Voting and Politics in the General Assembly
| DOI | 10.1177/004711786100200304 |
| Published date | 01 April 1961 |
| Date | 01 April 1961 |
| Author | Roderick C. Ogley |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
156
VOTING
AND
POLITICS
IN
THE
GENERAL
ASSEMBLY
By
RODERICK
C.
OGLEY
A S
a
political
institution
the
General
Assembly
of
the
United
Nations
is
often
disparaged,
occasionally
praised,
but
only
rarely
analysed.
The
Secretary-General
has
indeed
repeatedly
insisted
that &dquo;
before
a
political
evaluation
is
possible
of
the
results
of
the
Assembly’s
votes,
further
analysis
of
...the
composition
of
majorities
and
minorities
is
required,
&dquo;I
but
almost
no
attention
has
been
paid
to
this,
and
unsupported
political
evaluations
are
rife.
Not
merely
is
the
substance
of
its
decisions
criticised ;
many
would
deny
that
as
it
is
now
organised
it
is
fit
to
arrive
at
any
recommenda-
tion
worth
the
consideration
of
the
powers
to
whom
it
may
be
addressed ;
while
even
those
who
admit
its
standing
are
not
in-
frequently
heard
complaining
of
situations
which
do
not
exist,
but
which
they
have
managed
to
create
by
applying
impeccable
arithmetic
to
dubious
assumption.
2
It
would
therefore
seem
of
some
value
to
test
these
assumptions.
This
article
describes
the
results
of
an
admittedly
primitive
attempt
to
do
so.
At
its
root
lies
one
fundamental
question-are
there
any
criteria
by
which
the
performance
of
a
world-wide
deliberative
body
can
be
judged,
independently
of
the
actual
content
of
the
resolutions
it
passes?
Is
there
any
generalised
formal
requisite
of
such
reso-
lutions,
for
them
to
carry
authority?
Or
to
put
the
same
point
inversely,
are
there
any
formal
characteristics
of
such
resolutions
which
might
reasonably
be
expected
to
result
in
their
being
dis-
regarded,
even
held
in
contempt?
There
seem
to
me
to
be
three
possible
criteria
of
this
kind.
There
is
for
instance
a
wide
disparity
between
the
populations
of
different
members
of
United
Nations,
each
of
whom
has
one
vote
in
the
General
Assembly.
Not
to
mention
the
doubtful
case
of
China,
these
range
from
Iceland
with
less
than
two
hundred
thousand
to
India
with
nearly
four
hundred
million.
It
would
tend
to
diminish
the
authority
of
Assembly
decisions
if
the
total
population
of
states
voting
in
favour
of
them
generally
tended
to
be
less
than
that
of
the
minority
voting
against.
An
equally
marked
discrepancy
may
be
observed
between
the
amounts
which
different
states
are
required
to
pay
towards
the
Organisation’s
expenses.
This
assessment
is
based
on
an
estimate
of
each
member’s
financial
capacity ;
it
could
thus
be
argued
that
if
in
fact
the
Assembly’s
majorities
are
as
a
rule
composed
of
states
1
E.g.
in
the "
Introduction
to
the
Annual
Report
of
the
Secretary-General
on
the
Work
of
the
Organisation,
1958-9
",
p.
2
from
which
this
quotation
comes.
2
As
M.
Spaak’s
complaint
in
the
Belgian
Senate,
shortly
after
the
Suez
crisis,
that "
there
is
as
yet
no
European
group
in
the
United
Nations
to
match
the
power
of
the
Afro-Asians
or
the
two
great
world
powers ",
quoted
and
apparently
endorsed
by
the
Economist.
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