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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
The Charter of the United Nations, signed at San Francisco on June 26, 1945, was the culmination of long and wide preparation. It is to be doubted whether any international instrument, or perhaps any human document, had ever before undergone such wide popular scrutiny, such intensive expert study, and such democratic procedure of adoption. It seems to be accepted, too, that in no country were preparatory studies undertaken upon so large a scale as in the United States.
At the Dumbarton Oaks conversations, each of the four states there represented offered the results of its studies in a plan submitted for consideration; and these, as the result of previous comparison of views, varied little in their fundamentals. The United States plan had been submitted to the three other Governments on July 18, 1944. Since it was in constitutional form and in more detail, it became the basis of further development, although all four plans were thoroughly discussed and parts of all were included in the final Proposals.
1 See the Report to the President, Department of State Publication 2349 (June 26, 1945), pp. 20–21. A note is here added concerning the group which did the actual work of preparation, and who deserve more credit than was given them in this Report.
After some unorganized work, dating from 1939, the Division of Special Research was created in the Department of State in February, 1941. As the work developed, this Division became two: the Division of Political Studies and the Division of Economic Studies. There was also a Division of Territorial. Studies, which carried on a parallel and coöperative endeavor. In the reorganization of January, 1944, the Division of Economic Studies disappeared and the Division of International Security and Organization carried on, with Territorial Studies alongside it. In the reorganization of December, 1944, the Office of Special Political Affairs was created, containing within it three divisions: International Organization Affairs, International Security, and Dependent Areas. This organization of the work continues, though doubtless it will now need to be reorganized so as to perform operating functions rather than research.
Many teachers of political science were called from their universities to plan the new international system, since the Department of State had practically no one on its staff trained in the field of international organization. Among these were Margaret Ball (Wellesley), E. H. Buehrig (Indiana), Ralph Bunche (Howard), E. P. Chase (Lafayette), André Cordier (Manchester), E. M. Earle (Princeton), Clyde Eagleton (New York), Dorothy Fosdick (Smith), B. H. Gerig (Haverford), Grayson L. Kirk (Columbia), Walter Kotschnig (Smith), Norman Padelford (Fletcher), Llewellyn Pfankuchen (Wisconsin), Lawrence B. Preuss (Michigan), H. Reiff (St. Lawrence), W. R. Sharp (City College), Harold Sprout (Princeton), Ivan Stone (Beloit), B. H. Williams (Pittsburgh), Bryce Wood (Swarthmore), and Quincy Wright (Chicago). Various others went to other parts of the Department of State.
2 The Commissions and Committees were as follows:
Commission I: General Provisions
Committee I/1: Preamble, Purposes, and Principles
I/2: Membership, Amendment, and Secretariat
Commission II: General Assembly
Committee II/1: Structure and Procedures
II/2 : Political and Security Functions
II/3: Economic and Social Coöperation
II/4: Trusteeship System
Commission III: Security Council
Committee III/1: Structure and Procedures
III/2: Peaceful Settlement
III/3: Enforcement Arrangements
III/4: Regional Arrangements
Commission IV: Judicial Organization
Committee IV/l: International Court of Justice
IV/2: Legal Problems
3 On August 8, 1945, the United States deposited its ratification of the Charter, being thus the first state formally to accept the instrument.
4 The Russian attitude was due partly to inability to make changes without reference to Moscow, partly to a purposed technique of negotiation and to language difficulties, and partly to suspicions of the motives of other states which, in the light of past experience and of certain happenings at the Conference (e.g., the admission of Argentina), had some justification. Nevertheless, the Soviet Government made as many concessions as did the United States.
5 In order to placate certain delegates whose amendments had been diverted to the Preamble, Committee I/1 asserted that the Preamble is of as much legal validity as the text itself. The question of travaux preparatoires thus raised appears elsewhere, perhaps most importantly with regard to the right of withdrawal. See note 6 below.
6 The Conference solved the withdrawal problem by avoiding it in the text and adopting in committee an equivocal statement that it is the duty of members to continue their coöperation, but that if a member feels constrained to withdraw because of exceptional circumstances, it is not the purpose of the Organization to compel that member to continue its coöperation (Report to the President, Department of State Publication 2349, p. 48). It was explained by Dr. Pasvolsky and Mr. Hackworth to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (July 11, 1945) that withdrawal at the judgment of the member concerned was permissible, but would have to be justified to the world.
This peculiar arrangement raises questions as to the value of travaux preparatoires and as to the right to abrogate unilaterally the obligations of a treaty. It should be observed, as a practical consideration, that a member which withdraws would be, as a non-member, subject to control by the Organization for purposes of peace and security, but with no voice in its decisions.
7 It hardly seems necessary, for security purposes, to have a great-power veto of the admission of a new member, or the choice of the Secretary-General; and while it may seem desirable to a great power to have a veto upon amendments, it is always a dangerous thing to bar change in a constitutional document.
8 Mr. Stettinius, after defending the special position of the five powers under the Charter, concluded by saying: “As the peoples and governments gain experience and confidence in world organization in the years ahead, I hope they will learn to apply and adapt to international affairs more of the principles and techniques of democracy. But I believe it would be fatal to this hope if we were to attempt now to go beyond what the nations are clearly ready to undertake today. The Charter affords full opportunity for later amendments whenever a sufficient majority of the people of the world is ready to go further.”
9 E.g., the admission of new members, the veto on the process of amendment, etc., some of which were attacked as unnecessary ramifications of the security function.
10 The dispute concerning the meaning of this provision was answered by the second paragraph of Art. 12 according to which the Security Council, through the Secretary-General, is to notify the Assembly when it is dealing with, or when it has ceased to deal with, a dispute or situation. It is difficult to imagine any language, however, which could prevent the Assembly from expressing its views.
11 It is, indeed, to be doubted whether it will have enough business to justify the requirement (Art. 28) that it shall be so organized as to function continuously. It will doubtless be able to occupy itself for a time with planning. How soon (Art. 106) it can assume its security functions will depend upon the speed with which the agreements for supply of forces can be made.
12 The advantages of such a decentralized system have been explained by Dr. Mitrany (“A Working Peace System—An Argument for the Functional Development of International Organization,” Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1943), though he carries his argument to an extreme not recognized in the Charter.
13 For a comparison of the Charter with the Covenant, see the Department of State Bulletin, Aug. 19, 1945.
14 The Charter nowhere—except for rhetorical force in the Preamble—makes use of the technical term “war.”
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