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The United Nations: Then and Now

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Lawrence S. Finkelstein
Lawrence S. Finkelstein
Affiliation:
A member of the Board of Editors of International Organisation, is Vice President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The author wishes to thank Eva Popper for her research help, especially in compiling the table on pp. 377–380
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Extract

“We do not want to entrust to five great Powers or to two great Powers the task of deciding … what our common destiny will be…”.

To anyone who attended the great assemblage gathered at San Francisco in 1945 to write the Charter for the United Nations, these words have a familiar ring. Indeed, they might have been uttered (and no doubt were ad nauseam) by small-power representatives during the seemingly interminable debates over the rule of unanimity—the veto—in the Security Council. In fact, these words were spoken in February 1965 by the Mauritanian delegate explaining, on the final day of the “abortive” nineteenth session of the General Assembly, why he voted with Albania in protest against the “basis of consensus” which had governed the session.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , Summer 1965 , pp. 367 - 393
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1965

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References

1 UN Document A/PV. 1330, February 18, 1965, p. 47.

2 Text of the Secretary-General's address to the Pacem in Terris Convocation, February 20, 1965 (“The UNITED NATIONS in a Changing World,” UN Monthly Chronicle, 03 1965 [Vol. 2, No. 3], p. 46)Google Scholar.

3 In his address in the General Assembly's special International Cooperation Year (ICY) series, Alberto Lleras Camargo, himself a leading figure in the 1045 Conference, commented on the passing of many of “the men of San Francisco.” (“International Cooperation: Twenty Years After the San Francisco Conference,” UN Monthly Chronicle, 02 1965 [Vol. 2, No. 2], pp. 63–73Google Scholar.) It is, for example, striking that of the eight members of the United States delegation to the Conference only two, Harold Stassen and Virginia Gildersleeve, survive.

4 Bradley, Omar N., A Soldier's Story (New York: Holt & Co., 1951), p. 546Google Scholar.

5 Testimony of DrPasvolsky, Leo in U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Hearings, The Charter of the United Nations, 79th Congress, 1st session, 1945, p. 230Google Scholar.

6 Alberto Lleras Camargo recently observed that despite Roosevelt's, passing, “nevertheless, the San Francisco Conference was still dominated by his extraordinary personality.” (UN Monthly Chronicle, Vol. 2, No. 2, p. 64.)Google Scholar

7 UN Monthly Chronicle, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 43–44.

8 “Report on the San Francisco Conference,” Department of State Bulletin, 06 3, 1945 (Vol. 12, No. 310), p. 1007Google Scholar.

9 See pp. 373–374 below.

10 Russell, Ruth B., A History of the United Nations Charter: The Role of the United States, 1940–1945 (Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution, 1958)Google Scholar, especially Chapter 27.

11 There were other reasons as well. On this question, see ibid., especially pp. 106, 129–130.

12 “The Great Revolution,” UN Monthly Chronicle, 04 1965 (Vol. 2, No. 4), p. 72Google Scholar.

13 Charter of the United Nations: Report to the President on the Results of the San Francisco Conference by the Chairman of the United States Delegation, the Secretary of State, June 26, 1945 (Department of State Publication 2349, Conference Series 71) (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1945). p. 111Google Scholar.

14 Report of the Rapporteur of Committee 11/3 (General Assembly, Economic and Social Cooperation) in Documents of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, San Francisco, 1945 (New York: United Nations Information Organization, 1945), Vol. 10, pp. 271–272Google Scholar.

15 Sady, Emil J., The United Nations and Dependent Peoples (Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution, 1956), p. 3Google Scholar.

16 Department of State Bulletin, 07 25, 1942 (Vol. 7, No. 161), p. 642Google Scholar.

17 Sherwood, Robert E., Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (New York: Harper & Row, 1948), p. 573Google Scholar.

18 The Australia, New Zealand, United States Tripartite Security Pact, the Middle East Defense Organization, and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, respectively.

19 UN Document S/5575.

20 “Risks of a Big-Power Peace,” Foreign Affairs, 01 1946 (Vol. 24, No. 2), pp. 2, 4, 5Google Scholar.

21 “The United Nations General Assembly: Its Expanding Role and the Issues Before the Second Session,” International Conciliation, 09 1947 (No. 433), p. 479Google Scholar.

22 See later in this volume, Ruth B. Russell, “Changing Patterns of Constitutional Development”; and Leland M. Goodrich, “The Maintenance of International Peace and Security.”

23 See later in this volume, Norman J. Padelford, “Financing Peacekeeping: Politics and Crisis.”

24 See later in this volume, Daniel S. Cheever, “The Diplomacy of Arms Control.”

25 Morgenthau, Hans has dramatized the point in an article entitled “The U.N. of Dag Hammarskjold is Dead,” The New York Times Magazine, 03 14, 1965, pp. 32, 37–40Google Scholar.

26 General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV), December 14, 1960.

27 “The United Nations and Non-Self-Goveraing Territories,” International Conciliation, 11 1947 (No. 435), p. 714Google Scholar.

28 For the complete list in 1963, see Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “Issues Before the Nineteenth General Assembly,” International Conciliation, 11 1964 (No. 550), p. 64Google Scholar.

29 For a more detailed discussion of this question, see later in this volume, Rupert Emerson, “Colonialism, Political Development, and the UN.”

30 General Assembly Resolution 1904 (XVIII), November 20, 1963.

31 “Issues Before the Nineteenth General Assembly,” International Conciliation, No. 550, p. 103Google Scholar.

32 See the general description of this problem in “Long-Range Programme of Work in the Fields of Population (Proposals of the Secretary-General to the Thirteenth Session of the Population Commission)” (UN Document E/CN.9/196).

33 If country A has a gross national product (GNP) of $100 million and increases at 2 percent per annum while country B has a GNP of $10 million and increases at 5 percent per annum, the production gap between the two will increase by $1.5 million per annum. Country B would have to achieve a growth rate of 20 percent to keep the gap from growing.

34 UN Monthly Chronicle, Vol. 2, No. 4, p. 68.

35 However, see Arthur Lall in this symposium who underscores the potential seriousness of the Indonesian action.