Office of the Historian

IO Files: A/C.1/SC.12/1

Draft Resolution Submitted by the United States to Subcommittee 12 of the First Committee of the General Assembly1

[Paris,] October 21, 1948.

Prohibition of the Atomic Weapon and the Reduction by One-third of the Armaments and Armed Forces of the Permanent Members of the Security Council: Proposed Amendments to French Draft Resolution (A/C.1/325)

[Here follows a description of the modifications proposed by the United States.]

The French draft resolution so amended would read:

The General Assembly,

Considering that the maintenance of peace and the adoption of measures for the prevention of all recourse to force are the essential aims that the peoples of the United Nations are resolved to pursue;

[Page 493]

Desiring to establish relations of confident collaboration between the States within the framework of the Charter and to make possible a general reduction of armaments in order that humanity may in future be spared the horrors of war and that the peoples may not be overwhelmed by the continually increasing burden of military expenditure;

Recalling its resolution of 14 December 1946;2

Declares that the regulation of armaments is a fundamental aim of the United Nations;

Affirms that this aim can only be attained in an atmosphere of real and lasting improvement in international relations, which improvement will permit the organization of peace in an atmosphere of renewed confidence;

Likwise affirms that this aim cannot be achieved unless States sincerely and honestly accept the stocktaking, publicity and control measures calculated to lay the foundations for a general limitation of armaments and to guarantee its strict implementation, and unless they, therefore, give the indispensable undertakings;

Believing that international confidence cannot be restored without the co-operation of all States in a system of security, including the international control of atomic energy;

The General Assembly

Recommends the Security Council:

(1)
To promote the international regulation of conventional armaments and armed forces with a view to the progressive reduction of the world total of conventional armaments and armed forces as soon as conditions of international security permit; and emphasizes the particular responsibility of the five permanent members of the Security Council in this matter.
(2)
To develop through the Commission for Conventional Armaments, as a stage in its system of safeguards, a plan for the receipt, verification and publication by an international control agency of the information on armaments necessary to determining the reductions to be required of each nation.
(3)
To request the Commission for Conventional Armaments to continue without delay its work in accordance with the plan approved by the Security Council at its 152nd session while seeking specially the means for presenting an acceptable plan embodying the measures herein proposed.

  1. The United States introduced this proposal at the 5th Meeting of Subcommittee 12, October 21. It was withdrawn by the United States Delegation at the 7th Meeting, October 25, 10:30 a. m., in favor of a Belgian amendment (to French draft resolution A/C.1/325) A/C.1/SC.12/2; for texts of the operative portions of the French and Belgian proposals, see footnote 1, p. 469. A/C.1/SC.12/2, subsequently amended, was adopted by the Subcommittee at its 8th Meeting, October 25, 3 p. m., by a vote of 7 (Belgium, Brazil, China, France, Lebanon, United Kingdom, United States) to 2 (Poland and the Soviet Union), with Australia abstaining and El Salvador absent. The operative portion of the version adopted varied only slightly from that of A/C.1/SC.12/2 except for the addition of a final paragraph which read as follows: “[The General Assembly] Invites all nations in the Commission for Conventional Armaments to co-operate to the utmost of their power in the attainment of the above-mentioned objectives.”

    Also at the 8th Meeting, the Subcommittee rejected a Soviet proposal consisting of document A/658 (for text, see telegram Delga 117, September 25, p. 431) modified by Soviet amendment A/C.1/SC.12/3, which revised the final paragraph to read as follows: “The General Assembly recommends for the purpose of the supervision of and control over the implementation of the measures for the reduction of armaments and armed forces and for the prohibition of atomic weapons the establishment within the framework of the Security Council of an international control body, to which full official data on the state of the armaments and armed forces of the permanent Members of the Security Council—United States of America, United Kingdom, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, France and China—must be submitted.” The vote on the Soviet proposal was 2 in favor (Poland and Soviet Union), 6 against (Belgium, Brazil, China, France, United Kingdom, United States), Australia and Lebanon abstaining, and El Salvador absent.

    These results and the texts voted upon were recorded in the report of the Subcommittee, A/C.1/356/Rev. 1, November 2; for text, see GA (III/1), First Committee, Annexes, pp. 34–39.

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  2. For text, see Foreign Relations, 1946, vol. i, p. 1099.↩