Palestine question – Resumption of the Seventh Emergency Sp. Session – Letter from Israel

QUESTION OF PALESTINE

Letter dated 22 September 1982 from the Permanent Representative

of Israel to the United Nations addressed to the President of the

General Assembly

In connexion with the scheduled "resumption" on 24 September 1982 of the seventh emergency special session of the General Assembly and further to my letters of 20 July 1980 (A/35/344) and of 21 April 1982 (A/ES-7/18), I have the honour to state the following:

(a) In my letter of 20 July 1980 (A/35/344) I pointed out that the very convening of the seventh emergency special session of the General Assembly was in violation of the requirements laid down in Assembly resolution 377 A (V) of 3 November 1950, entitled "Uniting for peace", and that its holding thus made a complete mockery of the relevant rules of procedure of the Assembly.  I further pointed out that, as a result, any resolutions adopted by an intrinsically illegal session of the General Assembly would themselves be illegal and tainted ab initio.

(b) The impropriety surrounding the seventh emergency special session from its very inception and the illegality of its deliberations and proceedings have been further compounded this week by the scheduled "resumption" of the seventh emergency special session of the General Assembly while the thirty-seventh regular session of the General Assembly is in progress.  There is no basis for holding a special session, including an emergency special session, as long as the regular session of the General Assembly is in progress.  As was stated on 10 November 1956 by the President of the first emergency special session of the General Assembly, the overlapping of an emergency special session with a regular session

"… would be contrary to the provisions for the convening of emergency special sessions, which are held solely because the General Assembly is not in regular session.  Those who drew up the provisions for emergency meetings certainly did not intend that such meetings should be held when the General Assembly was in regular session and hence fully capable of dealing with the items before it."1/

This conclusion was also relied upon in paragraph 18 of the legal opinion of the United Nations Secretariat, dated 25 August 1967, published in the United Nations Juridical Yearbook, 1967, page 324, where it is stated that

"… holding simultaneous sessions would be contrary to the basic purpose of emergency special sessions, as a device for speedily convening the Assembly when it is not already in session."

(c) The inappropriateness of "resuming" at this time an emergency special session of the General Assembly is heightened by the fact that the item to be dealt with by the "resumed" emergency special session is on the agenda of the thirty-seventh regular session of the General Assembly.

(d) The total disregard of the requirements of the Charter, the rules of procedure of the General Assembly, of elementary propriety and of basic logic has become one of the characteristic features of the conduct of the anti-Israel forces that manipulate the General Assembly to suit the whims of Israel's enemies.

I have the honour to request that this letter be circulated as a document of the seventh emergency special session of the General Assembly.

Note

1/ Official Records of the General Assembly, First Emergency Special Session, Plenary Meetings and Annexes, 572nd plenary meeting, para.  28, pp. 133 and 134.