Thomas Grant. Admission to the United Nations, Charter Article 4 and the Rise of Universal Organization

Abstract

Thomas Grant. Admission to the United Nations, Charter Article 4 and the Rise of Universal Organization. Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2009. Pp. 334. �120.00. ISBN: 9789004173637. �Every constitution encounters the difficult problem of distinguishing interpretation and adaptation, progressive development and amendment�.1 The question whether, and to what extent, the practice of an organization does not merely interpret but also modify its constitutive instrument lies at the very heart of Thomas Grant's volume on Article 4 of the United Nations Charter. The volume, divided into seven chapters, is based on a thorough account of the United Nations� practice from 1945 onwards in the matter of admission, from the �early years� (Chapter 2) to the present day controversies over Kosovo and Taiwan (Chapters 5 and 6). Grant highlights perfectly the shift in 1955�1956 from a rigorous process over admission to the presumed right of states to membership; that is to say, from the wartime alliance to the universal organization (Chapter 3). This, in turn, raises the question of the legal justification for this change, a key issue addressed in Chapter 4 which this book review will concentrate on. The legal framework applicable to admission is examined in the first and last chapters. Chapter 1 intends to give an overview of the provisions of the Charter governing admission, though it deals exclusively with the procedural mechanism set out in Article 4(2).2 As for Chapter 7, it examines the legal consequences for a state of being admitted to the United Nations. The underlying question of Grant's book is whether the practice of the Organization subjected Article 4 of the Charter to development through �