The Economic and Social Council

Article 63(1). The Council may enter into agreements with any of the agencies referred to in article 57, defining the terms on which the agency concerned shall be brought into relationship with the United Nations, and such agreements are subject to approval by the General Assembly.

Article 63(2). The Council may coordinate the activities of the specialized agencies through consultation with and recommendations to them, and through recommendations to the Assembly and the Members.

Article 58. The Organization shall make recommendations for the coordination of their policies and activities. Article 59. The Organization shall, where appropriate, initiate negotiations among the states concerned for the creation of any new specialized agencies required for the purposes of article 55.

Coordination, not control. The Council recommends and consults; it does not direct an agency, and an agency that disagrees is not in breach of anything.

Article 60. Responsibility for the discharge of the Organization's functions under Chapter IX is vested in the General Assembly and, under the authority of the General Assembly, in the Economic and Social Council. So the Council is subordinate to the Assembly, which is a constitutional difference from the Security Council.

Composition and voting: articles 61 and 67

Article 61(1). The Council shall consist of fifty-four Members of the United Nations elected by the General Assembly.

Article 61(2). Eighteen members are elected each year for a term of three years, and a retiring member shall be eligible for immediate re-election. That is the opposite of the rule for the Security Council in article 23(2), and the contrast is worth remembering.

Article 61(3) records the transitional arrangement on the increase from twenty-seven to fifty-four. The Council began at eighteen, was enlarged to twenty-seven by an amendment in force from 1965, and to fifty-four by an amendment in force from 1973.

Article 61(4). Each member shall have one representative.

Article 67. Each member has one vote, and decisions shall be made by a majority of the members present and voting. There are no important questions and no veto: a simple majority throughout.

Functions and powers: articles 62 to 66

Article 62(1). The Council may make or initiate studies and reports with respect to international economic, social, cultural, educational, health and related matters, and may make recommendations on any such matters to the General Assembly, to the Members, and to the specialized agencies concerned.

Article 62(2). It may make recommendations for the purpose of promoting respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.

Article 62(3). It may prepare draft conventions for submission to the General Assembly on matters within its competence.

Article 62(4). It may call international conferences on such matters, in accordance with the rules prescribed by the United Nations.

Article 62 is the Council's whole substantive power, and everything in it is study, recommendation, drafting and convening. The draft convention power in 62(3) is the most productive: the two International Covenants of 1966 were prepared through the Council's Commission on Human Rights before the Assembly adopted them.

Article 64. The Council may take appropriate steps to obtain regular reports from the specialized agencies, and may make arrangements with Members and agencies to obtain reports on the steps taken to give effect to its own recommendations and to those of the Assembly, and may communicate its observations on those reports to the Assembly.

Article 64 is the beginning of the reporting technique that now dominates international human rights supervision: the State reports, the body comments, and nothing is enforced.

Article 65. The Council may furnish information to the Security Council and shall assist the Security Council upon its request.

Article 66. It shall perform functions within its competence in connection with carrying out the Assembly's recommendations; it may, with the approval of the General Assembly, perform services at the request of Members and of specialized agencies; and it shall perform such other functions as are specified in the Charter or assigned to it by the General Assembly.

Commissions, participation, and NGOs: articles 68 to 72

Article 68. The Council shall set up commissions in economic and social fields and for the promotion of human rights, and such other commissions as may be required.

Article 68 is mandatory, and it names human rights expressly. Under it the Council created the Commission on Human Rights in 1946, which drafted the Universal Declaration and both Covenants, and which the General Assembly replaced in 2006 with the Human Rights Council as a subsidiary organ of the Assembly. The functional commissions on the status of women, on narcotic drugs, on population and development, on statistics, and the five regional economic commissions all rest on article 68.

Article 69. The Council shall invite any Member of the United Nations to participate, without vote, in its deliberations on any matter of particular concern to that Member. Note shall, which is stronger than the Security Council's discretionary article 31.

Article 70. It may make arrangements for representatives of the specialized agencies to participate, without vote, in its deliberations and those of its commissions, and for its own representatives to participate in the agencies' deliberations.

Article 71, the article that matters most today. The Council may make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organizations which are concerned with matters within its competence. Such arrangements may be made with international organizations and, where appropriate, with national organizations after consultation with the Member of the United Nations concerned.

This is the only place in the Charter where non-governmental organisations appear, and it is the legal foundation of consultative status, which is the subject of [Amnesty International and Non-Governmental Organisations]. Note the two limits in the text: consultation, not membership or vote; and for a national organisation, consultation with its own State first.

Article 72. The Council adopts its own rules of procedure, including the method of selecting its President, and meets as required, its rules providing for meetings on the request of a majority of its members.

What the Council has become

The Council was designed as one of the two great organs, with the Security Council, and it has not held that place. Three reasons are worth stating.

Its powers are recommendatory and its output competes with that of the Assembly, whose Second and Third Committees cover the same ground with the whole membership present.

The specialized agencies are autonomous, so coordination under articles 58 and 63(2) depends on their cooperation, and each has its own governing body answerable to its own members.

The Assembly has taken the substance. The funds and programmes in [UNICEF] and [UNDP and UNEP] report through the Council but were created by and answer to the Assembly, and human rights supervision moved to the Assembly's Human Rights Council in 2006.

What it retains is the coordination of the system on paper, the reporting machinery under article 64, the commissions under article 68, and the gateway for civil society under article 71, which in an age of non-governmental activity is a larger thing than it looked in 1945.

A worked example

An international organisation created by treaty among forty States to regulate food safety wishes to become a specialized agency. A national association of doctors in State AA wishes to address the Council. State BB, not a member of the Council, learns that a report on its economy is on the agenda. The Council wishes to draft a convention on food standards and to require the new agency to change its policy.

Becoming a specialized agency. Article 57(1) requires establishment by intergovernmental agreement and wide international responsibilities in the listed fields as defined in its basic instrument, and article 63(1) requires an agreement with the Council defining the terms of the relationship, subject to approval by the General Assembly.

The national association. Article 71 permits suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organisations concerned with matters within the Council's competence, and expressly allows arrangements with national organisations after consultation with the Member of the United Nations concerned, so State AA must be consulted. Consultation is the whole of what article 71 gives; there is no vote.

State BB. Article 69 provides that the Council shall invite any Member to participate, without vote, in deliberations on any matter of particular concern to it.

Drafting the convention. Article 62(3) permits the Council to prepare draft conventions for submission to the General Assembly on matters within its competence. The Council drafts; the Assembly adopts; States then become parties in the ordinary way under [Making a Treaty: From Full Powers to Entry Into Force].

Requiring the agency to change policy. It cannot. Article 58 and article 63(2) give coordination through consultation and recommendation, and article 64 gives the power to obtain reports. A specialized agency is a separate organisation with its own constitution and membership.

Change one fact: the matter concerns a threat to international peace. Article 65 lets the Council furnish information to the Security Council and requires it to assist the Council on request, and there its role ends.

Distinctions table

What it does NOT mean

The Council does not control the specialized agencies. It coordinates by consultation and recommendation.

A specialized agency is not an organ of the United Nations. It is a separate organisation brought into relationship under article 63.

Article 56 is not a duty to guarantee human rights. It is a pledge to take joint and separate action in cooperation with the Organization for the purposes in article 55.

Article 71 gives no vote. It authorises arrangements for consultation only.

The Council cannot adopt a convention. Article 62(3) lets it prepare drafts for submission to the General Assembly.

Its decisions bind nobody. Article 67 sets a simple majority and article 25 does not apply to it.

Limits and criticism

The Council has been eclipsed by the General Assembly, whose committees cover the same subjects with the full membership, so its recommendations are duplicated by a body with greater authority.

Coordination without power does not coordinate. Articles 58 and 63(2) depend on agencies that answer to their own memberships and their own budgets, and the system's incoherence is a standing complaint.

Fifty-four members is large for a body that decides by simple majority and small for a body claiming to represent the membership, which leaves it exposed to the criticism that it has neither the Assembly's legitimacy nor the Security Council's efficiency.

Article 71 has been asked to carry far more weight than 1945 intended. Consultative status is now a substantial system of civil society access, granted and withdrawn by a committee of the Council, and the criteria and the withdrawals have been contested.

Quick revision

Article 55: promote higher standards of living and full employment; solutions of economic, social, health and related problems and cultural and educational cooperation; universal respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion, all with a view to conditions of stability and well-being for peaceful and friendly relations based on equal rights and self-determination of peoples.

Article 56: all Members pledge joint and separate action in cooperation with the Organization.

Article 57: a specialized agency is established by intergovernmental agreement, has wide international responsibilities in those fields, and is brought into relationship under article 63, agreements needing Assembly approval.

Article 60: the Council acts under the authority of the General Assembly.

Article 61: fifty-four members, eighteen elected each year for three years, immediate re-election allowed. Article 67: one vote, simple majority of those present and voting.

Article 62: studies and reports; recommendations to the Assembly, Members and agencies; recommendations to promote human rights; draft conventions for the Assembly; international conferences. Article 64: reports from agencies and Members. Article 65: assist the Security Council on request.

Article 68: shall set up commissions, including for the promotion of human rights. Article 69: shall invite a Member concerned to participate without vote. Article 70: agency representatives without vote. Article 71: consultation with non-governmental organisations, national ones after consulting their State.

Test yourself

1. What does article 55 require the United Nations to promote, and what does article 56 add?

Article 55 requires the Organization to promote higher standards of living, full employment and conditions of economic and social progress and development; solutions of international economic, social, health and related problems and international cultural and educational cooperation; and universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion. It states the object of all this in its opening words: the creation of conditions of stability and well-being necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples. Article 56 adds that all Members pledge themselves to take joint and separate action in cooperation with the Organization for the achievement of those purposes, which is a pledge of cooperative action rather than a guarantee of particular rights, and it supplied the legal foundation for the Universal Declaration of 1948 and the Covenants of 1966.

2. What is a specialized agency?

By article 57(1) it is an organisation established by intergovernmental agreement, having wide international responsibilities as defined in its basic instrument in economic, social, cultural, educational, health and related fields, which has been brought into relationship with the United Nations in accordance with article 63. Article 63(1) allows the Economic and Social Council to enter into agreements with such agencies defining the terms of the relationship, subject to approval by the General Assembly. A specialized agency is not an organ of the United Nations: it has its own constitution, membership, budget and legal personality, which is why the International Labour Organisation, founded in 1919, could become one, and why the World Trade Organization, which has never concluded such an agreement, is not one.

3. Describe the composition and voting of the Economic and Social Council.

Article 61(1) provides for fifty-four Members of the United Nations elected by the General Assembly. By article 61(2) eighteen are elected each year for a three-year term, and a retiring member is eligible for immediate re-election, which distinguishes the Council from the Security Council, where article 23(2) forbids immediate re-election. Article 61(4) gives each member one representative. Article 67 gives each member one vote and provides that decisions shall be made by a majority of the members present and voting, so there are no important questions requiring a special majority and no veto. The Council began with eighteen members, was enlarged to twenty-seven by an amendment in force from 1965, and to fifty-four by an amendment in force from 1973.

4. What are the Council's functions?

Article 62 gives the substantive powers: to make or initiate studies and reports on international economic, social, cultural, educational, health and related matters, and to make recommendations on them to the General Assembly, the Members and the specialized agencies; to make recommendations for promoting respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms; to prepare draft conventions for submission to the General Assembly; and to call international conferences. Article 63 lets it conclude relationship agreements with the specialized agencies, subject to approval by the Assembly, and coordinate their activities by consultation and recommendation. Article 64 lets it obtain reports from the agencies and from Members on the steps taken to give effect to recommendations. Article 65 requires it to assist the Security Council on request, and article 66 to perform functions connected with carrying out the Assembly's recommendations and such other functions as the Assembly assigns.

5. Explain article 71 and its importance.

Article 71 provides that the Economic and Social Council may make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organisations concerned with matters within its competence, and that such arrangements may be made with international organisations and, where appropriate, with national organisations after consultation with the Member of the United Nations concerned. It is the only provision of the Charter that mentions non-governmental organisations, and it is the legal basis of the system of consultative status through which civil society participates in the work of the Organization. Its limits are in its own words: it authorises consultation, not membership and not a vote, and where a national organisation is concerned the State of which it is a national must be consulted first.

6. Why has the Economic and Social Council not become the organ the Charter envisaged?

Because its powers are recommendatory, its work duplicates that of the General Assembly, and the bodies it is supposed to coordinate are autonomous. Article 60 places it under the authority of the Assembly, whose committees cover the same subjects with the whole membership present, so its recommendations carry less weight than theirs. The specialized agencies brought into relationship under article 63 have their own constitutions, memberships and budgets, so coordination under articles 58 and 63(2) operates only through consultation and recommendation. And the substance has migrated: the funds and programmes were created by the Assembly, and human rights supervision passed in 2006 from the Commission on Human Rights, established under article 68, to the Human Rights Council, a subsidiary organ of the Assembly. What the Council retains is the reporting machinery under article 64, the commissions under article 68, and the gateway for non-governmental organisations under article 71.