Chapter VI. Selected legal opinions of the secretariats of the United Nations and related intergovernmental organizations

SELECTED LEGAL OPINIONS OF THE SECRETARIATS OF THE UNITED NATIONS AND RELATED INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS

Legal opinions of the Secretariat of the United Nations (Issued or prepared by the Office of Legal Affairs)

1. PROCEDURES TO BE FOLLOWED WITH REGARD TO THE ACCREDITATION OF REPRESENTATIVES AT UNITED NATIONS OFFICES AWAY FROM HEADQUARTERS

   Memorandum to the Executive Assistant to the Secretary-General

   You have requested my views on the procedures for accreditation of representatives at United Nations offices away from Headquarters.

   A copy of a proposed note to Permanent Missions that is attached for your consideration reflects the approved procedures in this respect

   27 April 1984

   ANNEX

   The Secretariat of the United Nations presents its compliments to the Permanent Missions to the United Nations and has the honour to recall for the benefit of their Governments the procedure to be followed with regard to the accreditation of Permanent Representatives to the different offices of the United Nations at Geneva, Vienna and Nairobi,

   The credentials of Permanent Representatives are to be established in the name of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. The new Permanent Representatives are to present their credentials to the Director-General of the Office concerned or to the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme who shall receive them on behalf of the Secretary-General and immediately communicate the relevant information to the Secretary-General. The date of accreditation shall be the date on which the credentials are presented, respectively, to the Director-General or the Executive Director.

   The co-operation of the Permanent Missions in bringing this information to the attention of their Governments is highly appreciated and will assist the Secretariat in its efforts to ensure that accreditation procedures at United Nations offices away from Headquarters are uniformly and consistently followed.

   The Secretariat of the United Nations avails itself of this opportunity to renew to the Permanent Missions the assurances of its highest consideration.

2. QUESTION WHETHER DEBTS RELATED TO THE UNITED NATIONS INTERIM FORCE IN

   LEBANON MAY BE SET OFF AGAINST UNIFIL ASSESSMENTS

   Memorandum to the Assistant Secretary-General, Controller, Office of Financial Services

1. This is in reply to your memorandum of 11 June requesting a legal opinion to assist in preparing a response to a letter from the Permanent Representative of a Member State on the proposed set-off of UNIFIL-related debts against UNIFIL assessments.

2. UNIFIL was established on the basis that "the costs of the Force shall be considered as expenses of the Organization to be borne by the Members in accordance with Article 17, paragraph 2, of the Charter" (Report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of

   Security Council resolution 425 (1978), S/12611, para. 11, endorsed by the Security Council in its resolution 426 (1978) of 19 March 1978). This arrangement was in effect approved by the General Assembly by its resolution S-8/2 of 21 April 1978, its first resolution on the "Financing of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon", as well as by its subsequent resolutions on this subject, by all of which it assessed the expenditures of UNIFIL on the Member States according to a special scale.

3. Since the contributions to be made to UNIFIL are assessed contributions, they are governed by article V of the Financial Regulations, and in particular by financial regulation

   5.5 specifying that "annual contributions and advances to the Working Capital Fund shall be assessed and paid in United States dollars." Although financial rules 105.6 (d) and 105.7 provide for the possibility of paying assessed contributions in other currencies, no regulation or rule or General Assembly decision provides for the payment of contributions in kind—e.g., by providing troops or other assistance to a peace-keeping force.

4. The General Assembly in its latest decisions on this subject (resolutions 3 8/3 8 A and B of 5 December 1983) recognized, as it had in earlier resolutions, the problems in financing UNIFIL, especially in the light of the withholding of contributions by certain States, and specifically the difficulties that the Organization consequently faced in meeting its obligations to the Governments of the troop-contributing States. It consequently called again for voluntary contributions for UNIFIL and suspended the application of certain financial regulations (4.3,

   4.4, 5.2 (b) and (d)). However, it did not suspend regulation 5.5, or permit offsets by troopcontributing States, as no doubt it could have done.

5. Consequently the relief sought by the Government in question is one that only the General Assembly could provide. Should the Government proceed with the course announced in its letter, without securing the Assembly's permission, then over a period of time the application of Article 19 of the Charter of the United Nations will arise as in respect of other States withholding contributions for peace-keeping operations.

   12 June 1984

3. DIFFICULTIES ARISING FROM THE UNAVAILABILITY OF THE CHAIRMAN AND VICE-CHAIRMAN OF A STANDING COMMITTEE OF THE UNITED NATIONS COUNCIL FOR NAMIBIA—PROCEDURE CONSISTENTLY FOLLOWED IN SUCH CASES IN UNITED NATIONS MEETINGS

   Memorandum to the Secretary, United Nations Council for Namibia

1. Reference is made to your memorandum dated 22 December 1983 in which you requested advice in connection with difficulties that have arisen at meetings of one of the Standing Committees of the United Nations Council for Namibia whenever its Chairman and Vice-chairman were absent.

2. The absence of both the Chairman and the Vice-chairman should not prevent the Standing Committee concerned from performing the work entrusted to it. In accordance with established procedures consistently followed in United Nations meetings, if a chairman is absent from a meeting and no other officer of the body concerned is available to preside over the meeting, another person from among the representatives attending the meeting may be selected by the members of the body concerned to preside over the deliberations of that body if there is a quorum required. There is absolutely no legal obstacle to such a procedure being followed also at meetings of the Standing Committees of the United Nations Council for Namibia if circumstances so warrant. In such situations as representative of the Secretary-158

   General should open the meeting and act as temporary chairman until a representative of a member of the Standing Committee concerned is selected to act as presiding officer for that meeting.

   6 January 1984

4. REQUESTS FROM MEMBER STATES FOR CIRCULATION IN UNITED NATIONS BODIES OF

   DECLARATIONS OR PROGRAMMES OF ACTION ADOPTED BY INTERGOVERNMENTAL MEETINGS OUTSIDE THE UNITED NATIONS—PRACTICE OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL, THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY AND THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL IN THIS RESPECT

   Cable to the Senior Legal Officer, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

   I refer to your cable concerning requests from Member States for circulation of declarations or programmes of action adopted by intergovernmental meetings outside the United Nations.

   (a) In the Security Council practice, any Member State may request circulation of a text as a Security Council document and such requests are routinely acted upon by the Secretariat.

   (b) Under General Assembly procedures, any Member State may request circulation of a text as a General Assembly document, provided that the request is expressly linked in writing to an item on the agenda of the current session or on the provisional agenda of the following session. A similar procedure applies in the Economic and Social Council.

   (c) To avoid duplication, rules and guidelines in effect on control and limitation of documentation do not permit reproduction of documents that have already been published as official United Nations documents with general distribution.

   (d) If the request envisaged in your cable relates to the Quito Declaration, your attention is drawn to the fact that that Declaration has already been published in an official document of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council under a joint symbol and given general distribution. In these circumstances we suggest that if certain States in UNCTAD wish to draw attention to the Declaration, they should transmit a letter to that effect to the UNCTAD secretariat linking it to an item on the provisional agenda of the next session of the Trade and Development Board. Such a communication could then be circulated as an official UNCTAD document with a note indicating that the text of the Declaration has been reproduced in an official document of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council.

   12 March 1984

5. WAYS OF ACCOMMODATING THE DELEGATIONS OF A MEMBER STATE WHICH HAS BEEN

   UNABLE TO PARTICIPATE IN A ROLL-CALL VOTE—IN UNITED NATIONS PRACTICE, THE RESULTS OF A VOTE ARE NEVER ALTERED AFTER THE RESULTS ARE ANNOUNCED

   Cable to the Chief, Treaty Implementation and Commission Secretariat Section, Division on Narcotics Drugs

   With reference to your telephone query, we would like to inform you that under no condition should the Secretariat agree to change the result of a roll-call vote. United Nations practice is clear that the results of a vote are never altered after the results are announced. If a Member State is not satisfied with an appropriate note in the record (usually a footnote to the tabulation of votes is used, reading along following lines: "Subsequent to the vote, the representative of... announced that he had been unable to participate in the vote but that, if

   present, his delegation would have cast an [affirmative] [negative] vote"), it can propose a reconsideration of the vote in question; if a sufficient number of representatives agree, then a new vote is taken in which the Member State concerned can then participate and the...