Taiwan's application for UN membership represents the political will to self-determination of all Taiwanese people, and the UN, the US and the international community should support the idea that the nation belongs in the UN, US academics said yesterday.
As Article 55 of the UN Charter stipulates that the organization respects self-determination of peoples and promotes human rights, the UN General Assembly and the Secretariat have no right to reject Taiwan's application, Jordan Paust, a law professor at the University of Houston, said in an address to a conference on Taiwan's UN application hosted by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy in Taipei yesterday.
"Taiwan functions as an independent state and it is time for Taiwanese self-determination to ripen into a far more widely recognized statehood status for Taiwan and membership in the United Nations," he said.
PHOTO: HUANG MING-TANG, TAIPEI TIMES
Citing Article 55 and Article 100 of the UN Charter, which states that the Secretary-General and the staff "shall refrain from any action which might reflect on their position as international officials responsible only to the Organization," Paust accused the UN Secretariat of violating its mandate when it returned Taiwan's application in July.
President Chen Shui-bian (
Chen's letter to the UN General Assembly protesting Ban's move earlier this month was also rejected.
Paust condemned the UN General Assembly and the Secretariat, and said that China, as a member of the UN, had no authority to deny Taiwanese people self-determination and human rights by vetoing the nation's membership application.
Although the International Court of Justice has not found any Security Council decision to be ultra vires ("beyond its powers") under the Charter, Paust said that Taiwan should ask its allies to demand that the UN General Assembly request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the propriety of a particular decision of the Council or an attempted veto by one of its permanent members.
Joining Paust in support of Taiwan's application, Dennis Hickey, a professor of international affairs at Missouri State University, called on US President George W. Bush's administration to employ "quiet diplomacy" and assist Taiwan with its UN application.
"The US should gently nudge other countries, including China, toward the idea that Taiwan belongs in the UN -- if only as an observer or non-state actor," he said.
As a creative strategy to help Taiwan be accepted as a UN member, Hickey urged the US to have other countries introduce a resolution to support Taiwan's participation as an "observer" under the name of "Chinese Taipei" at the same time when Taiwan submitted its proposal to join the UN as "Taiwan."
While the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) UN application may be rejected, the resolution should be a solution to resolve the thorny Taiwan representation issue and create a "win-win-win" situation for Chen's government, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and China, Hickey said.
"Any resolution will require new thinking, compromise and multilateral cooperation among numerous governments," he said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
ANNUAL EVENT: Two massive Pokemon balloons are to be set up in Daan Park, with an event zone operating from 10am to 6pm This year’s Taipei Floral Picnic is to be held at Daan Park today and tomorrow, featuring an exclusive Pokemon Go event, a themed food market, a coffee rave picnic area and stage performances, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said yesterday. Two massive Pokemon balloons are to be set up in the park as attractions, with an exclusive event zone operating from 10am to 6pm, it said. Participants who complete designated tasks on-site would have a chance to receive limited-edition souvenirs, it added. People could also try the newly launched game Pokemon Pokopia in the trial area, the department said. Three PokeStops are
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
RSS