Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, General; The United Nations, Volume I

IO Files: US/A/709

United States Delegation Working Paper¹

restricted

[New York , October 27, 1947.]

Information From Non-Self-Governing Territories

Draft Statement for Possible Use in the Plenary Meeting

It is with genuine regret that the United States Delegation finds itself unable to support all the five resolutions with respect to the implementation of Article 73 (e) of the Charter which the Fourth Committee has laid before the Assembly for adoption. The United States is prepared to support Resolutions 1 and 4 as adopted by the Fourth Committee. It is also prepared to move the adoption of Resolutions 2, 3, and 5 in the form in which they were reported by large majorities from the Ad Hoc Committee, which consisted of an equal number of administering Members and non-administering Members. My Government is convinced, however, that those three resolutions, as now modified by narrow majorities in the Fourth Committee, would take the United Nations so far beyond the Charter framework that they should not be adopted by this Assembly.

In view of the importance which my Government attaches to these resolutions, I wish to explain as frankly and clearly as possible the position of the United States Government in regard to them.

At the outset, let me call attention to the carefully qualified provisions of Article 73(e):

1. The information to be transmitted is defined as “statistical and other information of a technical nature relating to economic, social, and educational conditions in the territories”. The possibility of including political information was discussed at San Francisco and, after careful consideration, was deliberately rejected.

2. The transmission of the information is made subject to such limitation as security and constitutional considerations may require.

3. The information is to be transmitted “for information purposes”.

The Assembly is most certainly aware that in spite of these limitations of the Charter the United States desires to give the widest practicable application to Article 73(e). At the last session of the General Assembly, the United States initiated a proposal that information transmitted to the Secretary General for information purposes might be analyzed and classified as well as summarized by the Secretary General for the information of the General Assembly. It has cooperated in a loyal and constructive spirit with the work of the Ad Hoc Committee. My Government went beyond the strict requirements of the Charter by voluntarily transmitting information on governmental institutions in the non-self-governing territories administered by the United States. It has taken these steps in the hope that all members of the United Nations would cooperate in a constructive but reasonable application of Chapter XI. The United States Government, however, has reluctantly been driven to the conclusion that certain delegations are apparently willing to sacrifice the possibilities of practical achievement in this field by making demands which invade and apparently transgress the constitutional rights and relations of members to the territories they administer. If this approach is followed and further developed in the future, it is not only likely to frustrate the positive work that could and should be done in the interest of the inhabitants of all these territories, but it may actually cause resentments and perhaps a resort to invoking the domestic jurisdiction clause of the Charter.

The United States Delegation is hopeful and confident that the Assembly will perceive and realize that unusual wisdom and restraint should characterize our actions with respect to Chapter XI, which was drafted as a declaration of policy with such thought and care at the San Francisco Conference. The careful balance there achieved should not be upset by either the administering or the non-administering powers.

Next, may I briefly refer to each of the specific resolutions before us. Resolution 1 should, I believe, be supported unanimously by this Assembly. It stands virtually in the form agreed to and adopted in the Ad Hoc Committee. It proposes the use of a standard form carefully worked out to serve as a basis for the annual reports required under Article 73 (e) and suggests an optional category of material which, while going beyond the strict requirements of that Article, would undoubtedly prove useful and serviceable.

The second resolution, as adopted by the Ad Hoc Committee by a vote of 12 to 1, included a paragraph authorizing the Secretary General to include in his summaries and analyses such relevant and comparable data in the statistical services of the Secretariat as may be agreed upon by the Members concerned. The purpose of this paragraph was to provide, as a basis for scientific investigation, that comparisons might be made of conditions in similar areas, whether dependent territories or sovereign states. Matters such as health, or labor, or agriculture, are not confined to non-self-governing territories. They affect a whole continent, a whole region, or, in many instances, the whole world. These problems cannot be adequately analyzed unless it is possible to make comparisons, not merely between one dependent territory and another but, as appropriate, between dependent territories and sovereign states affected by the same particular problem. The Fourth Committee, however, by a narrow margin of 22 to 18, modified the resolution to provide that comparisons should be made only as between the non-self-governing territories and the metropolitan areas of the nations which administer them. My Delegation does not consider that a comparison limited to eight more or less industrialized countries would have any great practical value. Since, under the Ad Hoc Committee’s resolution, a Member must consent to the use by the Secretary General of the data in question, how can there be any objection to the adoption of a resolution which will permit any member to agree to its use for purposes of comparison? The United States Delegation feels, therefore, that in its present form, the second resolution, which ignores the international character of economic and social problems, is unacceptable. It moves, therefore, an amendment (A/ ) which would restore the original text adopted by the Ad Hoc Committee.

Now let us examine the third resolution which relates to the transmission of information on self-governing institutions in non-self-governing territories. As recommended by the Ad Hoc Committee, this resolution states that the voluntary transmission of such information is entirely in conformity with the spirit of Article 73 of the Charter and should, therefore, be duly noted and encouraged. My Government, which as a matter of fact had included such information in the reports which it transmitted under Article 73(e) appreciated this acknowledgment of the voluntary action which it and other Governments had taken. While it had some misgivings as to the language used in referring to this voluntary action as being “in conformity with the spirit of Article 73”, it felt that the use of the word “voluntary” and the general tone of the resolution permitted the United States to support the resolution. The Ad Hoc Committee’s vote on this resolution, which had been submitted by China, Cuba, and India, was adopted without a dissenting voice among the fourteen Members. What happened to this resolution in the Fourth Committee? A Soviet amendment, adopted by a majority of one (the vote being 20 to 19), deleted the word “voluntary” from the final paragraph of the resolution and substituted, in place of the more proper language of the Ad Hoc Committee, “noting” and “encouraging” the voluntary transmission of this information, a “recommendation” that this information be transmitted. The effect intended by this amendment is to create an obligation which the Charter clearly and significantly avoids. The United States Delegation, therefore, opposes the third resolution in its amended, present form, and moves the adoption of an amendment (A/ ) which would restore the language according with the Charter provisions, as proposed by the Ad Hoc Committee.

The fourth resolution on the role of specialized agencies with respect to information transmitted under Article 73(e) was unanimously adopted by the Fourth Committee as recommended by the Ad Hoc Committee. My Government considers this to be a very useful resolution and hopes the Assembly will adopt it.

The fifth and last resolution on this subject is the most important of all. It proposes the creation of a special committee or organ to examine the information transmitted under Article 73(e). A resolution on this subject was initially drafted by the Representative of India in the Ad Hoc Committee and, after a few amendments, was adopted by the Ad Hoc Committee without a dissenting vote. This resolution, which I shall refer to as the first Indian resolution in order to distinguish it from the second which was adopted by the Fourth Committee, wisely defined the type of recommendations which it would be proper for the Committee to make, and provided that the Committee should be constituted as a special subcommittee of the Fourth Committee which would meet as the General Assembly might decide. What happened to the first Indian resolution as adopted by the Ad Hoc Committee without a dissenting voice? It was later abandoned in the Fourth Committee. Instead, the Indian Delegation brought in a new resolution, subsequently adopted by the Fourth Committee by the slight margin of 23 to 19. This resolution leaves undefined the type of recommendations which the special committee may make, thus apparently giving free rein to the proposed committee to trespass as it pleases in fields falling exclusively within the domestic jurisdiction of the administering Members. Furthermore, the second Indian resolution gives the special committee an independent and apparently permanent status not unlike that of the Trusteeship Council, by making it, not a subcommittee of the Fourth Committee, but a committee or organ of the General Assembly, with its members elected for a period of two years by the General Assembly and with the power to meet when the General Assembly itself is not in session. This would seem quite out of line with the carefully drawn provisions of the Charter. The United States Delegation, for all these reasons, opposes the fifth resolution in its present form and moves an amendment (A/ ), which would restore the original text agreed to in the Ad Hoc Committee.

The United States Delegation is genuinely and sincerely concerned over the political, economic, and social advancement and welfare of the millions of people who have not yet attained a full measure of self-government. It seeks ways that are practical and ways that are constitutional for achieving this end. It therefore favors the adoption of the five resolutions as proposed by the Ad Hoc Committee. Because the United States Delegation desires that the well-being of these people be fostered in conformity with the provisions of Chapter XI of the Charter, it opposes Resolutions 2, 3, and 5 as reported in their amended form by the Fourth Committee.²

1. This paper, although dated October 27, is inserted here because it contains the substance of statements made to the General Assembly on November 1 and November 3 by Ambassador Sayre; see GA (II), Plenary, vol. i, pp. 668, 660–671, 720, 721, and 735–737. At the end he submitted a motion that the voting procedure be conducted under Article 18 of the Charter as an important question requiring a two-thirds majority. This motion was carried (29–22–5) on a roll-call vote (ibid., p. 743).
2. The final result of a succession of votes by the General Assembly on November 3 was General Assembly approval of the motions, jointly submitted by the six delegations, to restore the texts of Resolutions 2, 3, and 5 to the original texts recommended by the Ad Hoc Committee. For discussion by the General Assembly on November 1 and November 3, see GA (II), Plenary, vol. i, pp. 667 ff. For texts of the five resolutions regarding transmission of information under Article 73(e) of the Charter, see United Nations, Official Records of the General Assembly, Second Session, Resolutions, pp. 48 ff.