Member states of the United Nations

[8] A total of 51 original members (or founding members) joined that year; 50 of them signed the Charter at the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco on 26 June 1945, while Poland, which was not represented at the conference, signed it on 15 October 1945.

[9][10] The original members of the United Nations were: France (then the Provisional Government), Russia (then the Soviet Union), China (then Republic of China), the United Kingdom, the United States — these first five forming the Security Council — Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil (then the Vargas Era Brazil), Belarus (then the Byelorussian SSR), Canada, Chile (then the 1925–73 Presidential Republic), Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba (then the 1902–59 Republic), Czechoslovakia (then the Third Republic), Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt (then the Kingdom of Egypt), El Salvador, Ethiopia (then the Ethiopian Empire), Greece (then the Kingdom of Greece), Guatemala, Haiti (then the 1859–1957 Republic), Honduras, India (then the British Raj), Iran (then the Imperial State of Iran), Iraq (then the Kingdom of Iraq), Lebanon, Liberia, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand (then the Dominion of New Zealand), Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines (then the Commonwealth), Poland (then the Provisional Government of National Unity), Saudi Arabia, South Africa (then the Union of South Africa), Syria (then the Mandatory Republic), Turkey, Ukraine (then the Ukrainian SSR), Uruguay, Venezuela and Yugoslavia (then the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia).

A number of the original members were not sovereign when they joined the UN, and only gained full independence later:[11] The ruling Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, in power since 2021, remains unrecognized by the United Nations.

The defunct Islamic Republic of Afghanistan remains recognized and the UN continues to display its flag at official functions.

[13] On 1 December 2021, the Credentials Committee of the General Assembly voted to defer a decision to allow Myanmar's ruling military junta to represent the country at the UN.

The Soviet Union also vetoed the applications of Jordan and Ceylon, stating that it did not believe they were sufficiently independent from the United Kingdom.

In what was widely described as a "package deal", the remaining 16 countries (Albania, Jordan, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Austria, Finland, Ceylon, Nepal, Libya, Cambodia, Laos, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Spain) were simultaneously admitted to the United Nations on 14 December 1955 (United Nations Security Council Resolution 109).

[citation needed] Both sides rejected compromise proposals to allow both states to participate in the UN, based on the One-China policy.

On 25 October 1971, the 21st time the United Nations General Assembly debated on the PRC's admission into the UN,[28] United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 was adopted, by which it recognized that "the representatives of the Government of the People's Republic of China are the only lawful representatives of China to the United Nations and that the People's Republic of China is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council," and decided "to restore all its rights to the People's Republic of China and to recognize the representatives of its Government as the only legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations, and to expel forthwith the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek from the place which they unlawfully occupy at the United Nations and in all the organizations related to it.

[31] Every year from 1993 to 2006, UN member states submitted a memorandum to the UN Secretary-General requesting that the UN General Assembly consider allowing the ROC to resume participating in the United Nations.

[31] Early proposals recommended admitting the ROC with parallel representation over China, along with the People's Republic of China, pending eventual reunification, citing examples of other divided countries which had become separate UN member states, such as East and West Germany and North and South Korea.

[34] However, the application was rejected by the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs citing General Assembly Resolution 2758,[35] without being forwarded to the Security Council.

[37] The ROC government also criticized Ban for asserting that Taiwan is part of China and returning the application without passing it to the Security Council or the General Assembly,[38] contrary to UN's standard procedure (Provisional Rules of Procedure of the Security Council, Chapter X, Rule 59).

[39] On the other hand, the PRC government, which has stated that Taiwan is part of China and firmly opposes the application of any Taiwan authorities to join the UN either as a member or an observer, praised that UN's decision "was made in accordance with the UN Charter and Resolution 2758 of the UN General Assembly, and showed the UN and its member states' universal adherence to the one-China principle".

[40] A group of UN member states put forward a draft resolution for that fall's UN General Assembly calling on the Security Council to consider the application.

[34] The following year two referendums in Taiwan on the government's attempts to regain participation at the UN did not pass due to low turnout.

That fall the ROC took a new approach, with its allies submitting a resolution requesting that the "Republic of China (Taiwan)" be allowed to have "meaningful participation" in the UN specialized agencies.

[33] In 2009, the ROC chose not to bring the issue of its participation in the UN up for debate at the General Assembly for the first time since it began the campaign in 1993.

This was the ROC's first participation in an event organized by a UN-affiliated agency since 1971, as a result of the improved cross-strait relations since Ma Ying-jeou became the President of the Republic of China a year before.

Upon the imminent dissolution of Czechoslovakia, in a letter dated 10 December 1992, its Permanent Representative informed the United Nations Secretary-General that the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic would cease to exist on 31 December 1992 and that the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as successor states, would apply for membership in the UN.

[26] Upon the imminent dissolution of the USSR, in a letter dated 24 December 1991, Boris Yeltsin, the President of the Russian Federation, informed the United Nations Secretary-General that the membership of the USSR in the Security Council and all other UN organs was being continued by the Russian Federation with the support of the 11 member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

[44] The other fourteen independent states established from the former Soviet Republics were all admitted to the UN: Both Egypt and Syria joined the UN as original members on 24 October 1945.

Following a plebiscite on 21 February 1958, the United Arab Republic was established by a union of Egypt and Syria and continued as a single member.

Following the ousting of President Slobodan Milošević from office, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia applied for membership, and was admitted to the UN on 1 November 2000.

From Article 6:[5] A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

During the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation, and in response to the election of Malaysia as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, in a letter dated 20 January 1965, Indonesia informed the United Nations Secretary-General that it had decided "at this stage and under the present circumstances" to withdraw from the UN.

[44] Unlike suspension and expulsion, no express provision is made in the United Nations Charter of whether or how a member can legally withdraw from the UN (largely to prevent the threat of withdrawal from being used as a form of political blackmail, or to evade obligations under the Charter, similar to withdrawals that weakened the UN's predecessor, the League of Nations),[63] or on whether a request for readmission by a withdrawn member should be treated the same as an application for membership, i.e., requiring Security Council as well as General Assembly approval.

Indonesia's return to the UN would suggest that this is not required; however, scholars have argued that the course of action taken by the General Assembly was not in accordance with the Charter from a legal point of view.

Most of the territory is controlled by Morocco, the remainder (the Free Zone) by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, proclaimed by the Polisario Front.

It is a member of two specialized agencies within the United Nations System: the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.