United Nations General Assembly Observers - Non-member States

Non-member States

See also: Holy See and the United Nations and Israel, Palestine, and the United Nations

Non-member observer sovereign states are free to submit a petition to join as a full member at their discretion. The petition is then evaluated by the United Nations Security Council and the General Assembly. For example, Switzerland was a permanent observer state from 1948 to 2002, until becoming a full member on September 10, 2002. Currently, there are only two such states: the Holy See and Palestine. The Holy See is described as a "Non-member State having received a standing invitation to participate as observer in the sessions and the work of the General Assembly and maintaining permanent observer mission at Headquarters".

Non-member state	Date observer status was granted	Additional timeline and details
Holy See	April 6, 1964: became a permanent observer state July 1, 2004 (A/RES/58/314): gained all the rights of full membership except voting and putting forward candidates	Sovereign entity with statehood over the territory of the Vatican City
Palestine	November 22, 1974 (A/RES/3237 (XXIX)): non-state observer status for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) December 9, 1988 (A/RES/43/160): right to circulate communications without intermediary December 15, 1988 (A/RES/43/177): designation "Palestine" July 7, 1998 (A/RES/52/250): right to participate in general debate and additional rights November 29, 2012 (A/RES/67/19): observer state status	October 28, 1974: PLO recognized as "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people," by states of the seventh Arab summit (and later by over 100 states with which it holds diplomatic relations and by Israel). November 22, 1974: PLO recognized as competent on all matters concerning the question of Palestine by the UN General Assembly in addition to the right of the Palestinian people in Palestine to national independence and sovereignty. November 15, 1988: PLO unilaterally declared the State of Palestine. May 4, 1994: PLO established the Palestinian National Authority territorial administration as result of the Oslo Accords signed by the PLO itself, Israel, United States and Russia. July 7, 1998: PLO has been assigned seating in the General Assembly Hall immediately after non-member States and before the other observers. As of 2012 its territory is still controlled by Israel.

Notes

• The Cook Islands and Niue—both states in free association with New Zealand—are accepted as non-member states.
• The Republic of China, or Taiwan, in addition to applying for full membership, has also applied variously for non-member or observer status in the UN since 1991. Such requests have been consistently denied due to the UN's recognition of the People's Republic of China as the "legitimate representative of China to the United Nations"; this resulted from the 1971 replacement of the Republic of China with the People's Republic as the official representative of China.
• Other countries are recognized by the United Nations as not being self-governing and appear on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories, but are represented in the UN by their respective administering member state.