No consideration of the place of Africa in the United Nations or of the role of international organization in the progress of this continent would be thinkable without an authoritative expression of views upon the subject by Africans themselves.

The Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) held its 29th session in Geneva on January 15–26, 1962, under the chairmanship of Dr. A. O. Abu Shumma. The Standing Committee on Administration and Finance held eight meetings. The Standing Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations held two meetings and considered new applications from organizations for official membership, as well as carrying out a quadrennial review of the organizations in official relationship with WHO. The Standing Committee on Headquarters Accommodations also met.

Economic development involves the whole society of the developing country. The help that foreign countries can give in the process of development is necessarily limited, both in amount and in character. The United Nations has concentrated its aid to developing countries on “technical assistance”—a term that covers a wide range of activities. Along with help and instruction in particular techniques of industry and other such activities, UN technical assistance has also encompassed help and advice in matters of public administration and the execution of public policy in matters affecting development. Public finance is a field of special importance in this connection, both because of its direct importance to the process of development and because its complexity provides the need and opportunity for international assistance. The process of financing is intimately linked with every single activity in the economy and, therefore, the study of these problems affects every phase of economic development. Moreover, in countries which are still at the early stages of development, public finance must necessarily be used to support a nascent private enterprise sector. There is a need for providing social overhead and a necessity for adjusting the revenue system to the requirements of productive investment without eroding the base to an extent which would make it impossible to mobilize the funds needed for economic expansion.

The fifth annual report prepared by the secretariat of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), International Trade 1956, opened with a survey of developments in the structure and pattern of international trade. During 1956 the value of international trade had risen by II percent from 1955 to more than $90,000 million during the first half of the year and $95,000 million in the second. Because of a slight increase in the general price level the volume of world trade had risen somewhat less, but had exceeded the rate of increase in industrial output. Trade between industrial and non-industrial areas had continued to decline. Due to the greater increase in value of exports of industrial countries than of those of the non-industrial areas, as well as to the greater rise in volume of exports of industrial countries to each other than to non-industrial destinations, the share in world exports of trade among industrial countries had risen to 40.3 percent, while the share of trade between industrial and non-industrial countries fell to 49.2 percent and that among non-industrial countries to 10.5 percent. The report attributed this trend to the decline in exports from non-industrial areas at a time when the share of their imports in world trade had remained unchanged, a situation due primarily to industrial development, slow growth of primary production, and increased domestic demand in the semi-industrialized countries. Examining the long-term market outlook for primary products in western Europe and North America, the report concluded that prospects for export of raw materials and fuels from non-industrial areas were favorable, but that with respect to the market for most foodstuffs the future was uncertain, depending on the rate of growth of agricultural production in the industrial countries.

The 28th session of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), comprising the 1067th to the 1089th meetings inclusive, was held in Geneva from June 30 through July 31, I959.1 Mr. Daniel Cosío Villegas (Mexico) presided. After it was announced that Mr. Zahiruddin Ahmed (Pakistan), who had been elected second Vice-President at the 27th session, would be prevented by certain duties in his own country from attending the 28th session, Mr. Faruqi (Pakistan) was elected to that position.

Too often world food problems are viewed as North-South problems, as matters to be resolved between rich and poor. In fact, most world food trade takes place entirely among the rich. The industrial nations of the European Community, Japan, and the USSR import more food today than all of the poor countries combined. These industrial food importing nations make a dubious contribution to the stability and security of the world food system. In different measure, they seek to shift adjustment burdens onto others, to enjoy something of a free ride. All have subsidized production for export in times of world surplus, and all have stepped ahead of poor countries to purchase high priced imports in times of scarcity. To these burden-shifting trade policies, the USSR in particular adds its own troublesome nonparticipation in most multilateral efforts at world food policy management. Prospects for improved burden sharing in the future are dim. Fortunately, the world food system still gains most of its stability and security from separate production decisions within nations, rather than from collective storage, trade, or aid decisions among nations.

This study examines how the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent Western responses influence Chinese public opinion on the use of force. Using two original, preregistered online survey experiments, first in June 2022 and then in June 2023, we show that the Russian invasion is associated with a modest but statistically significant increase in Chinese support for using military force in international affairs in general and against Taiwan in particular. However, information on Western military measures aiding Ukraine curbs the modest impact of the invasion. Such information is especially effective in reducing support for an outright military invasion of Taiwan. Causal mediation analyses reveal that the Russian invasion influences public opinion by inducing optimism regarding military success and pessimism regarding peaceful resolution of the conflict. These findings suggest that foreign military aggression and subsequent international countermeasures can sway domestic public opinion on using military force.

Partly by design, partly by coincidence the twelve months from September 1969 to September 1970 saw an “explosion” of reports about development problems. This article is particularly concerned with one of these, Sir Robert Jackson's A Study of the Capacity of the United Nations Development System. While the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) covers only a minor percentage of total assistance extended to less developed countries, its significance reaches beyond its quantitative development impact It has become the single most important United Nations cooperative effort and, more generally, represents an unprecedented example of intergovernmental and interorganizational cooperation.

The Trusteeship Council held its 26th session at UN Headquarters in New York from April 14 to June 30, 1960. At its opening meeting, the 1051st, the Council adopted its provisional agenda, which included consideration of the most recent annual reports of the administering authorities on the trust territories of Ruanda-Urundi, Tanganyika, the Cameroons under United Kingdom administration, New Guinea, Nauru, the Pacific Islands, Somaliland under Italian administration, and Western Samoa, as well as examination of petitions, reports of UN visiting missions to Ruanda-Urundi and Tanganyika in 1960, matters referred to the Council by the General Assembly and the Secretary General, the report of the UN Advisory Council for Somaliland under Italian administration, and reports of various committees of the Council.

The eleventh session of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Assembly met in Montreal from May 20 to June 2, 1958. Represented at the meeting were 52 contracting states; two non-contracting states (the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia) sent observers, as did the UN, the International Labor Organization, and the International Air Transport Association. After statements by various delegations, the President of the ICAO Council reviewed the activities of the organization since the last Assembly meeting in 1956. He stated that the intervening period had been one of great activity in ICAO centering around preparations in all fields for the advent of turbine-powered aircraft. A specially created Jet Operations Requirements Panel had studied the requirements of the new long-range jet aircraft, and a Special Implementation Panel had been created by the Council. A preliminary study of the economic implications of long-range aircraft had been prepared by the Air Transport Committee and was being submitted to the Council. He stressed that while special attention was being given to the coming operations of jet aircraft, this emphasis should not cause the organization to disregard the continuous growth of aviation during 1956 and 1957. The technical assistance activity of ICAO had continued, during the period under review, to give important support to implementation through the assignment of experts and technicians and the training of students in countries where there were technical assistance missions, as also by granting fellowships and scholarships for study abroad.

At the end of its twentieth year the United Nations is in the midst of a constitutional crisis the outcome of which is still in doubt. During its lifetime it has survived other profound changes, some no less constitution shaking than the present one. Other developments were absorbed chiefly through a process of informal Charter interpretation and institutional adaptation; whereas the current financial crisis was allowed to reach the stage where formal confrontation of conflicting Charter interpretations could be avoided only by adopting a procedural device to evade decision that, unfortunately, also brought the Assembly to a halt.

The twelfth session of the Economic and Social Council met in Santiago, Chile from February 20 to March 21, 1951. Hernan Santa Cruz (Chile) was re-elected President of the Council and Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar (India) was elected first vice-president following an unsuccessful attempt by the Soviet delegate (Chernyshev) to unseat the nationalist Chinese delegate.

The Security Council considered various aspects of the current situation in the newly independent Republic of the Congo (formerly the Belgian Congo) at its 873d, 877th–879th, 884th–889th, and 896th–906th meetings. The first meeting was called at the request of the Secretary-General to hear his report on the demand for UN action submitted to him by the government of the Republic of the Congo. Accordingly, the Secretary-General opened the discussion by describing the three communications which he had received from the government of the Congo, the first requesting urgent technical assistance in the field of administration, and the second and third requesting military assistance; since the first request was within the limits of the competence of the Secretary-General himself, it was only with the last two that the Council had to concern itself. Believing that the presence of the Belgian troops currently in the Congo was a source of internal and potentially also of international tension, the Secretary-General proposed to accede t o the demand of the Congo for UN military assistance by sending to that country a UN Force which would not be authorized to action beyond self-defense nor to any action which would make it a party to internal conflicts, and which would be composed of personnel such as to avoid complications because of the nationalities used—that is, participation of troops from of African nations would be desirable, while that of troops from the permanent members of the Council would not. It would be of understood that, were the UN to act as a proposed, the Belgian government would of see its way to a withdrawal of its troops from the Congo.

It was reported that during a meeting of the Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) on February 8, 1960, a debate took place on the alleged violations of human rights perpetuated by the government of General Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina of the Dominican Republic. Dr. Falcon-Briceno, Venezuelan ambassador to the United States, who had brought the charge on instructions of his government, contended that a concern for human rights was a basic function of the inter-American system and called upon the Council to investigate the situation. He was challenged by the Dominican ambassador, Mr. Diaz Ordoñez, who insisted that the prevailing situation was a matter of exclusively domestic concern to his government and stressed the fact that non-intervention in internal affairs was a basic principle of the inter-American system. The delegates were urged to action by the delegate of Honduras, who expressed the view that the principle of non-intervention should not close the door to action deemed to be necessary for the preservation of human rights and liberties. After a threehour debate, the Council reportedly decided, by a vote of 20 to none, with 1 abstention (the Dominican Republic), to initiate an inquiry into the matter. To this end, five nations—Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, Peru, and the United States—were appointed as a working group to consider whether and how the organization could conduct an investigation in the case.

On August 30, 1954, a close vote on a motion to prevent debate in the French National Assembly consigned to history a spectacular scheme for the unification; of western Europe. The defeat of the European Defense Community (EDC) precipitated a seven-week crisis in the western world that only adroit diplomacy, spurred by a sense of desperation, could overcome. In the ensuing conferences of London (September 28— October 3) and Paris (October 20–23), the foreign ministers accomplished two vital purposes. They salvaged the Atlantic alliance and they brought Adenauer's; Germany into the family of free nations.

A short meeting of the Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), devoted exclusively to East-West relations, was held on September 4, 1959, following a visit by United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower. United States Secretary of State Christian Herter, opening the session, explained to the Council why Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had been invited to the United States and reviewed the general world situation since the Geneva Conference, including the current state of disarmament negotiations.

For almost a decade commentators on international organization have nurtured the myth that the UN Charter was originally ‘oversold’ to the American public by enthusiastic supporters, who represented the organization as a panacea for the ills of twentieth-century world politics. So unrealistic were the expectations created by this publicity barrage, so the story runs, that subsequent disillusionment with die UN was inevitable. Although propagated with many variations, the myth finds a classic formulation in the words of Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., uttered before the House Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements, July 8, 1953: ‘The United Nations,’ said Ambassador Lodge, ‘was oversold. It was advertised entirely as an automatic peace producer. All we had to do was sign on die dotted line—so it was said—and all our troubles would be over’. A recent volume on international relations, currently in use as a college text, restated the myth in a some what less extreme form: ‘Considered a towering edifice of strength in 1945, the United Nations was often shrugged off in the early 1950's with the damning phrase, ‘debating society.’ Because expectations had been so extravagant, the achievements of the United Nations seemed ridiculously trivial to many who had expected a Utopian revolution in international relations that the United Nations could not hope to provide.” Other variations on the theme are no doubt familiar to students of international organization. Use of the expression ‘myth’ implies no denial that ‘a veritable wave of propaganda and influence was generated on behalf of American membership’ in the UN. The country was flooded with information, from bodi government and private sources, designed to win over the public to the desirability of postwar international organization. It is also true that those engaged in selling the UN to the public tried to give their arguments an optimistic, hopeful tone. Recalling the League's fate, they emphasized the differences between the League and the proposed new organization rather than their patent similarities. Often they were guilty of oversimplifying the facts of world politics upon which the future of the UN would necessarily depend. The growing split between Russia and the Western allies, so ominous for the new organization, was not usually highlighted in speeches urging the establishment of the UN. A vigorous selling campaign was unquestionably conducted.