Early last summer the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations took a decision which in the course of years is likely to have a very considerable and, in my opinion, a very damaging effect on its work and its efficiency. After a lengthy discussion it resolved by a majority vote that all its advisory commissions should be composed of government representatives — of persons, therefore, acting on government instructions — rather than of persons acting in their individual capacity.

International organization is not a new concept in the minds of men, but the creation of most of the international organizations now in existence has occurred within the memory of many who are by no means our oldest citizens. Before the last war, it was not too difficult for the interested layman, the scholar, the government official, or the teacher to keep abreast of new ideas and new philosophies. He watched the League of Nations, the Pan American Union, and a handful of specialized organizations like the Postal Union or the International Institute of Agriculture, and felt reasonably safe in his conviction that he could qualify as an intelligent citizen or even, at times, a teacher.

In everyday speech, the word “refugee” means any person who has to leave his home because of a general catastrophe — natural or social. People whose dislocation was caused, in one way or another, by the second world war came to be called “displaced persons” or “DP's.” The largest remaining group of such displaced persons is in China, where there are perhaps 25,000,000 people who are still living away from their former homes; but the problem which they present, though it is almost unimaginably vast and tragic, comes within the jurisdiction of a single nation. The same is true of the second largest remaining group, the perhaps 10,000,000 Soviet citizens who have not returned to their pre-war places of residence. The perhaps 8,000,000 Germans recently transferred from East Prussia, Silesia, the Sudetenland and other areas into the four zones of diminished Germany and Austria pose an international problem; but it is being handled by the occupying authorities — jointly or separately. Apart from several hundred thousand persons of Chinese nationality driven by the war from their homes in non-Chinese portions of Southeast Asia and some tens of thousands of Indian nationality, similarly displaced, who do not raise vexing political questions, the persons with whom a general international organization for uprooted people must deal are almost exclusively the perhaps 2,000,000 European refugees — refugees in the narrower technical meaning of the term, bristling with political complications.

One of the first of the specialized agencies of the United Nations to become active, the Food and Agriculture Organization has elicited interest beyond the specialized field of agricultural economists. Attempting as it does to solve one of the very basic problems of the world, that of an adequate food supply, the organization represents a significant and hopeful international attempt to create a world in which there may actually exist “freedom from want.” The objectives of FAO, as formally expressed in the preamble to the constitution, read as follows:

“The nations accepting this constitution being determined to promote the common welfare by furthering separate and collective action on their part for the purpose of raising levels of nutrition and standards of living of the people under their jurisdiction, securing improvements in the efficiency of the production of all food and agricultural products, bettering the conditions of rural populations, and thus contributing toward an expanding world economy, hereby establish the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.”

On April 18, 1946, the League Assembly adjourned after taking the necessary steps to terminate the existence of the League of Nations and transfer its properties and assets to the United Nations. On August 1, this transfer took place at a simple ceremony in Geneva. Thus, an important and, at one time, promising experiment in international cooperation came formally to an end. Outside of Geneva, no important notice was taken of this fact. Within the counsels of the United Nations, there was an apparent readiness to write the old League off as a failure, and to regard the new organization as something unique, representing a fresh approach to the world problems of peace and security. Quite clearly there was a hesitancy in many quarters to call attention to the essential continuity of the old League and the new United Nations for fear of arousing latent hostilities or creating doubts which might seriously jeopardize the birth and early success of the new organization.

The pattern of relations between the United Nations and the specialized agencies has now been developed to a point where some comparison of the theory of the Character with emerging practice may be useful. By midsummer 1947 the Economic and Social Council had held four sessions. Its structure of commissions and subcommissions had been substantially established and the first round or so of meetings completed. Formal agreements, as envisaged by Articles 57 and 63 of the Character, had been concluded with four specialized agencies — ILO, FAO, UNESCO, and ICAO — all of which were going concerns. Negotiations to this end were slowly progressing with the Bank and the Fund. A seventh agency (WHO), although still in the preparatory stage, had begun negotiations with a view to the eventual conclusion of an agreement, while the constituent instrument of the International Trade Organization, then in the final drafting phase at Geneva, was certain to call for the establishment of a formal connection between ITO and the United Nations. The IRO, though a United Nations creation and declared by its basic instrument to be a “specialized agency” within the meaning of Article 57, belongs in a different category because of its temporary character.

The term “middle power” is a convenient one that has come into general use as a means of avoiding the unreality of a simple division of states into “great” and “small”. While attempts to find a yardstick for the measurement of states have been fruitless, there can be some agreement on the categories. For practical purposes the great powers at the present time are those which hold permanent seats on the Security Council, just as during the war they were those which participated in the meetings of heads of government on high policial and military policy. There are clearly also a number of smaller states which, because of limited resources or small population, or both, are commonly ranked as small powers. In between lie a number of countries which make no claim to the title of great power, but have been shown to be capable of exerting a degree of strength and influence not found in the small powers. These are the middle powers. There is no agreed list because, while there is a fixed, if arbitrary, boundary between them and the great powers, there are, as it were, marginal powers which might be classified as “middle” or “small”. Probably, however, the following members of the United Nations would generally be recognized as middle powers: in Europe — Belgium, the Netherlands, and Poland; in the Americas — Argentina, Brazil, Canada, and Mexico; in the Pacific — Australia, and India.

It is a mistake to underestimate the extent and the significance of the failure at Moscow. With respect to Germany the conference ended with the participants further apart than they had been at Potsdam. Nor can a modicum of comfort be salvaged by asserting that Moscow achieved a clearer understanding of the aims and ambitions of the four powers now occupying Germany. While the discussion contributed something in detail to a clarification of points of agreement and disagreement, on major issues the initial positions of the participants were known before the conference assembled. And at Moscow no power receded from its initial position on any major issue. The pertinent question is, why did the Moscow conference fail?

There are two possible answers to this question, in both of which some truth is, probably, to be found. The first runs in terms of what has come to be standard negotiating technique at meetings of the Conference of Foreign Ministers. Following the practice favored by Soviet negotiators, no country is willing to make a concession until convinced by protracted and exhausting debate that the positions of others are firm. If one accepts this interpretation a certain measure of optimism is possible even after Moscow. One can refer to the experience of the satellite treaties in the negotiation of which the powers came to final agreement only after some fifteen months of what seemed at times hopeless disagreement. If it took four meetings of the Council of Foreign Ministers to obtain agreement on the much less difficult questions involved in the satellite treaties, it can be argued that to write off the possibility of agreement on Germany after only one meeting is, at least, premature.

The first days of December, 1946, saw the completion of the first round of the peace treaties. Except for the verification of the texts and the final arrangements for signature, the treaties with Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland were now ready, after fifteen months of back-breaking and often heart-breaking effort. The initial installment of peace-making had, in fact, taken more than fifteen months, for several of the thorniest questions—notably, the disposition of the Italian colonies, freedom of commercial navigation on the Danube, and Italian reparation—had received their preliminary going-over at Potsdam. And at least one question—the disposition of the Italian colonies—had been post-poned for later settlement.

First Special Session

The first special session of the General Assembly, convened at the request of the United Kingdom to consider the question of Palestine, met in New York from April 28 to May 5, 1947. The original agenda for the session contained only one substantive item, the British proposal for “constituting and instructing a special committee to prepare for consideration of the question of Palestine at the second regular session.” To this was added, at the request of the Governments of Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, an additional item: “The termination of the Mandate over Palestine and the declaration of its independence.”

Finding a satisfactory voting formula for an international organization of “sovereign” states, such as the Security Council of the United Nations, is a different task from establishing rules of voting for a national legislative body. In an international body both the character of the work to be done and the composition of the body are governing factors. If the body has to make decisions involving the use of force, full respect for sovereignty by requiring unanimity permits the exercise of a liberum veto that blocks action. Simple rules of “democratic” usage by which the members are assumed to be equal in strength, though in fact they are not, cannot be applied, for this might pit weak numerical majorities against preponderantly powerful minorities. On the other hand, frankly to acknowledge the overweening might of a few and to establish a “dictatorship” by giving the most powerful members exclusive voting privileges is politically unacceptable and probably impracticable in our times. Therefore, some compromise has to be found, with reference to the duties and responsibilities of the organization and its composition, that will strike a workable balance between the inequalities of the members and a decent respect for the views and interests of the less powerful.

On April 2, 1947, the United Kingdom transmitted a message to the United Nations requesting the Secretary-General to place the question of Palestine on the agenda of the next annual session of the General Assembly and to call a special session “as soon as possible” in order to constitute a special committee to study the Palestine situation and report thereon. Within eleven days a total of 28 concurrences, the necessary majority, was received, thus making possible the convocation of such a session. Consequently, the General Assembly's first special session convened on April 28, with a provisional agenda containing one substantive item: “constituting and instructing a special committee to prepare for consideration of the question of Palestine at the second regular session.”

This issue covers the work of the Security Council from the 89th meeting, on January 7, 1947, to the 131st meeting on April 18, 1947.

Acceptance of the Statute of Trieste

By a letter of December 12, 1946, from James F. Byrnes, Chairman of the Council of Foreign Ministers the Security Council was asked to approve the articles of the Treaty of Peace with Italy establishing the Free Territory of Trieste. The matter was debated at the 89th and 91st meetings of the Security Council on January 7 and 9, 1947, and approved on the latter date by a vote of 10 in favor with one abstention (Australia).

This issue covers the work of the Security Council from the 132nd meeting on April 30, 1947, to the 170th meeting on July 29, 1947.

The Greek Question

The Security Council discussed the Greek question twice in the period under review, from May 12 to May 22, 1947, and from June 27 to July 29, 1947.

On May 8, 1947, the Soviet representative (Gromyko) requested that the Greek question again be placed on the agenda. In addition to Mr. Gromyko's request, the Council had, when the matter was taken up on May 12, communications from the Chairman of the Commission of Investigation Concerning Greek Frontier Incidents and from the Yugoslav, Albanian, and Bulgarian liaison officers to the Commission. The burden of the letters from the liaison officers was 1) that their respective countries had participated loyally in the work of facilitating the investigation; 2) that the action of the Commission in appointing a Subsidiary Group to remain in Greece, with the terms of reference as defined, was beyond its competence until its report had been acted upon by the Security Council; and 3) that the three governments would therefore not participate in the activities of the Subsidiary Group. The Chairman of the Commission reported that the Commission had accepted the view of the French representative (Daux) that it did not have the competence to answer these notes from the liaison officers and that the whole matter should be referred to the Security Council.

The First Part of the First Session of the United Nations General Assembly met in London from January 10 to February 14, 1946, and held thirty-three plenary meetings, at which delegates representing each of the 51 United Nations dealt primarily with matters of procedure and organization. The principal item on the agenda was the report of the Preparatory Commission, which contained recommendations designed to bring the United Nations into active operation.

The Fourth Session of the Economic and Social Council, which met at Lake Success from February 28 to March 29, 1947, considered matters which were mainly substantive in character, most of its organizational work having been completed at the third session. Questions discussed ranged from urgent short-term problems, such as the reconstruction of devastated areas, to those of a long-range nature such as world freedom of information and an international bill of rights.