Program and organization were the most important questions discussed at the First Assembly of the World Health Organization, which was held in Geneva from June 24 to July 24, 1948. Dr. Andrija Stampar (Yugoslavia), who had been chairman of the Interim Commission, was elected president by acclamation. An Executive Board of eighteen members representing the following countries was chosen: Australia, Brazil, Byelorussia, Ceylon, China, Egypt, France, India, Iran, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Union of South Africa, USSR, United Kingdom, United States, and Yugoslavia. A system was adopted whereby the Board Members would draw by lot for the duration of their terms of office. Dr. Brock Chisholm (Canada) was elected Director-General of the organization, which had a membership of 52 countries.

On May 18, 1948, the United Nations Security Council approved a questionnaire which asked the Arab League states to report whether they had troops in Palestine, and if so, where such troops were located, what their military objectives were, and whether negotiations were going on with the Jews. Lebanon, Syria, and Saudi Arabia replied on May 22, and Yemen and the Arab Higher Committee within the next two days, that their troops had been sent in to protect the Arab inhabitants from Zionist aggression and terrorism, and that they would not negotiate with Israel for an end of the Palestine war. The Council followed the questionnaire with a request on May 22 for a cease-fire in Palestine. The Arab League's Political Committee met in Amman, Transjordan, May 25, to discuss the cease-fire appeal and indicated the acceptance of the Arab states on the condition that there would be a cessation of Jewish immigration, a condition which was unacceptable to the representatives of Israel. On May 29, the Security Council passed a resolution calling for a four-week truce which was accepted on June 2 by the Provisional Government of Israel and the seven member nations of the Arab League, the latter stating that the suspension of hostilities was merely a means of finding the just solution of the Palestine problem. The truce, to go into effect on June 11, was accepted unconditionally by both parties on June 9. United Nations' Mediator Count Folke Bernadotte announced that no military advantage was to accrue to either side under the cease-fire and the truce.

The Caribbean Commission met for its sixth session at San Juan, Puerto Rico, from May 24 to 29, 1948. Among the subjects discussed were tourism, industrial, development, transportation and communications, population movements, water supply, and the establishment of a scientific and technical information service: and a statistical unit to serve research needs on Caribbean topics. The Commission decided to make a six-month survey of all existing research institutions, projects, and personnel in the region, to serve as a basis for a permanent research information service to be maintained by the secretariat.

A Permanent Joint Military Committee of the Consultative Council of Western Powers was formed on April 30 in London following a one-day conference of the defense ministers and top military leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The committee, which established its headquarters in London, planned to commence work at once on the drafting of joint plans for intelligence, operations, and standardization of equipment among the five nations. The ultimate object of the group was to compile an overall defense scheme which could then be coordinated with a United States-European military cooperation plan in case of war. Such a plan was considered a vital concomitant to economic collaboration under the European Recovery Program. The committee which was set up consisted of fifteen senior officers representing the combined land, sea and air staffs of the five powers. The chairmanship of the group was to rotate at three-month intervals.

In addition to the Charter of the Organization of American States, the American Treaty of Pacific Settlement (the Pact of Bogotá), the Economic Agreement of Bogotá, the Inter-American Convention on the Granting of Civil Rights to Women, and the Inter-American Convention on the Granting of Political Rights to Women, the conference approved several resolutions and recommendations. Among these were included a resolution which established the Inter-American Juridical Committee as the Permanent Committee of the Inter-American Council of Jurists; one which provided for a survey of inter-American specialized organizations in order to determine which ones should be discontinued and which ones maintained; an agreement to convoke an Economic Conference of the Organization of American States in Buenos Aires in late 1948 or early 1949; and a resolution calling for a meeting of representatives of the Inter-American Economic and Social Council and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America to draft a formula for the functioning of the two organizations Mid to outline their respective fields of activity. Recommendations were made concerning working conditions, improvement of social services, and the achievement of social justice in the American republics; an Inter-American Charter of Social Guarantees to protect workers was adopted by the conference, as well as the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. The conference also approved the statute of the Inter-American Commission of Women; Two further resolutions were passed, one condemning international communism, or any other totalitarian doctrine, and a second creating an American Committee on Dependent Territories.

Organizational and procedural problems occupied the greater part of the business of the first session of the South Pacific Commission which was held in Sydney, Australia, from May 11 to May 21, 1948. Although formal ratification of the agreement creating the commission had not been received from France and the Netherlands, both countries had stated that ratification was to be formalized as soon as possible, and their commissioners were empowered to act as though ratification had taken place.

At a meeting of the Allied Council on April 30, the Soviet High Commissioner (Kurasov) asked for a revision of existing arrangements concerning air communications. A difference in the Russian and English texts had led to a disagreement concerning passage of non-transport planes over the Soviet zone. The United States agreed to discuss the new proposal, but the British and French High Commissions refused and the matter was dropped. Since the English text was the authoritative one for that meeting, the provisions contained in it were retained as binding.

Since March 20, 1948, the Allied Control Council for Germany has virtually been dissolved, thus, in effect, ending four-power control in Germany. Following the failure of the Allied Control Council to meet during the latter part of March and the early part of April, the three powers controlling western Germany decided to go ahead and discuss the possibility of establishing political and economic stability in their respective sectors of Germany. This decision resulted in the reopening of the six-power conference on April 20 and the announcement of a currency reform on June 18. Immediately following the latter action, the USSR began a land blockade of Berlin and on July 1 withdrew from the Berlin Kommandatura, the last remaining four-power governing body in Germany.

During the period under review, the Foreign Ministers' Deputies on the Austrian treaty, meeting in London, failed to agree on the terms of the proposed treaty of peace for Austria. Following a deadlock on the question of Yugoslavia's claims on Austria, the four-power talks were adjourned indefinitely on May 6. These claims, backed by the USSR, included a demand by Yugoslavia for 788 square miles of territory in Carinthia and Styria and $150,000,000 in reparations. The United States position, backed by the United Kingdom and France, was that Austrian territory should be restored intact as it was January 1, 1938, prior to annexation by Germany, and that Austria should pay no reparations. The indefinite suspension of the four-power talks on the Austrian peace treaty was formally reported on May 24 to the Secretary General of the Council of Foreign Ministers by Samuel Reber, United States deputy and chairman of the next meeting. The way was held open however, for the calling of the next meeting when a justifiable basis for continued negotiation was found.

The Far Eastern Commission on June 9 approved a policy decision permitting the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, upon receipt of the appropriate invitation, to appoint members of his staff as observers at intergovernmental conferences where attendance would be of interest to the occupation. Japanese technical personnel might accompany any SCAP staff when it was deemed necessary and was acceptable to the country which was acting as host to the conference. On March 13 the commission had rejected by a vote of 8 to 1 with 2 abstentions a motion to censure the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (MacArthur) for sending a Japanese to attend the Geneva radio frequency conference of the International Telecommunications Union as technical adviser to General Mac Arthur's observer at the meetings.

The seventeenth session of the Assembly of the Inter Allied Reparation Agency, concluded on May 28, 1948, allocated as reparation among member governments equipment in thirteen German plants, ten of which were in the British zone of Germany and three in the French zone. This brought the total number of plants allocated to that date to 247. The Assembly also assigned the second list of commodities to be delivered by the USSR as part of German reparations. This action followed the agreement made at Potsdam whereby the USSR during a period of five years would make available to the IARA commodities equal to 60% of the industrial capital reparations received by the USSR from the western zone.

The sixteen nations of western Europe participating in the Economic Recovery Program signed on April 16, 1948, a convention formally establishing the Organization for European Economic Cooperation, providing machinery for the handling of European aid, and including a legally binding contract for self-help to supplement and eventually eliminate the need for outside aid. The principal aim of the organization was stated as the speedy establishment of sound economic conditions, without outside assistance, so as to make a full contribution to world economic stability. The sixteen governments and the western zones of Germany pledged their efforts to a maximum exchange of goods, lower tariff barriers, work towards a customs union, achievement and maintenance of financial and monetary stability, and the best use of their manpower.

The eighteenth annual report of the Bank for International Settlements, which reviewed the period from April 1, 1947, to March 31, 1948, called for abandonment of the wartime type of direct controls on prices, production and trade, and the restoration of a functioning price system, operating under well-controlled monetary regimes. The report, the most comprehensive ever issued by the Bank, dealt in detail with such topics as 1) recovery and set-back in 1947, 2) restoration of monetary order, 3) price movements, 4) the tense position of international trade, 5) foreign exchange rates, 6) production and movements of gold, 7) international credit conditions and the trend of interest rates, 8) European payment agreements, multilateral monetary compensation and the European Recovery Program, and 9) current activities of the Bank. Reference was made to the fact that the Bank for International Settlements had acceded to a request to act as technical agent for the Agreement on Multilateral Monetary Compensation, signed in Paris on November 18, 1947. Practical compensation operations under this agreement were begun in December 1947.

Nineteen member governments, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the United Nations were represented at the seventh meeting of the International Cotton Advisory Committee held at Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt, from April 1 to 8, 1947.

The second meeting of the International Tin Study Group was held in Washington from April 19 to 24, 1948, to review the world tin situation and examine the statistical position regarding production, consumption and stocks since the first meeting held at Brussels in April 1947. Delegates attended from Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, British Colonies, Canada, China, Czechoslovakia, France, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Siam, United Kingdom, and the United States; observers were present representing the United Nations, Pan American Union, InternationalBank for Reconstruction and Development, and the Tin Research Institute.

The fifth meeting of the Rubber Study Group, attended by delegates of fifteen nations and observers from several international organizations, was held in Washington from April 26 to 29, 1948.

The Group examined the rubber statistical position and made estimates for natural rubber production and total consumption of natural and synthetic rubber during 1948 and provisionally for 1949. Production for 1948 was estimated at approximately 1,390,000 tons with total consumption nearly 1,745,000 tons. Production in 1949 was expected to reach 1,550,000 tons while consumption would remain at the 1948 level.

The Atomic Energy Commission reports that it has reached an impasse.

In almost two years of work, the Commission has accomplished much and has succeeded in making clear the essentials of a plan for the control of atomic energy, in fulfillment of the objectives of the resolution of the General Assembly of 24 January 1946.2 Nevertheless, it considers that it cannot now prepare a draft treaty “incorporating its ultimate proposals” as urged by the resolution3 of the Security Council of 10 March 1947.

On November 17, 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the following Resolution:

“The General Assembly,

Considering Article 4 of the Charter of the United Nations,

Considering the exchange of views which has taken place in the Security Council at its Two hundred and fourth, Two hundred and fifth and Two hundred and sixth Meetings, relating to the admission of certain States to membership in the United Nations,

Considering Article 96 of the Charter,

Requests the International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion on the following question:

Is a Member of the United Nations which is called upon, in virtue of Article 4 of the Charter, to pronounce itself by its vote, either in the Security Council or in the General Assembly, on the admission of a State to membership in the United Nations, juridically entitled to make its consent to the admission dependent on conditions not expressly provided by paragraph 1 of the said Article? In particular, can such a Member, while it recognizes the conditions set forth in that provision to be fulfilled by the State concerned, subject its affirmative vote to the additional condition that other States be admitted to membership in the United Nations together with that State?

Instructs the Secretary-General to place at the disposal of the Court the records of the above-mentioned meetings of the Security Council.”

Recognizing the determination of the United Nations to create conditions of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations,

TheParties to this Charter undertake in the fields of trade and employment to co-operate with one another and with the United Nations

For the Purpose of

Realizing the aims set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, particularly the attainment of the higher standards of living, full employment and conditions of economic and social progress and development, envisaged in Article 55 of that Charter.

The American States establish by this Charter the international organization that they have developed to achieve an order of peace and justice, to promote their solidarity, to strengthen their collaboration, and to defend their sovereignty, their territorial integrity and their independence. Within the United Nations, the Organization of American States is a regional agency.