In a national referendum on March 3, 2002, Switzerland voted to join the United Nations. This move is in significant contrast to a similar 1986 referendum in which the proposal was defeated by a three-to-one majority. The country’s main concern about joining the supranational organization is that UN membership would compromise the celebrated Swiss neutrality. However, given Switzerland’s current role in the international community, such fears are largely unfounded. The reluctance to join the United Nations is based largely on the conservative, isolationist views of rural German-speaking Swiss, a sector of the population that has yet to recognize that UN membership will benefit Switzerland without significantly changing the country’s standing. The successful vote to join the United Nations shows that Switzerland is moving away from such a traditional perspective, but Switzerland is not likely to further compromise its autonomy in the near future.

Taking Sides on Neutrality

The vote for UN membership did not pass by a landslide; of the general population, only 55 percent of the voters (more than expected) approved the referendum proposal. The vote was even closer in the second test of votes in Switzerland’s direct democracy system, with 12 cantons in favor and 11 against. The divide in Swiss voting revealed a well defined split between the urban west and the rural, mountainous east. The voting system favors the smaller German-speaking cantons, giving their populations a greater voice in deciding Swiss affairs. Such regions as the tiny half-canton of Appenzell Inner-Rhoden returned a “No” vote with 68 percent of the voters—less than 5,000 people—voting against. In contrast, the highest “Yes” vote came from the French-speaking Geneva Canton, where 67 percent of a population of 420,000 were in favor of the proposal—no surprise, since many UN agencies are based in Geneva. Anti-UN sentiments are found mostly in Switzerland’s eastern heartland; the government is now left to allay the fears of these conservative cantons.

The campaign to negate the proposal for UN membership was led by Christoph Blocher, a prominent Swiss politician and billionaire industrialist who heads the Zurich wing of the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) and successfully led the campaign against UN membership 14 years ago. This right-wing populist party has gained momentum in recent years, capturing 22 percent of the parliamentary seats in the last election. In 2002, Blocher made the referendum vote close by focusing on smaller rural cantons and playing on fears of threats to Swiss autonomy. Those in favor of UN membership ran a straight-forward campaign, holding hundreds of town meetings around the country to argue the factual merits of joining. Blocher took a less subdued tone, running under such slogans as “Yes to the Red Cross and Peace, No to the UN and War” and plastering the country with posters depicting an axe breaking apart the word “neutrality.” Such tactics played on the concern of the Swiss population that the country’s independent spirit would be compromised by UN membership. The main concern is that Switzerland will come under the yoke of the UN Security Council, which is dominated by its five permanent members: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Blocher spoke for the more conservative Swiss voters when he said, “the Security Council has nothing to do with justice. It is purely a power machine. Switzerland should not subject itself to the Security Council and as a neutral country definitely should not join [the United Nations].” Blocher’s determined campaigning, however, failed to convince the majority of the Swiss population, who found the arguments in favor of UN membership more appealing than those against.

While Switzerland historically has projected an air of aloofness from world affairs, joining the United Nations will not alter much of what is already common practice. Currently, Switzerland has strong ties to the United Nations and to other international organizations. The offices for the European headquarters of the United Nations are located in Geneva, and Switzerland also hosts the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Olympic Committee, and the World Council of Churches. In addition to maintaining a permanent observer to the United Nations (who sits between the observing ambassadors from the Vatican and the Palestine Liberation Organization), Switzerland is active in certain non-political UN agencies that address issues such as health and refugees. The Swiss armed forces are involved in peacekeeping operations to provide logistical support to other troops and have taken an even more active role after Swiss voters agreed in a June 2001 referendum to allow their soldiers involved in peacekeeping to be armed for self-defense purposes. International trade practices in Switzerland, for example sanctions on UN-censured nations such as Iraq, mirror those espoused by the United Nations. In fact, Switzerland gives US$300 million each year to the United Nations, making it the 14th-largest donor country. Already involved in a number of sectors, Switzerland faced a logical progression to UN membership. Even the matter of paying member dues, which in the past kept some smaller nations from joining, will not be an issue: Switzerland has Europe’s seventh-largest economy and already earns US$1.8 billion each year from the UN presence in Geneva, so the estimated US$43 million membership cost will be a negligible sum.

Furthermore, Switzerland will not be the only neutral UN member state. Austria, Finland, Ireland, and Sweden are all formally neutral countries that are members of the United Nations. Austria has “never had a conflict in the UN because of [its] neutrality,” according to Gerhard Pfanzelter, Austria’s UN ambassador. According to Pfanzelter, “with the end of the Cold War, neutrality is now in an entirely different context,” making Switzerland’s decision to join the United Nations less problematic. While the construction of Swiss neutrality, which bars Switzerland from involvement in war, may differ slightly from the nature of other nations’ neutrality, the basic concept is the same. The United Nations will not ask Switzerland to deviate from this position. Ambassador Jeno Staehelin, who has been Switzerland’s permanent observer to the United Nations since 1997, believes that “neutrality is still very much a part of our identity. [Joining the United Nations] will force us to take positions, to get involved.” He further noted that Switzerland “will finally have the possibility of participating in the making of decisions and of defending directly our interests instead of depending on the goodwill of others.” Since Switzerland is already involved in UN affairs, gaining UN membership will do less to change what Switzerland does than it will alter the country’s official status and the input that it can have in decisions of international policy.