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The United Nations in its Twentieth Year

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Benjamin V. Cohen
Benjamin V. Cohen
Affiliation:
Benjamin V. Cohenis a Washington, D.C., lawyer who was a member of the United States delegation to the Dumbarton Oaks Conversations in 1944 and to the United Nations General Assembly from 1948 to 1952. He was also Counsellor of the United States Department of State from 1945 to 1947. This article is based on the David Niles Memorial Lecture delivered by the author at theHebrew Universityof Jerusalem on April 27, 1965.
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Extract

To understand and appraise the United Nations in its twentieth year we must consider whence it came and where it has come. As Abraham Lincoln once so wisely said: “If we could first know where we are and whither we are tending we could better judge what to do and how to do it.” When the Charter was drafted, it was contemplated that the Great Powers would work out an acceptable peace which the United Nations could maintain. But a stable and acceptable peace—a consensus or modicum of common understanding on the basic principles of coexistence—was never established after the last world war. The Great Powers were in no position to cooperate to maintain a peace the terms of which they were unable to agree upon. Rivalry and conflict among the Great Powers led to a Cold War in which the adversaries lost sight of their common interest in peace and were prone to exploit their differences rather than to attempt to find means of composing them. Even apart from the Cold War the whole world was struggling to adjust itself to revolutionary political, economic, and social changes, and the adjustment in many areas was difficult, painful, and not altogether rational. There was widespread need of adjustment to the radically changed conditions of life which modern science and technology made possible. In many areas the striving for economic improvement was accompanied by movements to break the bonds of colonial rule and feudal and tribal relationships. The very survival of the United Nations under these circumstances attests to humanity's essential need of the United Nations as an instrument of international cooperation in a world which has become increasingly interdependent despite ideological, national, and cultural differences and outlooks.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , Spring 1966 , pp. 185 - 207
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1966

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References

1 See Cohen, Benjamin V., The United Nations, Constitutional Development, Growth and Possibilities (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1961), pp. 38–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 General Assembly Resolution 377 (V), November 3, 1950.

3 Claude, Inis L. Jr. “The OAS, the UN, and the United States,” International Conciliation, March 1964 (No.547Google Scholar).

4 16 U.S. (4 Wheaton) 316, 421 (1819).(Henry Wheaton, Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Supreme Court of the United States, February Term, 1819 [New York: R. Donaldson, 1819], Vol. 4, p. 421.)

5 The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, and the Central Treaty Organization.

6 “Issues Before the Nineteenth General Assembly,” International Conciliation, November 1964 (No. 550), pp. 19–24.

7 General Assembly Official Records (15th session, Part I), p. 332.

8 Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919). (Abrams et al. v. United States in United States Reports, Vol. 250: Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court at October Term, 1918, and October Term, 1919, from May 19, 1919, to November 17, 1919, reporter Knaebe, Ernest [New York: The Banks Law Publishing Co., 1920], p. 630Google Scholar.)

9 United States Mission to the United Nations, Statement by Ambassador Arthur J. Goldberg, United States representative to the United Nations, in the Special Political Committee, on Peaceful Settlement of Disputes, December 14, 1965.

10 UN Document A/AC.121/PV.15, pp. 8–10.

11 Ibid., p. 7.

12 UN Document A/AC.113/30, September 14, 1964.

13 Department of State Bulletin, January 7, 1945 (Vol. 12, No. 289), p. 26.

14 Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416, 433 (1920). (State of Missouri v. Holland, United States Game Warden in United States Reports, Vol. 252: Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court at October Term, 1919, from March 1, 1920, to April 19, 1920, reporter Knaebel, Ernest [New York: The Banks Law Publishing Co., 1920], p. 433Google Scholar.)