Germany in the United Nations

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Federal Republic of Germany , like the German Democratic Republic, joined the United Nations (UN) as the 133rd and 134th member state on September 18, 1973 . Since reunification and overcoming the 40-year division on October 3, 1990, united Germany has been represented in the United Nations.

history

Situation of the two German states at the beginning of the Cold War (until 1972)

After the integration of the two German states on both sides of the Cold War and the acceptance of the Hallstein Doctrine also by the German partners, there was no possibility of admitting one of the two German states in isolation to the United Nations. The Western powers USA , France and Great Britain (in the GDR) or the Soviet Union (in the Federal Republic) would have prevented unilateral admission with their veto in the UN Security Council . After the Federal Republic had already received the right to become involved in international organizations in the Petersberg Agreement in 1949, the Federal Republic joined a large number of UN organizations, of which one could be a member without a UN membership. In 1950 the Federal Republic became a member of the FAO and in 1951 of the WHO and UNESCO . In 1952 the Permanent Observer Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany was set up at the UN, the GDR did not follow until 1972. The Federal Republic of Germany was elected to the Executive Council of the WHO for the first time in 1960. In 1962 the first UN conference took place in the Federal Republic. The GDR's application for membership in 1966 was not dealt with.

Accession (1973)

Waving German flags (the black, red and gold federal flag of the Federal Republic of Germany and the state flag of the GDR with a hammer, compass and wreath of ears) in front of the UN headquarters in New York, 1973

In 1972 the Federal Republic and the GDR agreed to inform each other about the steps towards UN membership. The basic treaty in the same year made it possible for both states to join the UN. In May 1973 the Bundestag decided to join the UN together with the ratification of the Basic Treaty. On June 12 and 15, 1973, the GDR, the 133rd and the Federal Republic, the 134th, applied for admission to the UN.

The former occupation powers USA , USSR , Great Britain and France all welcomed this step, but still referred to their rights with regard to the four-sector city of Berlin and Germany as a whole.

The UN Security Council recommended admission on June 22, 1973, which was approved by the UN General Assembly on September 18 . In the meeting room of the UN General Assembly, the delegations from the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR sat next to each other, only separated by a narrow corridor.

On September 26, 1973, Israel protested against the GDR's admission to the UN because, in its opinion, it had ignored Germany's historical responsibility and the moral obligations that resulted from it. At the same time, however, Israel expressly supported the admission of the Federal Republic. On the same day, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt gave a widely acclaimed speech in front of the General Assembly, in which he emphasized the Germans' hope of regaining their national unity but at the same time emphasized that the Federal Government did not want to see the United Nations as a wailing wall for German problems. With reference to painful experiences in Europe, he also warned against “selfish, destructive nationalism”.

Membership of two German states in the United Nations (1973–1990)

In 1974 the two German states set up a translation service together with Austria . In 1977 and 1978 the Federal Republic of Germany was a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council , then in 1980 and 1981 the GDR and in 1987/1988 the Federal Republic again. In 1980 the ambassador of the Federal Republic, Rüdiger von Wechmar , became President of the UN General Assembly, and in 1987 that of the GDR, Peter Florin . The German Democratic Republic succeeded in gaining diplomatic recognition from 123 governments by 1978; she saw in this the recognition of her sovereignty .

In the first years of its membership in the UN, the Federal Republic placed the focus of its cooperation on international human rights protection. For example, she made intensive efforts to become a member of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, to which she had been a member since 1975, and in 1976 submitted an ultimately failed draft resolution on the establishment of a world human rights court.

Membership of Germany (since 1990)

With German reunification in 1990, the GDR left the UN; the enlarged Federal Republic now represents the united Germany in the UN. In 1992, German soldiers took part in a blue helmet mission in Cambodia for the first time. In 1994 there were two German sub-secretaries-general. In the same year, Germany became a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for the third time (1995/1996). In 1996 the Carstanjen house was opened in Bonn ; Numerous UN organizations have had their headquarters in the building since then. In the 1990s, German soldiers took part in numerous missions abroad.

In 1998, Klaus Töpfer became Executive Director of the UNEP environmental program and thus received the rank of Under-Secretary General at the UN. In 2000 the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea was opened in Hamburg . The Afghanistan conference that began in November 2001 at the Petersberg in Bonn led to the formation of a transitional government. In 2003 and 2004, Germany was a member of the Security Council for the fourth time. The Federal Republic held the chairmanship there in February 2003 and then again in May 2004.

On July 11, 2006, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the " UN Campus " in Bonn, which consists of the former parliament buildings of the Federal Republic of Germany. This unites the majority of the UN organizations based in Bonn and is a milestone for the further development of Germany as the seat of the United Nations. The campus in the former government district will be further enlarged: the Secretariat of the Framework Convention on Climate Change with its 200 employees will be the last facility in the former Federal Palace. In the surrounding area, the United Nations Congress Center was built, which was intended to create the conditions for large conferences of the United Nations .

Financial contribution

In the two-year budget 2016/17 of just under 5.4 billion US dollars, Germany contributes 6.4 percent with around 158.5 million US dollars per year. This makes Germany the fourth largest contributor to the regular budget, after the USA (22 percent), Japan (9.7 percent) and China (7.9 percent). The 28 member states of the EU contribute around 31 percent of the United Nations budget. In addition, with around 528 million US dollars, Germany also contributes 6.4 percent of the total of around 8.3 billion US dollars in the peacekeeping budget. This makes Germany the fourth largest contributor to this household after the USA (28.6 percent), China (10.3 percent) and Japan (9.7 percent).

United Nations Reform and Outlook

Since the mid-1990s, it has been a goal of German foreign policy to obtain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council . At the end of the 1990s, this goal took a back seat in favor of a common seat for the European Union . However, it quickly became clear that France and the UK would not be ready to give up their autonomous seat on the Security Council. Since the beginning of the 2000s, foreign policy has been concentrating again on its own German headquarters. This goal became further distant when Germany opposed the USA in the discussion about the Iraq war . Since the US, as a permanent member, has to agree to an amendment to the United Nations Charter in order for it to come into force, a corresponding amendment is not expected to come into force in the near future. This is justified by, among other things, unspecified American diplomats with the fact that Germany's term of office as a non-permanent member in 2003/2004 was "problematic". The advocates of a reform of the Security Council, however, speculated that a possibly politically overwhelming vote of the UN General Assembly and associated with further reforms that the USA had called for, the latter would hardly be able to oppose alone. It was therefore a matter of putting together a whole reform package aimed at gaining the broadest possible support among the UN members as a whole.

In the course of the debate about a reform of the UN including an expansion of the Security Council, not only Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder have been working intensively since the beginning of 2004 to obtain a permanent seat. Together with Germany, Brazil, India and Japan also declared their interest in a permanent seat Seat on the Security Council. There should also be a permanent seat for an African country, as well as a drastic increase in the number of non-permanent, rotating seats without veto power in the Security Council. The open question was whether the new permanent members in the Security Council, including Germany, were to be treated on an equal footing with the previous permanent members, while granting the right to veto the resolutions of the Security Council.

Equipped with the right of veto, a single member of the Security Council has the option of a. to prevent the authorization of military force by the United Nations ( United Nations monopoly of force ). In the course of the Kosovo crisis and the Iraq crisis , it became clear that the veto of one or more Security Council members could not prevent the member states of the United Nations from using military force, even for the purpose of a war of aggression prohibited by the UN Charter . Nonetheless, the right of veto in the Security Council is an incomparably powerful instrument for delegitimizing military operations in foreign policy.

In December 2004, the then Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder demanded a veto right for the new future permanent members in Japan, which, however, found no support from the previous five permanent members. Koizumi (former Japanese head of government) supported Schröder's demand, but Germany officially pursued the expansion of the Security Council for a 15-year transition period without the right of veto for the new members.

First it was announced that France, Great Britain, the Russian Federation and also the People's Republic of China (they belong to the four of the five permanent members with the right of veto) as well as the majority of the UN member states would support a permanent German seat on the UN Security Council, albeit a right of veto New members refused. Later, however, China strongly opposed enlargement, particularly Japan as a new permanent member, and threatened to veto it. Italy, Korea, Pakistan and others followed. a. (the so-called coffee round) with sometimes violent protests. In the end, the majority of African states also spoke out against enlargement.

The US did not officially comment on a permanent German seat on the UN Security Council. You had only supported Japan's permanent membership in the Security Council, but otherwise wanted to wait for the proposals to be discussed for enlarging the Council. How little US interest is in changing the status quo is also shown by the fact that the United States did not submit its own proposal to reorganize the Security Council.

In the General Assembly in summer 2005, the expansion of the Security Council did not find the qualified majority required to amend the statutes, as the African UN members could not agree on joint support for the candidacy of an African country and China threatened to veto it. The reform of the Security Council had thus finally failed and, despite the continued skeptical attitude of the USA, had already been blocked for an indefinite period by the prevailing majority in the General Assembly.

UN enemy states clause

At the San Francisco Conference in 1945, Articles 53 and 107 of the United Nations Charter defined that against enemy states (i.e. states that were enemies of one of the signatories to the Charter during the Second World War ), action also outside the UN security system can be initiated. According to the wording of the clause, Germany and Japan could still be attacked today without a UN resolution. However, the enemy states clause was officially declared obsolete by the UN in 1995.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b “New Ostpolitik: UN membership” by the House of History Foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany on hdg.de.
  2. ↑ Walter Gehlhoff : The way of the Federal Republic into the United Nations , section “Accession”, p. 29 ( Memento of the original from May 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , German Society for the United Nations. Accessed on May 14, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dgvn.de
  3. ^ GDR history "UNO" on ddr-geschichte.de
  4. ↑ Philipp Rock: Power, Markets and Morals - On the role of human rights in the foreign policy of the Federal Republic of Germany in the sixties and seventies. Peter Lang, Frankfurt a. M. 2010, ISBN 978-3-631-59705-7 , pp. 247-258.
  5. ↑ Germany in the United Nations. In: Foreign Office. Retrieved June 22, 2016 (German).
  6. ^ German Bundestag: Brief information on the so-called enemy state clause. In: www.bundestag.de. Scientific Services, 2017, accessed December 8, 2018 .
  7. ↑ A / RES / 50/52. Report of the Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization. Retrieved December 8, 2018 .

literature

Web links