The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is in the paradoxical position of performing most useful and necessary functions in the nascent world community but of giving very implausible reasons for the performance of its functions. Assistant Secretary of State George V. Allen, who was until recently responsible for the United States government's UNESCO policy, reported after the Paris UNESCO conference in 1949 that the organization “had a wider public support” and yet was “more widely criticized” than any other international agency. He rightly suggested that the criticisms were prompted by UNESCO enthusiasts who claimed too much for its functions and thus aroused the opposition of realists who did not believe that its contributions to peace were as important as the organization claimed.

Organized international intervention in colonial affairs has never found favor in the eyes of the European colonial powers. It did not at San Francisco when they sought to restrict the United Nations role in non-self-governing territories. It was not well received when the Security Council dealt with Indonesia nor were its results favored when the General Assembly disposed of the Italian empire. It does not please them, now, when the focus of public attention is on the political, economic, and social development of the colonies.

Since the summer of 1949 a number of resolutions embodying proposals for world or regional federation have been pending in the Congress of the United States. During the early months of 1950, extended hearings on these various proposals have been held by the Senate Subcommittee on Foreign Relations headed by Senator Elbert Thomas. The purpose of this article is to present a critical study of the background, content, and the implications of the projects thus submitted for congressional action.

The United Nations cannot be expected to abolish the balancing process, which is the natural expression of the struggle for advantage and influence in international politics. It does, however, endeavor to modify the process. What are the methods which it employs? What actual effect have they had in promoting security? Above all, what relevance do they have for the conduct of American foreign policy?

The United Nations at the time of this writing has emerged from a period of uncertainty engendered by the Soviet boycotts beginning in January 1950, into blazing prominence as a fast-acting agency for suppressing armed aggression. Many of the questions raised during the first four years of its existence concerning its vitality and effectiveness as the center of a collective security system have now been dramatically answered. Its forms have altered with experience, and by analogy to our Constitution, its action in response to the armed invasion of the Republic of Korea constitutes a precedent which may rank with Chief Justice Marshall's most momentous decisions. Whatever new directions the organization and its Charter may take in response to the dynamics of the world society they represent, it is indisputable that this new parlimentary form of conducting international affairs has conclusively proved its worth and its indispensability to the future of the international community.

By the Moscow Declaration of 1943 the Soviet, British and United States governments pledged their efforts to reestablish a “free and independent Austria” after the the defeat of Germany. In the spring of 1950, five years after the liberation of Austria from German forces and Nazi rule, this pledge, like many other war-time declarations of aims, remained unfulfilled and the Austrians were still asking, as a Viennese witticism put it, when they would be “liberated from their liberators.”

UNESCO — the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — has completed its first three years of activity. Its General Conference has resolved that its fifth session, to be held in Florence in May 1950, shall state with greater precision the long-term program of the organization, to be distinguished from its more transitory undertakings. It may be useful at this time to trace some forces in the development of UNESCO's plan of work.

Within the past eighteen months three disputes involving American republics in the Caribbean area have been brought officially before the Organization of American States. In each instance the Organization, through its Council, as mediator and conciliator, has taken action crowned with at least temporary success. This concentrated testing of a new international institution (new in the sense of recent reconstitution by charter) suggests the need to examine the cases for light thrown on the following questions: What are some of the fundamental causes of Caribbean friction and to what extent can the Organization alleviate them; what is the specific nature of the cases with which the Council has had to deal; what instruments and techniques have been employed in their settlement; and, finally, what tentative conclusions seem warranted as to the efficacy of the inter-American system in the field of pacific settlement?

The nations of the modern world community have been working together on international health problems for a century and a half. They have collaborated because they have realized that disease does not respect national boundaries. In doing so, these states have learned that their selfinterests are best served by world-wide collective action to eradicate communicable disease and to promote positive health conditions everywhere.

Since 1945 the popular view that the United Nations would bring an end to power politics has given way in some quarters to the conviction that power politics will bring an end to the United Nations. More hopeful opinion recognizes and stresses the value of the United Nations as a continuous and expanding “service” organization operating essentially to facilitate discussion, to find and reduce technical sources of friction, and to crystallize world opinion around universal objectives. If, as Mr. Jessup has written, the United Nations is an instrument for “mobilizing world public opinion and making it articulate to the point at which it becomes a factor in the power situation,” the accent now must clearly and necessarily be on opinion rather than power. No Secretary of State today could tell a Senate Committee, as did Mr. Stettinius in 1945, that the heart of the Charter is to be found in the enforcement provisions of Chapter VII.

Readers of this periodical will have been struck with the quantity and the variety of international bodies existing today. Whatever else may be lacking in international organization there is no lack of international organizations.

The security provisions of the contemporary system of international organization are based upon the principle of collective security. As it was originally stated in Article 16 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, “should any Member of the League resort to war in disregard of its covenants…it shall ipso facto be deemed to have committed an act of war against all other Members of the League.” On this principle of solidarity are equally founded the concepts of collective security included within the Charter of the United Nations.

Seven Commonwealth countries – the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, and pakistan – are now members of the United Nations. As this widely representative international organization celebrates its fifth anniversary, it is worth considering how the members of an older well-tried international association, the General Assembly in dealing with international political issues. Broadly speaking, the questions of significance are: How far is the fact of membership in the commonwealth recognized within the United Nations, e. g. in elections to its organs? How do Commonwealth countries act when one of their own members is under attack, as South Africa has been over South West Africa, or in the even more difficult circumstances when two of their members openly air a dispute in the international forum, as over the position of Indians in South Africa, or over Jammu and Kashmir? How do they act in relation to issues of general international concern like Indonesia and Palestine? And lastly, how far do the countries of the Commonwealth retain their traditionally intimate collaboration within this larger and more formal organization? Is there any pattern here which will help to explain what kind of international association the Commonwealth now is, as well as what role its members play in the United Nations?

The fifth regular session of the General Assembly, meeting at Lake Success on September 19, 1950, had before it an agenda of 70 items. The Assembly was expected to discuss, in particular, questions concerning Palestine, the former Italian colonies, the Balkans, threats to the political integrity of China, the problem of the independence of Korea, observance of human rights, international control of atomic energy, technical assistance for under-developed areas, freedom of information, refugees and stateless persons, matters concerning trusteeship and non-self-governing territories, administrative and budgetary matters, reports of the specialized agencies, and reports of the Secretary-General on activities of the organization during the year.

The United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees presents a challenging example of the world's response to a new and sudden human tragedy at a time when its sympathies had almost been drained away by recent appeals. The need for relief measures in the Middle East was created by the flight of at least 750,000 Arabs from their homes in Palestine during 1948. The problem was first brought to the attention of the United Nations by the late Count Folke Bemadotte and the Arab League in July of that year, and there was set in motion an ad hoc relief organization, the direct descendant of which is functioning at the present time. A brief survey of the operation to date provides a study in the manner in which international organizations, governmental and nongovernmental, have met human needs in an area seething with tension and tragedy.

On July 10, 1950 the Interim Committee of the General Assembly met to consider the following items: 1) the report of the Subcommittee on International Cooperation in the Political Field; 2) the report of the United Nations Commission for Eritrea; and 3) the study of procedure to delimit the boundaries of the former Italian Colonies. Before these matters could be discussed, however, the committee had to elect a new vice-chairman as Abdur Rahim Khan (Pakistan) had submitted his resignation from that position following his appointment as representative of Pakistan on the United Nations Advisory Council for Libya.

This issue covers the work of the Security Council from the 480th meeting on August 1, 1950 to the 502d meeting on September 18, 1950. On August 1, 1950, the Soviet representative (Yakov Malik) returned to the Council meetings and participated in all of the following sessions, serving as president during the month of August.

This issue covers the work of the Security Council from the 471st meeting on April 12, 1950to the 478th meeting on July 31, 1950. During this period the representative of the Soviet Union did not participate in the meetings of the Council, although it was announced at the end of July that he would take over his presidency for the month of August.

For the convenience of readers, we are listing here membership of United Nations organs for 1950. Dates in parentheses represent ends of the terms; the states serve through December 31st of the year listed.

The final report of the United Nations Economic Survey Mission for the Middle East was submitted to the Conciliation Commission for Palestine on December 18, 1949. The mission's interim report, dealing with immediate aid and work relief for Palestinian refugees, had been submitted to the General Assembly in November. The final report, while not dealing directly with the refugee problem pointed out that its solution was inseparable from the general middle eastern problems of poverty, unemployment and hunger, and referred to the economic development possible in the middle eastern area, providing that peaceful intraregional cooperation could take place.