Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T21:34:41.121Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Commonwealth in the United Nations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Gwendolen M. Carter
Get access

Extract

Seven Commonwealth countries – the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, and pakistan – are now members of the United Nations. As this widely representative international organization celebrates its fifth anniversary, it is worth considering how the members of an older well-tried international association, the General Assembly in dealing with international political issues. Broadly speaking, the questions of significance are: How far is the fact of membership in the commonwealth recognized within the United Nations, e. g. in elections to its organs? How do Commonwealth countries act when one of their own members is under attack, as South Africa has been over South West Africa, or in the even more difficult circumstances when two of their members openly air a dispute in the international forum, as over the position of Indians in South Africa, or over Jammu and Kashmir? How do they act in relation to issues of general international concern like Indonesia and Palestine? And lastly, how far do the countries of the Commonwealth retain their traditionally intimate collaboration within this larger and more formal organization? Is there any pattern here which will help to explain what kind of international association the Commonwealth now is, as well as what role its members play in the United Nations?

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , May 1950 , pp. 247 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1950

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 India was also a member of the League of Nations but did not acquire full independent status within the Commonwealth until August 1947. For a detailed study of the Dominions in the League of Nations, see Carter, Gwendolen M., The British Commonwealth and International Security: The Role of the Dominions, 1919–1939, Toronto, 1947Google Scholar.

2 The General Assembly elected Australia, Brazil and Poland, non-permanent members of the Security Council for terms of two years each, and Egypt, Mexico, and the Netherlands, for terms of one year each at the fourth and fifth plenary meetings. General Assembly Plenary Meetings Verbatim Record, First Session First Part, p. 83Google Scholar . Later on the same day Canada and also India were elected to the Economic and Social Council.

3 India had also sought unsucessfully for election to the Security Council during the second part of the first session of the General Assembly when Colombia, Syria, and Belgium were chosen.

4 See Document A/315, Official Records of the Second Session of the General Assembly, Supplement 1, Resolution 44 ( I ).

5 Speech in the first (political)committee of the General Assembly on November 17, 1947. See document A/P.V. 119 for the general consideration of the issue.

6 Official Records of the Second Session of the General Asembly. Documents A/373, A/387, and A/P.V. 119.

7 The question was on the agenda of the third session of the General Assembly in the fall of 1948, having been raised again by the government of India in a letter dated July 12, 1948, but was postponed until the second part of the third session in the spring of 1949.

8 47 votes to 1, with 10 abstentions. Resolution 265 (III), May 14, 1949.

9 Speaking to the South African House of Assembly on February 20, 1950, the Minister of the Interior, Dr. Donges declared that the genesis of these preliminary talks lay in the informal talks between the Prime Ministers of South Africa and India when they were in London in April 1949 for the conference of Prime Ministers. He also stated that the discussions at the Conference would be exploratory in nature. South Africa Reports (New York), 02 23, 1950Google Scholar .

10 For summaries of Security Council discussions of the India-Pakistan dispute, see International Organization, II, p. 299–306, 488–9, III, p. 108–10 and 300–01.

11 In the third interim report submitted to the Security Council on December 5, 1949. For details, see United Nations Bulletin, VIII, 01 15, 1950, p. 88–90Google Scholar .

12 Ibid., p. 90–2 and 160. The later appointment of Sir Owen Dixon of the Australian Supreme Court as United Nations representative in Kashmir should also be noted.

13 General Assembly Fourth Committee Summary Record, First Session First Part, p. 6. See also The United Nations: Report of the New Zealand Delegation on the First Part of the First Regular Session of the General Assembly … Department of External Aflairs, Wellington, 1946, p. 29Google Scholar.

14 In the fourth (trusteeship) committee of the second part of the first session of the General Assembly which met in New York in the Autumn of 1946. See The United Nations 1946, Department of External Affairs, Ottawa, Canada. Conference Series 1946, No. 3, p. 112Google Scholar.

15 Resolution 65 (I), December 14, 1946.

16 Resolution 141 (II), November 1, 1947, sponsored by India.

17 The Economist (London), 12 3, 1949, p. 1223Google Scholar.

18 For text of resolution see United Nations Bullctin, VII, p. 753Google Scholar.

19 This was exhibited also in the vigorous Indian comments on trusteeship agreements, particularly those for New Guinea (Australia), Western Samoa (New Zealand) and Tanganyika (United Kingdom). See for example fourth committee records of the first session second part, Part I p. 69 and 169, and Fart II, p. 11 and 41, as well as plenary meetings, Part II, p. 1267.

20 Hnsluck, Paul, Workshop of Security, Melbourne and London, 1948, p. 178Google Scholar.

21 This was sought in the memorandum on pacific settlement by the Security Council submitted to the first (political) committee of the second part of the first session of the General Assembly on November 30, 1946. The United Nations, 1946, op. cit., p. 44–5, 204–6.

22 For a comprehensive summary of developments, see Leonard, L. Larry, “The United Nations and Palestine,” International Conciliation, 10 1949Google Scholar.

23 Resolution 181 (II) of November 29, 1947. Chapters X–XIII of The Task of Nations, New York, 1949Google Scholar, provide a detailed account of the work of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question as seen by Dr. Evatt, and throw light on his attitude and purposes.

24 Statement by the Canadian delegate in plenary session on November 26, 1947. For a careful and detailed account of Canada's motives and actions in the Palestine issue during the second session of the General Assembly, see Canada at the United Nations, 1947.… Department of External Affairs, Ottawa, Canada. Conference Series 1947, No. 1, p. 41–50Google Scholar.

25 Both governments acted through letters to the Secretary-General of the United Nations dated July 30, 1947. For brief summaries of the Indonesian question before the United Nations, see General Assembly, Official Records: Third Session, Supplement 1; Annual Reiiort of the Secrctary …, p. 17–24Google Scholar, and ibid., Fourth Session, Supplement 1, p. 28–33.

20 See Evatt, H. V., op. cit., p. 175–99Google Scholar.

27 See Canada and the United Nations, 1948. Department of External Affairs, Ottawa, Canada. Conference Series 1948, No. 1, p. 59–63Google Scholar, and External Affairs (Ottawa), 04 1949, p. 34–6Google Scholar.

28 E.g. Commonwealth countries representatives held discussions prior to several of the general meetings at which United Nations bodies were established; Comonwealth Prime Ministers met in London in May 1944, April 1945 (when the Australian New Zealand and South African Prime Ministers met with the British on their way to the San Francisco Conference), April–May 1946, November 1947 (when the Canadian and South African Prime Ministers met with the British Cabinet ministers and Dominion High Commissioners), October 1948, and April 1949; a Commonwealth conference on the Japanese peace treaty and the Pacific was held in Canberra in August 1947, and the Finance Ministers of all Commonwealth countries including Canada (despite the fact that it is not in the sterling area) met in London in July 1949, and the Foreign Ministers of the countries of the Commonwealth in Colombo in January 1950.