Pełnomocnictwa w Organizacji Narodów Zjednoczonych

Abstract

A question whether contesting of credentials is designed to protect the UN against actions of plenipotentiaries lacking satisfactory credentials, or it is an expression of objection to the power which granted the credentials is discussed in the present article. Chapter two bears on credentials in international law. As appears from analogy to law of treaties, credentials in a wide sense of that term, are a document accorded by a competent state authority, international organization or even an international conference furnishing a certain person or persons with power to represent in performing transactions regulated by international law. Chapter three treats of procedure of verifying credentials in the UN and presents the scope of competence of the Credentials Committee and the General Assembly in that respect. The UN practice in the range of credentials is presented in chapter four with a more detailed discussion of Chinese, Hungarian, Congese, Kampuchean and South-African cases. Presentation of the most crucial incidents related to credentials allowed a critical estimation of the UN actions in the final conclusions of the article. They are characterised by inconsistencies, voluntarism, and deviations from legal regulation. Presently, verifying credentials in the UN is not exclusively of a formal character. Representativeness of authority concerned is assessed upon aplication of various criteria (of effective authority and democracy) subject to varying circumstances. There is a great deal of anxiety in connection with the case of South African Republic that verification of credentials could be transformed into the instrument limiting an universal character of the organization. Delaying a decision on credentials sometimes for many years (the so-called Hungarian formula) has to be considered as an inconsistency with the letter of the law.