthrough until 10 years later.

That time, the UN General Assembly voted to admit Beijing in 76 votes against 35, with 17 abstentions. That vote was sponsored by Albania, Algeria and 21 other countries, which effectively expelled Taiwan from the UN. To date, Beijing blames the US for “manipulating the votes”.

For now, the Taliban’s fate lies with the UN Security Council, which must vote on the committee’s recommendation with at least nine votes (of the 15) for their admission, including all the five permanent members: US, Russia, France, UK and China.

“If the Council recommends admission, the recommendation is presented to the General Assembly for consideration. A two-thirds majority vote is necessary in the Assembly for admission of a new State,” says the UN guide on admission of new governments or states.

“Membership becomes effective the date the resolution for admission is adopted.”

The letter, in the meantime, means that there will be questions on credentials given to Ghani’s appointee to the UN. The UN had not yet revoked Isaczai’s credentials to speak at UN meetings, although the General Assembly requires that all delegates be vetted to confirm they actually represent their governments.

“During such consideration, which routinely takes place first in the nine-member Credentials Committee but can also arise at other times, the issue can be raised whether a particular representative has been accredited by the Government actually in power,” explains the guide. Such approval is decided by a majority vote in the General Assembly.

There should, however, have been no issue if, say, the Taliban won an election by defeating Ghani. The UN assumes that governments work in perpetuity, successively replaced through legal means.
What the Taliban did is not yet legal.