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A route to remove China from the UN, presented briefly in the Petition, is via the recommendation of the Security Council by applying Article 6 of the UN Charter[1].
“A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council."
To examine the UN membership of China, the Petition calls for a special session of the General Assembly requested by the Security Council as stipulated in Article 20 of the UN Charter. To do so a member of the Security Council is to bring the issue in front of the Security Council and wins the affirmative vote of 9 Security Council Members as stipulated in Article 27 of the UN Charter:
“2. Decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members.
3. 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;”
Briefly, a recommendation of the Security Council regarding the removal of China from the UNSC can be achieved if the issue is considered as a procedural matter (thus avoid the veto of China as in point 3 right above) and there are affirmatives vote of nine members, among the current 15 members[2], of the Security Council.
The removal of China from the UN can be argued as a procedural matter. In fact, there have been divergences as to what constituted a procedural or substantive issue[3]. In Resolution 267(III) of 14 April 1949, the General Assembly recommended to the Security Council to consider as procedural several types of issues, including those below:
· “submission to the General Assembly of any questions relating to the maintenance of international peace and security;
· request to the Secretary-General for the convocation of a special session of the General Assembly”
As presented in the Petition, members of the Security Council who are in favour of the removal of China from the UN or the Security Council can request for the submission of the question to the General Assembly by claiming that the presence of China as a UNSC permanent member can hinder the maintenance of world peace and security. They can also request a special session of the General Assembly to discuss the issue. These requests are considered and can be voted in the UNSC as procedural matters, thus avoid the veto of China.
If there are disagreements regarding whether the issue is procedural or not, there could be a preliminary vote on the nature of the matter, followed by a second vote on the matter itself.
That the procedural votes are occurring more frequently in recent years—there have been 12 since 2014, whereas there were only two in the decade prior to that—reflects the willingness of members to push for the Security Council to address specific issues, despite the opposition from some members with veto power. Procedural votes can also be viewed as a useful way to raise awareness and create a record of the Security Council’s efforts to engage on critical issues, and the removal of China from the UNSC could be one of them.
In conclusion, the route as presented shows that the removal of China from the UN Security Council and even the UN is legally feasible. What is needed is the political will of the governments and the people around the world, hence the purpose of the Petition.
References
[1] UN Charter: https://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/un-charter-full-text/
[2] United Nations Security Council members: current 10 members are Belgium, Dominican Republic, Estonia, Germany, Indonesia, Niger, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, South Africa, Tunisia, Viet Nam; and the 5 permanent members are: China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States. https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/content/current-members
[3] Procedural vote: https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/un-security-council-working-methods/procedural-vote.php