ABSTRACT
The doctrine of equality of states in international organizations has come under increasing fire since the package deal on membership applications in 1955 opened the doors of the United Nations to quantitative and qualitative membership changes of such proportions as to shift the UN’s center of gravity from the relatively stable Western world to the revolutionary world of Africa and Asia. Two events on the eve of the United Nations’ twentieth anniversary served to call attention once more to this already controversial doctrine. The first of these was the 1964 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which seemed to institutionalize the division of the world into developed and developing states; the second was the protracted dispute over assessments for peace-keeping forces, which culminated in 1964 in the almost complete paralysis of the 289Nineteenth General Assembly. In each case a fundamental question was raised: Should a coalition of states, each with a vote equal in weight to that of every other state, attempt to override the opposition, on a matter of vital interest, of a state or group of states whose continued support is essential to the survival and growth of the organization? Fortunately, the dénouement in each of the two cases has not been the disaster for the UN that some observers were predicting. However, UNCTAD and the “financial crisis” suggest that it may be appropriate to reexamine the doctrine of political equality of states in international organizations in order to determine whether it is functional or dysfunctional and how it may be adapted to the demands that a changing international system place upon the UN.
