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4 United Nations News: Report on the United Nations and Its Related Agencies 1 (1949)

handle is hein.unl/unnews0004 and id is 1 raw text is: SPECIAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY ISSUE Unite d Nations News REPORT ON THE UNITED NATIONS AND ITS RELATED AGENCIES Published by the WOODROW WILSON FOUNDATION, 45 EAST 65TH STREET, NEW YORK 2I, N. Y. in cooperation with THE CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE Vol. IV, No. 1 JANUARY, 1949 $3.00 a year THE HUMAN RIGHTS ASSEMBLY'' ACCORDING to one estimate, over seventeen million words were spoken during the meetings of the Gen- eral Assembly in Paris between September 21 and Decem- ber 12. What did these words add up to? What did the Assembly do? Its most significant achievement was the adoption of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights and also a con- vention outlawing genocide or the destruction of entire human groups. This Assembly will undoubtedly be re- membered in the future as the Human Rights Assembly. On the political side, it had few positive accomplish- ments. It dealt indecisively with Palestine, leaving the future of that troubled country to be decided by direct negotiations, with the help of a new commission. It also discussed a number of the questions which had been de- bated at length last year: the Balkans, Korea, atomic en- ergy, the Little Assembly, disarmament, the use of the veto, and the admission of new members to the U.N. On these matters it heard charges ranging from the flaunt- ing of U.N. decisions to bad faith, deceit and hypocrisy. It heard countercharges. It passed resolutions favored by the majority and opposed by the Soviet minority. Whereas last year's Assembly deliberately chose not to state that Greece's northern neighbors were guilty of aiding the guerrillas, this year's Assembly endorsed the Balkan committee's conclusion that the guerrillas received aid from Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. On atomic energy, forty nations voted endorsement of the majority plan of control, which had previously received the support of fourteen of the seventeen nations which have been mem- bers of the smaller Atomic Energy Commission at one time or another. Thus, Assembly discussions lined up twenty-six more nations behind the majority plan.* *The Assembly's discussion of atomic energy and disarma- ment was covered in the November issue of the United Nations News, the discussion of the Balkan problem in the December issue. All resolutions are summarized on pages 5-8 of this issue. But in the very nature of things, these resolutions could not heal the breach between the East and the West. On the contrary, that breach became sharper than ever before. Fewer of the smaller and medium-sized countries voted with the Soviet bloc on any issue. Fewer abstained from voting. In this sense, the United States and the Western Powers have clearly won a propaganda victory within the United Nations. The United States delegate, John Foster Dulles, hailed this as a real achievement. He said, Debates here have revealed increasing unity among the great majority of Member states. They have also helped to eliminate those dangers to peace which arise from miscalculation. It is perfectly clear that an aggressor can no longer hope to vanquish his victims one by one. Any aggressor will have to count on solid-not divided resistance. That is a deterrent to war. . . . Whether Mr. Dulles' interpretation of psychology is correct remains to be seen. Unfortunately, individuals and groups which feel themselves isolated in a world arrayed solidly against them, usually react with increas- ing hostility and defiance,-rather than with a sober ex- amination of their own share in the blame, or with a reasoned calculation of the probable results of changing their ways. Like last year and the year before, the Assembly wrestled impotently with the problem of how to admit new mem- bers which the Security Council had failed to recommend either because of a Soviet veto or because the states in question had not mustered the necessary seven votes. Argentina made an extreme suggestion: that the Assem- bly ignore the veto and forthwith admit every state which received seven or more votes in the Security Council in spite of the fact that the Charter clearly states that ap- plicants must be recommended by the Security Council. To justify this proposal, the Argentine delegate made an elaborate legal argument which, however, none of the major powers supported. Instead, the Assembly again Reproduction by Permission of Buffalo & Erie County Public Library Buffalo, NY Use of any part of the contents of the UNITED NATIONS NEWS, with or without credit, is invited. 1

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