Coronavirus Forces UN to Change Methods of Negotiation, Decision-making
World
New York – Ali Barada
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the United Nations to introduce new working principals such as convening virtual meetings for the Security Council, General Assembly, and other organizations because of the spread of the virus in New York. In practice, this changed the methods of negotiation and decision-making processes. Social distancing and quarantine have cut off personal meetings usually held for discussions and negotiations. UN officials and affiliated diplomats from the 193 member states attempted to work in a healthy and political atmosphere of pressure, first overcoming substantive protests from major countries, such as Russia and China, regarding videoconference sessions of the UNSC. In the same vein, the General-Assembly has changed the rules and methods of its meetings and its work. At first glance, the consensus seemed to be required for every draft resolution to be passed. This has briefly indicated that each Member State has a veto to prevent the issuance of decisions. However, this seemed illogical, despite the non-binding nature of General-Assembly resolutions. Accordingly, the Assembly prepared a set of documents, which Asharq Al-Awsat obtained a copy of, in order to overcome this and other issues, so that the work of the United Nations bodies will be consistent with the provisions of its Charter. President of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly ambassador Tijani Mohamed Pandey recently referred to the representatives of the 193 member states an informal paper stating that “several countries requested exploring ways to make decisions by voting while continuing the restrictions imposed on large personal meetings due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The informal paper includes three documents. The first is entitled “General Assembly decisions by voting (except for elections) without a plenary session during the coronavirus pandemic,” the second contains a presentation on the electronic voting system, and the third contains a graphic illustration.
from Asharq AL-awsat https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/2253526/coronavirus-forces-un-change-methods-negotiation-decision-making
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