Myanmar’s upcoming UN Credentials fight over the seat occupied by Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun

Guest contributor James Shwe Sometime between the opening of the 81st Session of the U.N. General Assembly on September 8 and the Credentials Committee’s decision later this year, nine countries will decide, by consensus, whose credentials get accepted for Myanmar’s seat. The precedent, the record, and the mechanism all support the outcome we are asking for. Our task is to make sure that support is visible in the room where the decision is made. What is this campaign? I am involved with “The Global Coalition Supporting Federal Democracy in Myanmar”, an informal group of like-minded people from across five continents who have worked together on Myanmar’s U.N. representation since the February 2021 coup. We do things a formal body cannot: sign in our own names, move quickly across time zones, and reach missions in host countries where the more visible advocacy groups do not always have a footprint. We support, we do not lead. The 2021 open letter to member states was signed by 358 Myanmar and international civil society organisations. Dozens have signed and amplified these submissions across the years. Our submissions reinforce theirs. They do not replace them. The task this year is the same as every year. Confirm Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun’s continuing status as Myanmar’s Permanent Representative, with full rights of participation and speech. Decline to accept any credentials from the authorities established after the 2021 seizure of power. Reject the quieter loss of leaving Myanmar’s seat unrepresented or indefinitely deferred. Resolve the matter by consensus, consistent with how the Assembly has handled it in every session since 2021. Similar petitions and open letters — from leading civil-society networks, from legal scholars, from parliamentary groups, and from other coalitions active in previous sessions — are expected to reach the Secretary-General and the Committee in the weeks around the September opening. Many voices, one asks. How the Credentials Committee is chosen Under Rule 28 of the U.N. General Assembly’s Rules of Procedure, a Credentials Committee of nine members is appointed at the beginning of each regular session on the proposal of the President of the General Assembly. The Office of Legal Affairs consults member states and suggests candidates to the President, who proposes the slate at the first plenary meeting, and the Assembly appoints the nine by acclamation. By long-standing custom, China, Russia, and the United States are always among the nine. The remaining six are distributed informally across the five U.N. regional groups — African, Asia-Pacific, Eastern European, Latin American and Caribbean, and Western European and others. There is no fixed one-per-group formula, and the exact distribution shifts session to session. The Committee then elects its own Chair. That is why timing matters. The nine members are named at the first plenary on September 8. The advocacy work that shapes the six non-permanent seats happens before that date. The advocacy work that shapes the outcome happens between the appointment and the Committee’s decision meeting later in the session. Why is this campaign necessary?