The twelfth annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund was held jointly with the Board of Governors of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in Washington D.C., September 23–26, 1957, under the chairmanship of Miguel Cuaderno, Sr. Per Jacobsson, Managing Director, reviewed the activities of the Fund during the previous year. Emphasizing that the Fund's assistance was of a short-term nature and designed to enable countries to adopt and carry out, within a limited period of time, programs to restore stability to their economies, Mr. Jacobsson stated that the Fund was being used to help countries meet emergency needs, ease strain in the balance of payments, meet temporary exchange difficulties, and fulfill stabilization programs. Mr. Jacobsson went on to discuss various problems encountered in connection with the Fund's activities and cited, inter alia, multiple currency practices, Fund liquidity, and, in connection with general aspects of the world economy, inflation, relative values of currencies, and financing for underdeveloped countries.

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.

The Assembly of the League of Nations,

Considering that the Charter of the United Nations has created, for purposes of the same nature as those for which the League of Nations was established, an international organisation known as the United Nations to which all States may be admitted as Members on the conditions prescribed by the Charter and to which the great majority of the Members of the League already belong;

Desiring to promote, so far as lies in its power, the continuation, development and success of international co-operation in the new form adopted by the United Nations;

Considering that, since the new organisation has now commenced to exercise its functions, the League of Nations may be dissolved; and

Considering that, under Article 3, paragraph 3, of the Covenant, the Assembly may deal at its meetings with any matter within the sphere of action of the League:

Annual Report of the Secretary-General: Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold reviewed the UN role in world affairs in the introduction to his twelfth annual report, covering the period from June 16, 1956, to June 15, 1957. Stating that during the period under review the UN had been confronted with some of the most difficult situations it had been called upon to meet since 1945, Mr. Hammarskjold first reviewed UN activities with respect to the Palestine question, the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), the Suez Canal, and the Hungarian question. He stated that UNEF had been important as a pre-condition for the maintenance of quiet in the area of its deployment, and that the governments' attitudes underlying the development of peace in that area had been encouraging, but that at the same time there had been few, if any, signs of further progress. The Secretary-General felt that the UN could help by lending its influence, its presence, and the processes of diplomacy, as well as by providing an objective judgment of the rights and interests involved. Its primary obligations with respect to the Palestine question consisted of working toward a restoration of the Armistice Agreements and of helping the Palestine refugees. The Secretary-General reported that UNEF would be thoroughly studied, should the UN wish to build an agreed stand-by plan for a UN peace force that could be activated on short notice in future emergencies to serve in similar ways. He noted the services of the UNEF Advisory Committee established by the General Assembly and recommended in the execution of future mandates of this kind the appointment of similar “select committees”.

The second part of the eleventh ordinary session of the Consultative Assembly was opened on September 14, 1959. Mr. John Edwards, President of the Assembly, opened the sitting with a tribute to two retiring representatives, following which the report of the Bureau and Standing Committee was presented; it noted that both the head of the Political Department of the Swiss Federal Council and the Portuguese Foreign Minister had been invited to participate in the Assembly debates on the Organization of European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) reports and on economic questions. Mr. Franz Gschnitzer, Austrian Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, then presented the supplementary report to the tenth report of the Committee of Ministers. Replying to questions from representatives, he stated, inter alia, that the Committee had decided to re-examine its recommendation on the forestry situation in Europe after the results of the studies launched by the European Economic Community (EEC) were known; that the Council of Europe did not intend to advance a loan to the Resettlement Fund for Refugees and Over-Population; that the Committee had not yet examined the third report on the European civil service; and that the present arrangements between die Commission of EEC and the Council would in no way prejudge any over-all agreement which might be concluded in the future.

The Executive and Liaison Committee of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) met in Berne, Switzerland, from May 16 to 23, 1960, preceded, from May 2 on, by meetings of several subcommittees, and followed, from May 23 to 28, by a session of the Enlarged Executive and Liaison Committee. The report of the activities of the Union for 1959 was approved without opposition, and the discussion was devoted chiefly to examining the reports of the various subcommittees, the recommendations of which were generally accepted, although the conclusions of the Tariffication Subcommittee concerning the weight scale and the rates applicable to each step in the scale were approved by only a small majority. The reports of the Air Mail Subcommittee and the Transit Rates Subcommittee were adopted by large majorities, and the recommendations of the Parcels Subcommittee obtained easy approval, although some of the members defended the old system of calculating rates by the kilogram. The collaboration of UPU with the UN and other agencies such as the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency was mentioned; a report on the work of the Consultative Committee for Postal Studies (CCPS) was noted with interest; and several administrative questions concerning the organization of the International Bureau were also considered.

The resumed 24th session of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) was held on December 10 and 13, 1957, under the presidency of Mr. Mohammad Mir Khan (Pakistan). The Council elected as members of the Council Committee on Non-Governmental Organization, Brazil, China, France, the Netherlands, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The Council also elected Morocco to membership on the Technical Assistance Committee to replace the Sudan, which had been elected to ECOSOC, thereby becoming ineligible for TAC as a nonmember of the Council. The appointment of a number of members of ECOSOC commissions was subsequently confirmed by the Council.

Listed below is membership of UN bodies for 1958. Unless otherwise noted, membership expires on December 31 of the year indicated.

The Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) held its 45th session on March 19–April 13, 1962, and its 46th session on May 17–June 29, 1962. In both of these sessions, the Council devoted much of its time to consideration of documentation for the fourteenth session of the Assembly. Although it decided to drop a study on the advantages brought by air transport, the Council approved the publication of three important air transport documents: a handbook of administrative clauses in bilateral agreements designed to assist states in the drafting of bilateral agreements; a study on air freight developments; and a study on inclusive tour services in international transport. The only new development in the field of technical assistance was the appointment of ICAO as the executing agency for a seventh Special Fund project, the establishment of a flight safety center in Beirut. In the Congo, experts recruited by ICAO continued to provide operational services at all major airports and round-the-clock flight information service at Leopoldville, to advise the Congolese authorities, and to train local personnel.

The Governments of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey and the Commanders in Chief of the French, United Kingdom and United States Zones of Occupation of Germany

The International Whaling Commission held its sixth meeting in Tokyo, Japan, from July 19 to 23, 1954. Represented were all of the seventeen member governments except Iceland. Observers were present from Argentina, Chile, Italy, Portugal, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, and the Food and Agriculture Organization. Mr. A. T. A. Dobson (United Kingdom) acted as secretary of the meeting. The Commission approved its expenditure of £1,854 for financial year 1953/1954, and adopted a budget of £2,580 for 1954/1955. Attention was called to the great waste of resources represented by lost whales; the Commission accepted various suggestions from its technical committee for tightening up the present procedure with a view to reducing the number of infractions in the future. It was decided that the use of helicopters and other aircraft for the killing of whales should be brought within the scope of the Convention. A large number of recommendations emanating from the scientific committee were dealt with. The scientific committee's recommendation prompted a large number of proposals for the amendment of the regulations in force. At the invitation of the Soviet Union, the next meeting of the Commission was to be held in Moscow on July 18, 1955.

Meeting at the request of the representatives of Canada and Denmark, the Security Council discussed the situation in the Middle East at its 1341st-1361st meetings, held on May 24-June 14, 1967.

Opening the debate on the adoption of the agenda, Nikolai T. Fedorenko (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) declared that his delegation did not believe there were sufficient grounds for a hasty convening of the Security Council in what he termed an artificially dramatic climate fostered by the representatives of certain Western powers. He observed that two members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), rather than any of the parties directly concerned, had asked for a meeting of the Council. To his delegation this indicated a desire to interfere in the affairs of other countries rather than a true concern for the peace and security of the Middle East.

On March 11, 1947, the United States Department of State announced that there had been deposited the number of instruments of ratification of the Convention on International Civil Aviation necessary, under the terms of the Convention, to bring it into force. Accordingly, on April 4, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) came into being. The First Assembly of ICAO met in Montreal, May 6, 1947, to take up the problems of air transport which had been handled, pending the establishment of the permanent Organization, by the Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization (PICAO), created June 6, 1945, for a period not to exceed three years.

Professor Robert Cox's “Labor and hegemony” in the Summer 1977 issue of International Organization includes one of the most sophisticated versions of the corporate unionist or “revisionist” description and explanation of American labor's foreign policy that has appeared to date. Nevertheless, it is inaccurate both as description and explanation, and like other attempts to use the corporate unionist approach, it is a misleading paradigm impeding research into the nature of labor's transnational involvements.

If the United Nations system is to outlaw the unilateral use of force, except in cases of self-defense, it is clear that some provision must be made for the peaceful settlement of disputes and for peaceful change. In the past, peacekeeping operations have often succeeded in restoring a fragile peace. Yet collective actionall too frequently has been limited to a restoration of the status quo ante. Indeed, states have usuallyfailed to accept any collective responsibility to deal with the grievances that initially led to the outbreak of hostilities. If peace is to be maintained over any extended period of time, peacekeeping operations must not, asAmbassador Arthur J. Goldberg recently warned, “be a sofa to provide a comfortable respite from efforts atpeaceful settlement” but instead should “be a springboard for accelerated efforts to eliminate the root causes of conflict.”

The United Nations is approaching a point where a decision must soon be reached concerning the expansion of its present facilities. Notwithstanding the increases which have been made in delegate seating in the General Assembly Hall, the Council chambers, and the conference rooms in recent years, these are now filled almost to capacity as additional political entities have been accorded membership. The delegates' lounge and dining room are uncomfortably crowded during Assembly sessions. In the Secretariat the staffs of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) have been moved to rented quarters in order to relieve overcrowding and to obtain adequate working space. The Secretary-General has reported to the General Assembly that the Headquarters buildings are now “completely occupied” and that plans must be made to provide adequate office space for the personnel expected to be on hand in the 1970's, assuming that the United Nations continues to remain an active force in international affairs.

In the short span of a year, from the Messina Conference held on June 1 and 2, 1955, by the foreign ministers of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, to the series of meetings begun in Brussels on June 26, 1956, among the same governments, the idea of economic unification of these six countries has made a striking advance toward its realization. The heads of the delegations to the Intergovernmental Committee established by the Messina Conference produced a report in which they jointly and unanimously proposed to start drafting a treaty (or two treaties) to establish a “common market” and an atomic community (Euratom) along the lines of their report. The governments are not yet formally committed to accept all the recommendations of this report; but they agreed at the Venice Conference on May 29, 1956, to take it as a basis for the negotiation of the treaty. This document is therefore to be regarded as much more than another expert opinion on the desirability or the feasibility of economic integration. It outlines the detailed objectives to be reached and contains a relatively precise timetable hammered out through months of arduous discussions which took the better part of the summer and of the fall of 1955 in the Belgian capital. Euratom and the “common market” are of course closely interrelated political issues. Technically, however, they are quite distinct and only the common market is examined in this paper.

The Intergovernmental Committee of Ministers engaged in negotiating the proposed free trade area met in Paris, July 24–25, 1958. It was reported that following the session, the chairman of the group, Mr. Reginald Maudling, expressed hope for a definite agreement on most major issues. He stated that if real progress toward an accord were attained, less importance would be attached to the much-discussed proposal to extend to the members of OEEC the 10 percent tariff reductions to be made among the members of the European Economic Community.