On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:17:59 -0800, wrote:
I meant the above in the particular case of Kosovo, not in general,
obviously. There have been sovereign countries that existed for
centuries, yet did not seek the UN membership for whatever reason. Their
sovereignty, however, had never been disputed.
The problem with Kosovo is that if the UN does not accept it (due to the
Russian and Chinese veto, or Serbian objection, or whatever else), there
is no legal ground on which it can be assigned a prefix block.

But isn't that pretty much the same as the situation as with E4? (the
primary difference being which Security Council member would veto UN
membership)

It would be interesting to know whether the membership is granted by the
member-state vote and whether the permanent UN Security Council members
have a veto right in such issues.

I did some digging around and best I can tell, the Security Council *does*
have a veto with regard to new members.