On Monday, April 8, the United Nations Security Council referred the State of Palestine’s application to the specialized Committee on the Admission of New Members.
The proposal was met with no objections.
Up to this point, Palestine has held the status of a Permanent Observer in the UN General Assembly.
Until 2012, Palestine was classified as an ‘entity’. However, for the last 12 years, following Palestine’s application for full UN membership in 2011, it has been recognized by the UN as a non-member state. The Holy See is the only other non-member state that holds permanent observer status.
Permanent Observers enjoy access to most meetings and documents but do not have the right to vote on nor propose resolutions.
The Committee on the Admission of New Members, a subsidiary body of the Security Council, was scheduled to convene and review the application in a closed session on Monday afternoon. The Committee is set to consider the application during the month of April.
Should the Security Council recommend it, the application will be passed to the General Assembly, which may then adopt a resolution to welcome Palestine as a Member State.
It is the 2011 application of Palestine that the Security Council is currently reconsidering.
In a letter included in the application, written in 2011, President Mahmoud Abbas stated that; “After decades of displacement, dispossession and the foreign military occupation of my people and with the successful culmination of our State-building program, which has been endorsed by the international community, including the Quartet of the Middle East Peace Process, it is with great pride and honour that I have submitted to you an application for the admission of the State of Palestine to full membership in the United Nations.”