To understand and appraise the United Nations in its twentieth year we must consider whence it came and where it has come. As Abraham Lincoln once so wisely said: “If we could first know where we are and whither we are tending we could better judge what to do and how to do it.” When the Charter was drafted, it was contemplated that the Great Powers would work out an acceptable peace which the United Nations could maintain. But a stable and acceptable peace—a consensus or modicum of common understanding on the basic principles of coexistence—was never established after the last world war. The Great Powers were in no position to cooperate to maintain a peace the terms of which they were unable to agree upon. Rivalry and conflict among the Great Powers led to a Cold War in which the adversaries lost sight of their common interest in peace and were prone to exploit their differences rather than to attempt to find means of composing them. Even apart from the Cold War the whole world was struggling to adjust itself to revolutionary political, economic, and social changes, and the adjustment in many areas was difficult, painful, and not altogether rational. There was widespread need of adjustment to the radically changed conditions of life which modern science and technology made possible. In many areas the striving for economic improvement was accompanied by movements to break the bonds of colonial rule and feudal and tribal relationships. The very survival of the United Nations under these circumstances attests to humanity's essential need of the United Nations as an instrument of international cooperation in a world which has become increasingly interdependent despite ideological, national, and cultural differences and outlooks.

Like a chronic sore that never quite cripples, hurts most of the time, and sometimes becomes dangerously inflamed, the issue of China in the United Nations has plagued United States policy for almost twenty years.

On March 27, 1964, Secretary-General U Thant announced that the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) had become operational. This announcement occurred only a few days after the initial Canadian units landed in Cyprus soon to be joined by the forces from other contributing countries. The operation, initiated under the executive direction of the Secretary-General and at the request of the Security Council, thus became another in a series of peacekeeping efforts by the United Nations. One year later the Secretary-General was able to report that during the first year of operation UNFICYP had achieved “very creditable results” but that major difficulties still remained with respect to achieving a stable and enduring peace.

As the United Nations has developed and as its role in world affairs has been adapted to the necessities and possibilities created and the limitations established by the changing realities of international politics, collective legitimization has emerged as one of its major political functions. By this I mean to suggest that the world organization has come to be regarded, and used, as a dispenser of politically significant approval and disapproval of the claims, policies, and actions of states, including, but going far beyond, their claims to status as independent members of the international system. In this essay I shall undertake to refine and elaborate this rough definition of collective legitimization and to discuss the performance of this role by the United Nations. It is essential in the beginning, however, to provide a foundation by offering some observations about the general problem of political legitimacy.

The so-called “Chinese Question” in the United Nations has been an issue in UN politics for the last seventeen years. It has hampered the operation of the UN and influenced the course of post-World War II international politics. Yet little study has been done with regard to the attitudes of the Communist Chinese themselves toward the UN.

It is the purpose of this article to examine the role which the three regional economic commissions of the United Nations serving the developing world play, whether consciously or unconsciously, in promoting integration within the regions which they serve. The emphasis is upon economic integration, not because it is more important than political union or federation or because it is a necessary antecedent to political integration. No attempt is made here to establish the thesis that the relationship between economic and political integration is that of a continuum. Any contribution which the UN regional economic commissions make to regional or sub-regional integration will almost certainly be in the economic area, given their terms of reference, the nature of their work programs, and the environmental conditions in which they operate. Economic integration resulting from ideas and initiatives originating in the regional commissions may contribute to the evolution of political union.

The present strains on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance have far-reaching implications for members as well as nonmembers. In the current Scandinavian debate on security the year 1969 has become almost a magic number. In Norway there has even been talk of a national referendum on whether to continue membership in NATO. While recent polls show a majority in favor of the alliance, the margin is not large enough to preclude a change during the next three years. Parties, politicians, and pressure groups are already bracing themselves for a major campaign.

The Algerian-Moroccan border conflict provided the Organization of African Unity (OAU) with the first test of its machinery and procedures for peacekeeping and for the peaceful settlement of disputes. The following examination of that dispute and of its treatment by the Organization of African Unity is a case study of the operation of a newly founded regional organization. The Organization of African Unity was endowed with no supranational powers which might have enabled it to enforce its will on the disputants in the Algerian-Moroccan case. The Organization had to function on the basis of cooperation among its members. Yet the Organization of African Unity was more than the mere instrument of the foreign policies of its members in the Algerian-Moroccan case. When individual African statesmen were disqualified from acting as mediators by their respective preferences for one or the other of the disputants, the existence of an organization representing all of Africa greatly assisted in the mitigation of the conflict and contributed much to the peace of Africa.

This article presents some alternative proposals for moderating the most extreme effects of the one-state, one-vote rule in the UN General Assembly by the selective application of weighted voting. Included is a brief summary of some results of an empirical analysis of General Assembly decision making that pointed to the kinds of decisions for which weighting is recommended. Several proposed formulas and the weights which result from them are more fully described and illustrated because of their novelty and their sometimes unexpected effects.

The panel believes the time has come for a reassessment of the United States approach toward representation of mainland China in the United Nations. The United States' position in world affairs would be strengthened, we believe, by acknowledging that the China originally contemplated in the Charter has now been succeeded by two states, and that both states should be Members of die United Nations. The recent hardening of Maoist extremism in Peking and the xenophobic excesses of the Red Guards convincingly demonstrate, in our view, the need to provide this fresh and timely encouragement to those moderate influences that still remain in China.

I intended to assure France primacy in Western Europe by preventing the rise of a new Reich …; to cooperate with East and West and, if need be, contract the necessary alliances on one side or the other without accepting any kind of dependency; … to persuade the states along the Rhine, the Alps and the Pyrenees to form a political, economic, and strategic bloc; to establish this organization as one of the three world powers and, should it be necessary, as the arbiter between the Soviet and Anglo-Saxon camps.

A functioning balance-of-power system, comparable to the one which existed throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, limits the ability of Small Powers to achieve their own goals. However, in compensation it provides more real security for them—in terms of the maintenance of independence—than other historical systems, all of which offered the Small Power some elements of maneuverability but to the detriment of long-range security. At first glance the contemporary political system appears to contradict this generalization: Surely, one would presume, the new status of Small Powers reflects a system in which the weaker units of international politics have finally achieved both security and influence. Nevertheless, a closer examination of actual patterns of interaction substantially qualifies this presumption: The original generalization, that is, remains basically sound.

With the increased concern in the post-1960 period over the problem of achieving an equitable geographical distribution in the United Nations Secretariat, renewed attention has been focused on the role of short-term appointments in the recruitment of Secretariat personnel. What in the previous fifteen years of the Organization's history had been viewed largely as a technical facet of personnel policy suddenly became an issue of political contention in both the Fifth (Administrative and Budgetary) Committee and in the General Assembly itself. This article will first briefly detail the various positions in the debate over the role of short-term appointments. Its main focus, however, will be on the institutional dynamics to which secondment relates and on an attempt to gain insight into its operation through the experience of the European Communities with this type of appointment.

Edwin Ginn's vision of world peace, as recorded in his last will and testament, involved him in a commitment to world government. World government, however, is an objective which seems to many mid-twentieth century observers of international politics excessively visionary. The nineteenth-century dream of a parliament of man, a federation of the world, fills a bright page in Victorian poetry. But much contemporary prose is written by men whose vision is obscured by space rockets, intercontinental ballistic missiles, atomic bombs, and other lethal weapons of ultramodern warfare. They see only a world of heavily armed, self-styled sovereign states bent on the protection of alleged vital interests and on the defense of so-called national honor with little patience for the restraints of any higher law designed to prevent them from making war upon one another.

Since its founding in 1946 the United Nations has experienced a remarkable expansion of membership, growing from the 51 original Members to 117 as of the twentieth session of the General Assembly. Much has been said about the membership question; but this discussion has largely ignored the fact that while the Organization's roster never has included and still does not include all states, it has come much closer to universality than is generally recognized and much closer than the roster itself would indicate.

During the first twenty years of the United Nations' existence the patterns of its activities changed significantly. One of the most important changes took place in the practices of the Secretary-General. While the most noticeable development was his assumption of the position of executive agent for peacekeeping forces, a less noticeable but equally important one occurred in his activities as an agent of peaceful settlement. The importance of the latter change was that not only did a single official of the United Nations assume new functions and become instrumental in the settlement of a number of international conflicts, but the Organization as a body gained a more influential role in international politics.

Listed below is the membership of United Nations bodies for 1966. Unless otherwise noted, membership expires on December 31 of the year indicated in parentheses. Where names of individuals are listed, the members serve in their personal capacities and not as representatives of states; their nationalities are given for information only.

Budget Estimates for the Financial Year 1966 and Information Annexes; Report of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions: In its report to the General Assembly on the budget estimates for the financial year 1966, the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions noted that the Secretary-General had proposed for 1966 a gross expenditure budget of $116,737,110, an increase of $8,361,405 over the total 1965 gross level of $108,375,705 recommended by the Committee. Of the total estimated income of $17,918,800 for 1966, income from staff assessment (for distribution to Member governments as credits through the Tax Equalization Fund) was calculated at $11,530,000 and income from all other sources (for deduction from gross appropriations for purposes of the assessment of contributions) at $6,388,800. After deduction of estimated income, the net expenditure level for 1966 would be $98,818,310, an increase of $7,402,505 over the total 1965 net level of $91,415,805 recommended by the Advisory Committee. In its report the Advisory Committee recommended reductions in the expenditure estimates totaling $2,130,590. These, together with adjustments in the income estimates, would reduce the net expenditure level for 1966 from $98,818,310, as proposed by the Secretary-General, to $96,814,220. After detailing the contributions made to other organizations in the United Nations family during the years 1961–1966, the Advisory Committee pointed out that, with the 1966 budget estimates submitted by the Secretary-General for the United Nations, the aggregate which member states of the various organizations would be asked to appropriate for the year 1966 would amount to approximately $254·3 million as against $234·7 million for 1965 and $213·3 million for 1964.

Amendments to Articles 23, 27, and 61 of the Charter of the United Nations, adopted by the General Assembly on December 17, 1963, came into force on August 31, 1965. The amendment to Article 23 enlarges the membership of the Security Council from eleven to fifteen. The amended Article 27 provides that decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters be made by an affirmative vote of nine members (formerly seven) and on all other matters by an affirmative vote of nine members (formerly seven), including the concurring votes of the five permanent members of the Security Council (China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States). The amendment to Article 61 enlarges the membership of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) from eighteen to 27.

In his review of the Fifth General Report on the Activity of the European Community the Rapporteur for the European Parliament critically singled out certain aspects of the Commission's style in developing Community policy: the excessive importance it seemed to place on proposing only solutions which had the strongest chance of being adopted by the Council of Ministers instead of maximizing the potentiality of its power of initiative; and, as a corollary, the disturbing tendency toward increasing infusion and influence of national administrations in the policy orientations and decisions of the European Economic Community (EEC).