Eurovision, the Olympics, the UN and all that
He said an independent Scotland would first need to gain membership of the United Nations.
[…]
Responding to the report Sir Craig said: “I really don’t know how long it takes an independent nation to get membership.
“Gaining membership of the United Nations, historically and politically, is not always an easy thing but there must be a process and it must take some time.”
UN membership is important in many contexts — as discussed previously, it is for instance also a requirement for participating in the Eurovision Song Contest.
Anyway, you would have thought that the BBC would have had the resources to check Wikipedia for details about the time it takes to gain membership of the UN rather than just reporting Sir Craig’s vacillations. However, this is easily remedied.
Let’s have a look at two recent cases:
- The dissolution of Czechoslovakia: On 17 July 1992, the Slovak parliament adopted the Declaration of independence of the Slovak nation. On 25 November, the dissolution of Czechoslovakia as of 31 December 1992 was agreed. In a letter dated 10 December 1992, the Secretary-General of the UN was informed that the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic would cease to exist on 31 December 1992. The Czech Republic and Slovakia were admitted to the UN on 19 January 1993.
- Montenegro: The status of the union between Montenegro and Serbia was decided by the referendum on Montenegrin independence on 21 May 2006. On 3 June 2006, the Montenegrin Parliament declared the independence of Montenegro. Montenegro was admitted to the UN on 28 June 2006.
This shows that when the independence declaration is not contested, it normally takes the UN about a month to process the paperwork. In other words, if Scotland becomes independent on 24 March 2016 (as suggested by the Scottish Government), Scotland should become a member of the United Nations by May 2016. (Of course things look very different if the independence declaration isn’t accepted by the parent country — Kosovo springs to mind — but the Edinburgh Agreement commits Westminster to accept the result of the referendum, so this shouldn’t become a problem for Scotland.)
May 2016 will probably be too late to allow Scotland to compete in Eurovision that year, but it should make participation in the Summer Olympics quite feasible, as concluded by Henry McLeish.
RT @arcofprosperity: New blog post: Eurovision, the Olympics, the UN and all that http://t.co/5ga9AHe3d4 #indyref
@arcofprosperity re Olympics: we just have to point at the existing examples: Guam, Virgin Islands, Aruba, Cook Islands etc
Err. Hong Kong, part of the PRC competes in the Olympics as Hong Kong.
Who is this colonel Blimp?
I’ve no idea who he is, but to give him the benefit of doubt, he might have been thinking about Kosovo — they apparently got told they needed to join the UN before being allowed to take part in the Olympics. There’s no reason to think Scotland would find itself in the same situation as Kosovo, though.
I posted earlier today about Hong Kong competing as Hong Kong, still.
It seems to have disappeared?
It just got stuck in the spam filter — sorry about that!
Before advising anyone to check Wikipedia about anything ever, you check these Wikipedia pages: they speak for themselves on the experience of taking part there:
* lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-September/028139.html
* lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-October/054957.html
* lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-August/026966.html
* lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-July/025936.html
* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alexia_Death
then the critical site Wikipediocracy.
As an occasional Wikipedia editor (especially the Danish edition), I totally recognise it’s not a perfect source of information. But it’s definitely a quick way to get a rough idea about how long it takes to join the UN.
Thomas, something about posting from a different device at a different location makes the spam filter that I am an imposter, probably.
Thanks and keep it up.
Cheers!