In discussing recent developments regarding the United Nations, an earnest advocate of world government might label as significant any steps which would move the United Nations either toward or away from world government, while an American nationalist might consider activities of the United Nations significant if they either forwarded or frustrated American policies. Accepting, however, the value system of the United Nations Charter, developments may be considered significant insofar as they influence the probability of war, the security of fundamental human rights, respect for international justice, and the advancement of social and economic welfare. These criteria are vague, but they do exclude criteria flowing from values peculiar to any nation, religion, race, or economic class. Further, most of the peoples of the world have subscribed to them through the United Nations Charter.

No feature of United Nations activity has raised more doubts about the ability of international organization to assure peace and security than the recurrent appearance of the veto in the Security Council during the past two years.

Shortly before he left the State Department in the summer of 1947, Undersecretary Dean Acheson summarized the main objectives of American foreign policy during his term in office. These, he said, had been principally two. One was to “establish the unity and mutual confidence and cooperation of the great powers.” The other, he said, was to “create international organizations necessarily based on the assumption of this unity and cooperation, in which all nations could together guarantee both freedom from aggression and the opportunity for both the devastated and undeveloped countries to gain and expand their productivity under institutions of their own free choice.''x Following out this policy, the United States has helped to create and has participated in an impressive number of international organizations. Some, like the United Nations and its affiliates, are directed mainly to the continuing task of building and maintaining a secure peacetime order among nations. Others, like the Allied control bodies in former enemy countries, have the more temporary job of filling in the gap of leadership until peace treaties have been signed.

On June 5,1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall delivered a brief address at a Harvard University commencement. A few sentences in the address were devoted to the problem of European recovery. These few sentences have had a profound effect, and it is difficult to measure the potentialities of events which they set in motion. Secretary Marshall spoke, as many before him had spoken, of “the visible destruction of cities, factories, mines, and railroads.” This was the story that had been told many times, the tragic story of bombed homes, smashed locomotives, shattered factories, blown bridges, and blocked canals. But he went on to point out that there was an even more serious destruction than this visible and easily understood physical destruction of war. More serious was the “dislocation of the entire fabric of European economy.” The rebuilding of the economic structure of Europe would take “a much longer time and greater effort than had been foreseen.”

Since the preparation in August 1947 of the first part of this report, three significant developments affecting the scope and character of United Nations–specialized agency relations have taken place. First, the “family” of specialized agencies, in being and in prospect, has substantially increased in size and variety. Second, the regional machinery of the Economic and Social Council has been expanded by the establishment of economic commissions for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) and for Latin America (ECLA), with the probability that a similar commission for the Middle East will be authorized before the end of 1948. Together with the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), set up in the spring of 1947, these subsidiary instrumentalities of the Council will be concerned with a wide range of reconstruction and developmental activities which bear directly upon various functions of FAO, ILO, Bank, Fund, and ITO and which, in addition, introduce a further element of complexity in the task of coordinating international economic programs. The third development, important from the procedural standpoint, was the action taken by the General Assembly at its second regular session in November 1947, and by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) at its sixth session in March 1948, in spelling out methods for treating the budgets and reports of the specialized agencies.

Despite the fact that the Ninth International Conference of American States was overshadowed in press and popular mind by the dramatic explosion that rocked the conference city of Bogota in April, there can be little doubt that the outstanding achievement of the conference was not the largely sterile anti-Communist resolution, but rather the new Charter of the Americas. With their signature to this Charter the delegates of the twenty-oneindependent republics have completed a reorganization of the inter-American framework which was begun at least fifteen years ago

The Bretton Woods institutions were set up long before physical warfare ceased. They are part of a wider undertaking to further international cooperation in the postwar world. Befitting its imposing influence, the United States took a prominent part in this enterprise. The overall design lending coherence to the blueprints for economic collaboration is predominantly of American authorship. It is too early yet to assess the worth of these blueprints and the merits of American policy, but even now it isclear that some of the new institutions may not function as intended. Adverse and unforeseen circumstances may force either drastic revision or failure. According to some observers, the companion agencies established at Bretton ”Woods belong in this category.

The articles of the United Nations Charter providing for the establishment of a Military Staff Committee and looking forward to provision for armed forces, assistance and facilities by Members introduced for many states new and perplexing problems in their relations to international organization. While it is true that military considerations are normally one of the factors influencing the formulation of the foreign policy of every state, never before has there existed one central international organization to which it was expected that all major political problems would be submitted, regardless of origin and regardless of the geographical area concerned. Coordination of military policy with political representation under these circumstances becomes, therefore, not a matter of the occasional conference at a given moment of international tension, but, instead, requires a day-to-day ìntegration in order to achieve both consistency and effectiveness.

The charter of the International Trade Organization, as drafted at Geneva in the spring of 1947, is a pact expressing the rules of behavior which nations undertake to observe in their economic relations with one; another. Regardless of the subsequent history of this draft, it merits ^ examination as an illustration of the practical difficulties to be surmounted I by those who seek to implement by international agreement even so obj vious a goal as economic cooperation. Not only must idealism and theory I come to grips with the fact that every transaction in international trade ; affects someone's pocketbook, but methods and techniques must be devised to create a semblance of uniformity in a world of vastly different economic practices. Since the Geneva draft seeks to regularize international trade conduct after fifteen years of both autarchic control and war, it bears witness to the fundamentally long-range character of the problem.

Since the United Nations Charter was agreed upon at San Francisco, with its provisions for a system of trusteeship for certain dependent territories, there has been considerable conjecture concerning the impact which this new machinery might have on “the colonial problem.” Extravagant claims have been made that this crystallization of the concept of collective responsibility was a panacea, that it could provide a suitable resolution for the forces which have for so long exercised a disturbing influence on our society. The trusteeship system has been compared both favorably and unfavorably with the League of Nations mandates system. It has been both lauded and condemned before it has had an opportunity to demonstrate what, if any, are its capacities.

In accordance with a Security Council resolution of April 1, 1948, which called for the convening of a special session of the General Assembly “to consider further the question of the future government of Palestine,” the second special session of the General Assembly was held at Lake Success from April 16 to May 15, 1948. Following the election of Dr. José Arce (Argentina) as president, the Assembly referred the question of Palestine to its political and security committee. A second agenda item proposed by China and Siam, the admission of Burma to membership in the United Nations, was considered directly by the Assembly and Burmese admission was voted unanimously on April 19.

On April 1, 1948, following lengthy discussion of methods of implementing the General Assembly resolution of November 29, 1947, concerning the partition of Palestine, the Security Council approved a resolution calling for the convening of a special session of the Assembly. The resolution requested the Secretary General “in accordance with Article 20 of the United Nations Charter, to convoke a special session of the General Assembly to consider further the question of the future government of Palestine.”

Palestine: Seven months after the first special session of the General Assembly met to consider the question of Palestine, the problem was again before the Assembly. Three agenda items dealt with the topic: 1) the original British proposal for discussion of the question, which had resulted in the convening of the special session, 2) the Report of the Special Committee on Palestine, established by that session, and 3) a proposal by Iraq and Saudi Arabia for termination of the mandate over Palestine and recognition of its independence as a unitary state.

During the period under review, the India-Pakistan question was before the Security Council during six sessions. On May 5 and 6, 1948, India and Pakistan respectively replied to the Security Council resolution of April 21, 1948. Mr. Nehru, Prime Minister and Minister of External Affairs, stated that the Government of India regretted that it was “not possible for them to implement those parts of the Resolution against which their objections were clearly stated by their delegation” but that if the Council should still decide to send out the Commission, the Indian Government “would be glad to confer with it.” Sir Mohamed Zafrullah Khan, for Pakistan, pointing out the differences between the resolution of April 21 and Pakistan's original proposals, stated that the Security Council action was “not acceptable,” but “under protest and without prejudice” designated Argentina as Pakistan's nominee for the Commission.

The Indonesian question was before the Security Council twice in the period under review. On December 19, 1947, the Council decided without vote that Australia should continue as a member of the Committee of Good Offices after January 1, 1948, despite the expiration of its term as a member of the Security Council. From February 17 to February 28, 1948, the Council discussed the first interim report of the Committee of Good Offices.

On July 31,1947, the Security Council began its discussion of the Indonesia question as the result of communications from two Members of the United Nations. India, under Article 35(1) of the Charter, contended that the “large scali military action against the Indonesian people” initiated by the Dutch endangered the maintenance of international peace under Article 34. Australia stated that the hostilities between the armed forces “of the Netherlands and of the Republic of Indonesia” constituted a breach of the peace under Article 39 and suggested that the Council should call upon the two governments to cease hostilities and commence arbitration in accordance with Article 17 of the Linggadjati Agreement signed by the two parties on March 25, 1947.

The Economic and Social Council opened its fifth session at Lake Success on July 19, 1947 and remained in session until August 16. In the absence of the president of the Council, Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar (India), Jan Papanek (Czechoslovakia) assumed the presidency. Following the adoption of the agenda, ECOSOC turned to the more than thirty substantive items awaiting its consideration.

The seventh session of the Economic and Social Council convened at the Palais des Nations, Geneva, on July 19, 1948. Included on its provisional agenda of 50 items were reports on the activities of ECOSOC's functional and regional economic commissions and of the specialized agencies as well as reports on special matters of particular importance. Among the latter group were those dealing with the conferences on freedom of information and on trade and employment, the progress made in repatriation and resettlement of refugees and displaced persons, the achievements of the International Children's Emergency Fund and the United Nations Appeal for Children, and the problems of relations with and coordination of programs of the specialized agencies. The Council received further reports from its ad hoc committees on the proposed Economic Commission for the Middle East and on the draft pact on genocide. Procedural matters on ECOSOC's agenda included the election of one-third of the members of the functional commissions and confirmation of their membership, revision of the Council's rules of procedure, and the preparation of its report for submission to the third regular session of the General Assembly.