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oviet Union insisted that each state be considered separately. Individually, states such as Mongolia could not receive the seven necessary votes to obtain membership and thus their applications were continuously denied. Since the “Big Five” reserved their right to use the Security Council veto on issues of membership, a deadlock on new members occurred between 1949 and 1955. The Soviet Union insisted on the admission of Communist sponsored states or no admissions at all. Ideologically set on combating Communism throughout the world, the United States worked rigorously to prevent the admission of such states [15] .

As early as 1950, the Members of the United Nations became concerned about the admissions deadlock. They pursued both political and legal means to break the deadlock, as they generally believed the United Nations would be strengthened by universality of membership, and weakened without it. Several proposals were made that would have given the General Assembly more power in the admissions of new members. However, since these proposals were not in line with the Charter, they were not supported by a majority of the Members. Political attempts to break the deadlock were wholly unsuccessful. Legally, the General Assembly argued that the Soviet Union was using its veto power improperly. The Member States argued that states were being denied admission on the basis of issues that were not outlined in the Charter [16] . This is certainly accurate, as the Soviet Union admitted in 1947 that they opposed the admission of Finland and Italy, not on the basis of qualification, but because Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania were being denied admission (look in Goodrich to find out which meeting this was at). The Soviet Union insisted on “all or none”, despite the fact that they knew Finland and Italy met the requirements of admission.

Though the Soviet Union had signed the UN Charter, the political realities of the Cold War solidified its decision to pursue this “all or none” tactic, despite the fact that it blatantly ignored the 1948 International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion regarding admissions criteria. The Court, at the request of the General Assembly, provided two interconnected decisions. The first legally defined the conditions outlined in Article 4 as the only criteria by which Members are able to judge membership applications. The second decision, which speaks directly to the Soviet decision, clearly states that “… every application for admission should be examined and voted on separately and on its own merits”. By making admission of one applicant dependent on the admission of other applicants, Members would not be adhering to the treaty provisions laid out in the Charter. According to the Court, by adding other criteria into consideration, “it would lead to conferring upon Members an indefinite and practically unlimited power of discretion in the imposition of new conditions” [17] .

This Court decision was blatantly ignored by the Security Council. In fact, many package deal solutions were proposed throughout the admissions deadlock. The first, which prompted the Court of Justice decision, was proposed by Poland in 1947. Realizing that voting on matters of admission had come to follow the blocs of the Cold War, Poland thought a compromise could be made by letting Hungary, Italy, Romania, and Bulgaria into the United Nations together. Unfortunately, this package deal was turned down by b