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The UN Security Council

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Leland M. Goodrich
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Extract

It has been the unfortunate fate of the United Nations to have been most conspicuously unsuccessful in performing that task which was to be its major responsibility and for which it was supposed to be best equipped. Naturally this has also been the fate of the Security Council upon which the Members of the Organization, by the terms of Article 24, conferred “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security”. Against this background of failure and consequent dissatisfaction, many have been asking whether the Security Council is fated to become like the human appendix, an atrophied organ with no useful function to perform or whether the present condition is not one that can and should be remedied or that perhaps will be changed in any case by an improvement in the state of international relations. To form a judgment on these possibilities it is necessary to recall the original conception of the Security Council, to review its record, and to analyze the causes of its decline and the likelihood of their elimination or counterbalancing by other forces.

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Type
Articles
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International Organization , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , Summer 1958 , pp. 273 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1958

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References

1 Article 26 of the Charter.

2 The one qualification was that a permanent member must abstain from voting when a decision was being taken under Chapter VI or Article 52, par. 3.

3 Pasvolsky, Leo, “The United Nations in Action,” Edmund J. James Lectures on Government, Fifth Series, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1951, p. 80–81Google Scholar.

4 See Lee, Dwight E., “The Genesis of the Veto,” International Organization, 02 1947 (Vol. 1, No. 1), p. 33–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For text of Statement by the Delegations of the Four Sponsoring Governments on Voting Procedure in the Security Council, see United Nations Conference on International Organization, Documents, XI, p. 710–714Google Scholar, and Goodrich, and Hambro, , Charter of the United Nations: Commentary and Documents, rev. ed., Boston, World Peace Foundation, 1949, p. 216–218Google Scholar.

5 Post-War Foreign Policy Preparation, Department of State Publication 3580, p. 595–606Google Scholar.

6 Department of State Bulletin, 10 8, 1944 (Vol. 11, No. 276), p. 368 and followingGoogle Scholar.

7 See Dulles, John Foster, War or Peace, New York, Macmillan, 1950, p. 36–41Google Scholar.

8 See Goodrich, and Hambro, , op. cit., p. 150–163 and 178–181Google Scholar and Haviland, H. Field Jr, The Political Role of the General Assembly, New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1951, p. 5–28Google Scholar.

9 Substantive political questions are those designated “Political and Security Questions” in the Annual Reports of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization and which do not relate to constitutional, organizational or procedural matters, including the admission of new Members or the representation of Members. For detailed information, see the Secretary-General's reports and the Reports of the Security Council to the General Assembly.

10 General Assembly Resolution 377 (V).

11 See Goodrich, and Simons, , The United Nations and the Maintenance of International Peace and Security, Washington, Brookings Institution, 1955, p. 397–405Google Scholar.

12 The Federal Republic of Germany undoubtedly would have applied and been admitted before now if it had not been for the knowledge that its application would be vetoed by the Soviet Union.

13 Italy's application was vetoed 6 times.

14 Documents A/PV.706 (October 18, 1957); A/-BUR/SR.116 (October 21, 1957); and A/PV.708 (October 22, 1957).

15 See Wilcox, Francis O. and Marcy, Carl M., Proposals for Changes in the United Nations, Washington, Brookings Institution, 1955, Chapts. X and XIGoogle Scholar.

16 U. S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on the United Nations Charter, The Problem of the Veto in the United Nations Security Council, Staff Study No. 1, Washington, 1954Google Scholar.

17 Department of State Bulletin, 01 27, 1958 (Vol. 38, No. 970), p. 125Google Scholar.

18 See Bulganin's, Premier letter to President Eisenhower, 02 1, 1958Google Scholar, ibid., March 10, 1958, p. 378.

19 General Assembly Official Records (eleventh session), Annexes, Agenda items 56, 57, and 58; A/SPC/-SR.74 and 75 (December 1957); A/PV.728 (December 12, 1957).

20 See Briggs, Herbert W., “Chinese Representation in the United Nations,” International Organization, 05 1952 (Vol. 6, No. 2), p. 192–209CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and an address given by the Secretary-General at a recent meeting of members of the British Houses of Parliament held under the auspices of the British group of the Inter-parliamentary Union, United Nations Review, 05 1958 (Vol. 4, No. 11), p. 9Google Scholar.

21 Proposals dealing with the periodic meetings of the Security Council have been made by the Secretary-General in the past. Cf. General Assembly Official Records (sixth session) Supplement No. 15 (A/1902)Google Scholar, “Development of a Twenty-Year Programme for Achieving Peace Through the United Nations”; General Assembly Official Records (tenth session). Supplement No. 1 (A/2911)Google Scholar, “Annual Report of the Secretary General on the Work of the Organization, 1 July 1954—15 June 1955”.

22 General Assembly Official Records (twelfth session), Supplement No. 1A (A/3594/Add, I)Google Scholar, “Introduction to the Annual Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, 16 June 1956—15 June 1957”.