Switzerland to join UN

bonkey

So,

after a national referendum yesterday, Switzerland have voted to become full members of the UN. Apparently, Switzerland was the last nation currently capable of attaining full membership. The Vatican remains without full membership, but is ineligible for this for some reason.

With a turnout of 2.6M voters (or close on 60% of the registered vote) this was the second-highest turnout in recent years, surpassed only by the recent NO vote for EU membership. Typical referendum turnout is about 30-35 percent.

The final fugures were in the region of 54.6% saying yes, and 12 of the 23 cantons saying yes. With 22 cantons counted, it was tried at 11 cantons apiece. It is worth pointing out that referenda carry over here only with a majority of the popular vote, and a majority of cantons (each vote is therefore counted once at a cantonal level, and once at a state level).

Guess the Swiss will finally sign all those pesky treaties now - things like the Declaration of Human Rights, or (gasp!) the geneva Convention Which also means that people who gleefully trotted out the facts that the US and (?)Somalia(?) were the only two countries not to sign such-n-such a treaty might actually be more correct in future, because Switzerland will get round to signing these various treaties once they assume membership in the Autumn.

Kudos to BBC news for being the first known International newssite to report the result yesterday - over two hours before CNN managed to make us all "the first to know"

On a lesser reported sidenote.....there was a second vote in progress at the same time to reduce the working week from 40 to 36 hours. This received a 75% NO vote.

jc

Victor

Originally posted by bonkey
Guess the Swiss will finally sign all those pesky treaties now - things like the Declaration of Human Rights, or (gasp!) the geneva Convention Which also means that people who gleefully trotted out the facts that the US and (?)Somalia(?) were the only two countries not to sign such-n-such a treaty might actually be more correct in future, because Switzerland will get round to signing these various treaties once they assume membership in the Autumn.

Look at Ireland, I don't think we've signed the Geneva (I saw and understand your itialics) Convention either (it still applies to us as the number of signatories has reached a critical mass).

bonkey

OK - more correctly its the Geneva Conventions (correcting both of us), but in either case, Ireland has signed only some of them.

Check out here for a bit more info, anyone who's interested.

The "signed by all but two" was a bit of a dig at those who trot out the fact that only the US and Somalia (IIRC) are the only two countries in the world which have not ratified the Convention for Rights of the Child, which is actually incorrect. They are the only two of the 191 member states of the UN - Switzerland, as a non-member, could not (and therefore had not) ratified either.

Given that this fact was often dug out to have a dig at the US, I find it interesting that no-one ever pointed out the lack of Switzerland as a signatory before.

I'm sure there's gonna be a chunk of referenda over here in teh next few years, though, to get permission to sign all the various conventions - I dont think the Swiss govt can sign up to these things without the public's permission.

jc

Hobbes

I wonder how this will effect switzerland and the banking?

mike65

How long till Vatican City signs up...then its a full house.

Mike.

Sand

What I found ironic was that Kofi Annan was quoted in the Irish Times today saying something along the lines of Switzerland being a living example of the aims of the UN, tolerant, peaceful and multicultural. That being so whats the need for the UN? Especially given that the UN has some real charming holiday destination spots as members (Somalia?).

tHE vAGGABOND

Switzerland never joined as it was always neutral...

The UN does a lot of good, not just in the area of peace keeping in the Leb or in Somalia..

scipio_major

An observation if you will. Seeing as a shovel load of UN agencies have always been based in Switzerland (the Geneva Conventions which were linked above were on a .ch site) did it every actually matter that Switerland was not in the UN?

Interestly as I read "Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoner of War" my minidisc began to play the Great Escape theme. I wonder is that relevant in anyway?

Fade to Credits
Scipio_major

bonkey

Originally posted by mike65
How long till Vatican City signs up...then its a full house.

Some news report I heard mentioned that the swiss were the last eligible nation for full membership. For some reason, the Vatican cannot be a full member, but I cant for the life of me remember why.....

In answer to some of the other issues, Switzerland never joined the UN, but was affiliated with it. Its very neutrality and perhaps non-membership is partly the reason why it was the centre for much UN "stuff" - because it was a netral bystander who no-one could honestly ever accuse of trying to serve its own agenda in various issues (other than enticing foreigners to spend their money in Switzerland by basing their operations there!).

Vaggabond is correct in that Swiss neutrality was the obstacle. It still is - its the reason the vote was so close. Many people see the whole thing as a play by the Swiss government to allow them to "play with the bog boys", particularly in international missions.

In the second-last referendum over here, there was a vote on whether or not Swiss could be sent on international peace-keeping missions. IIRC, the result was that they could, but not in any armed capacity - only for logistics and humanitarian support. Now that Switzerland is in the UN, it is expected that another motion will be tabled in the nearish future to allow Swiss soldiers to take full part in peace-keeping missions - which many would see as going against Swiss neutrality.

In truth, there are referenda over here every few years to abolish the army (or at least the mandatory military service). Many of the anti-service faction see the UN membership as the first step in a series of efforts to try and maintain the justification for military service - that the Swiss will get militarily involved with the UN, and as a result, will have more justification for its expenditure on its army.

Whiel Ireland takes part in these missions and claims to be a neutral country, I can honestly say that the Swiss are almost fanatical about their neutrality compared to the Irish. UN membership, to most Irish people (IMHO), would not seem to have an impact on neutrality, whereas over here the opposite is true.

Its interesting

jc