Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, United Nations Affairs, Volume III

Press Release No. 19 Issued by the Department of State, January 18, 1954¹ January 18, 1954

January 18, 1954

Statement by
the Honorable John Foster Dulles
Secretary of State
Before the Charter Review Subcommittee
of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Monday, January 18, 1954

united nations charter review

The United Nations Charter represents man’s most determined and promising effort to save humanity from the scourge of war and to establish justice between the nations. In negotiating the Charter terms, the United States was represented by a distinguished bi-partisan delegation, largely drawn from the Congress, and the Charter was ratified by the Senate by almost unanimous vote.

The United Nations, thus launched, carried the ardent hopes of the American people, and indeed the peoples of all the world. The responsible leaders of our nation, without regard to party, have repeatedly said that the Charter represents the cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy.

It must in all frankness be recognized that the high hopes born of the San Francisco Conference of 1945 have not been fully realized. This is due to two principal causes.

In the first place, many initial hopes were exaggerated. War is not abolished, and a system of justice inaugurated, merely by strokes of the pen. If that were the case, we would have had international peace and justice long ago. Just and durable peace requires sustained and well directed efforts comparable in dedication to the efforts needed to win victory in war.

However, the written word continues to exert a peculiar fascination and there is a recurrent tendency to treat as done that which, according to a treaty, ought to be done. Hopes which had only this basis were doomed to be disappointed.

In the second place, many provisions of the Charter depended on cooperation by the so-called “great powers” and in fact the members of the Soviet Communist bloc have pursued policies which departed from the spirit, and indeed the language, of the Charter.

Nevertheless, the United Nations has a record of conspicuous accomplishment. Among major political results which flowed from its processes may be mentioned:

• The withdrawal of Soviet forces from Iran;
• The support of Greece while under Communist attack;
• The conclusion of a permanent armistice between Israel and the Arab States;
• The establishment of the Republic of Korea;
• The disposition of the Italian colonies in Africa and the creation of the State of Libya;
• The establishment of the Republic of Indonesia.
• The organization of effective resistance to the armed aggression in Korea.

While the United States bore most of the United Nations burden in Korea, it should not be forgotten that 15 other members contributed armed forces and 46 nations made some form of contribution, either military or economic.

Thus, the United Nations became the first international organization to organize effective collective resistance to armed aggression.

The United Nations has helped to transform colonialism into self-government. The role played by the United Nations in this matter has been controversial and it is in some respects subject to legitimate criticism. Undoubtedly, however, it has exerted a useful influence in promoting peaceful rather than violent developments.

In addition to political achievements, the United Nations has provided means for economic and social developments which have benefited a large part of the human race.

In addition to its specific accomplishments, the General Assembly has served as a world forum for the presentation of different points of view. It has become a place where world opinion can register and exert a moral authority, which no nation, however powerful or despotic, publicly disdains or wholly disregards.

The greatest weakness of the United Nations—and this was foreseen at San Francisco—is the Security Council’s inability to discharge its “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security”. (Art. 24) It has not proved practicable for the Security Council to organize the armed forces, assistance and facilities which it was contemplated should be put at the disposal of the Security Council (Art. 43) for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security.

The Council’s inability to function as designed has been primarily due to the abuse by the Soviet Union of its so-called veto power.

This same veto power has been abused by the Soviet Union to exclude from membership in the United Nations many countries fully qualified for membership under the terms of Article 4, which provides that the United Nations membership is open to all peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and are able and willing to carry out these obligations.

Nations excluded by the Soviet veto are:

Austria, Cambodia, Ceylon, Finland, Eire, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Republic of Korea, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Vietnam.

ii

We are now approaching a time when in all probability there will be a review of the Charter with a view to its possible amendment. Article 109 (3) of the Charter provides that a proposal to call such a conference shall be placed on the agenda of the tenth annual session of the General Assembly, i.e., that of 1955, and present indications are that a review conference will be held.

The United States has already indicated that it expects to favor the holding of a review conference.

The Executive welcomes this coordinate action of the Senate in studying the problems which will confront such a conference.

The Executive approaches this conference with an awareness of the desirability of perfecting the Charter, but also with a determination, not to lose the good that is, in the search for something better.

We have not yet taken any firm position with respect to Charter amendments. We defer that until we have further advanced our own studies, and ascertained the views of our citizenry and Congress and of other nations.

In this connection we do not forget that Charter amendments require Senate consent.

Under the circumstances, I shall limit myself to indicating some of the major questions which might be brought before the Charter Review Conference, and as to which there should be an educated public-opinion.

iii

1. Universality

It is useful that there be an organization which is, generally speaking, universal and whose processes run throughout the world. Otherwise the association takes on the character of an alliance. Of course, universality inevitably means bringing together nations whose governments may strongly disagree. This has disadvantages. But such art organization maintains contacts between potential enemies, affords; opportunities to dispel unnecessary misunderstandings, and, as President Eisenhower said in his State of the Union Message on January 7, 1954, it provides “the only real world forum where we have the opportunity for international presentation and rebuttal.” This process tends, though slowly, to bring about conformity to a common standard.

It is, of course, unlikely that there will be universality in the complete and literal sense of that word. Unfortunately, there are governments or rulers who do not respect the elemental decencies of international conduct, so that they can properly be brought into the organized family of nations. That is illustrated by the regime which now rules the China mainland.

Even approximate universality does, of course, carry certain disadvantages. There are bound to be differences of opinion which limit effectiveness of action.

Doubtless, at the Charter Review Conference, consideration will be given to these problems of universality or limited membership. It will perhaps be considered whether Article 4, to which I referred above, expresses the desirable standards for membership.

In this connection, it should be recalled that Articles 5 and 6 permit; of suspension and expulsion, although this requires Security Council action, which in turn is subject to veto.

It seems at the present time that most of the members of the United Nations feel that it is better to have even discordant members in the organization rather than to attempt to confine membership to those who hold the same views.

In this connection, it is to be borne in mind that few nations for long share the same views about every matter. Where they do share the same security views, or have regional community, they can organize themselves under Article 51 (collective security) or under the provisions of Articles 52–54 (regional arrangements).

2. Security

By the Charter (Article 24) the Security Council is supposed to exercise “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security”. Can Charter changes better enable it to discharge that responsibility? Or must that primary responsibility be left to security organizations, the formation of which is authorized by Article 51? Or should greater responsibility be given to the General Assembly, where there is no veto?

In this connection I should note the “Uniting for Peace Resolution” of 1950 which puts the General Assembly in a position to play a decisive role with reference to peace and security in the event that the Security Council is paralyzed by a veto.

3. Security Council

Are the present provisions for membership and voting in the Security Council conducive to its maximum effectiveness? Should the veto power be taken away in respect of questions involving Pacific Settlement of Disputes (Chapter VI) and in respect of the Admission of New Members, as recommended by S.R. 239 (80th)—the so-called Vandenberg Resolution? Presumably, the United States would itself hesitate to go much further than this in now surrendering its “veto power”.

4. General Assembly Voting

In the General Assembly, each nation has one vote—is this the best arrangement? If the General Assembly is to assume greater responsibilities, then should there not be some form of weighted voting, so that nations which are themselves unable to assume serious military or financial responsibilities cannot put those responsibilities on other nations? Should there be, in some matters, a combination vote whereby affirmative action requires both a majority of all the members, on the basis of sovereign equality, and also a majority vote, on a weighted basis, which takes into account population, resources, etc.?

5. Armament

Since the Charter was adopted there has been a vast development of possibilities of mass destruction, particularly in terms of atomic energy and nuclear weapons.

As one who was at San Francisco in the spring of 1945, I can say with confidence that had the delegates at San Francisco known we were entering the age of atomic warfare, they would have seen to it that the Charter dealt more positively with the problems thus raised. Perhaps consideration should now be given to the creation of a special organ of the United Nations comparable to the Economic and Social Council and the Trusteeship Council to deal permanently with the problem of armament which carries so hideous a threat to the hopes of the peoples expressed in the Preamble to the Charter.

In this connection, I emphasize the President’s epoch-making proposal of December 8, 1953 to the United Nations suggesting the creation of an International Atomic Energy Agency to receive contributions of normal uranium and fissionable materials and to devise methods whereby this available material would be allocated to serve the peaceful pursuits of mankind.

6. International Law

In view of the importance of law as an accepted standard of international conduct, are the Charter provisions adequate (Article 13(1)(a))? These call on the General Assembly to initiate studies and make recommendations for the purpose of encouraging the progress and development of international law and its codification. However, so far little progress has been made. This is a great handicap to world order, because it means that decisions and recommendations of the United Nations are apt to be governed by considerations of political expediency rather than by accepted international law.

In this connection I recall the late Senator Taft’s conviction “that in the long run the only way to establish peace is to write a law, agreed to by each of the nations, to govern the relations of such nations with each other and to obtain the covenant of all such nations that they will abide by that law and by decisions made thereunder”. (A Foreign Policy for Americans, 1951)

Simultaneous progress on a global scale is presently impeded by a sharp cleavage with reference to the nature of law. Most of the governments of the world regard “law” as man’s effort to apply moral principles to human affairs. There is thus an objective standard of justice which can be appealed to. However, one third of the world’s population is ruled by those who do not recognize any moral law and look upon human “law” as a means whereby those in power achieve their objectives and destroy their enemies.

7. The foregoing are the more important Charter amendment issues which particularly concern the United States. There are doubltess other aspects which are of great concern to other countries. However, I refrain from making any statement about those matters at this time.

conclusion

It is in my opinion important that the United States should approach this problem of Charter review with recognition that the Charter as it is can be made to serve well the cause of international peace and justice. The defects in the Charter can to a considerable extent be corrected by practices which are permissible under the Charter. Already it is accepted practice that if a permanent member of the Security Council abstains from voting, that does not constitute a veto despite the fact that Article 27(3) provides for the “affirmative vote of seven members, including the concurring votes of the permanent members”.

I have already referred to the Uniting for Peace Resolution which gave the Assembly a veto-less authority in security matters.

It is also necessary to bear in mind that much can be done within the framework of the Charter, but without actual dependence upon the procedures of the United Nations itself. I have referred to Article 51 which recognizes the right of collective self-defense. This has been extensively used. Many nations having similar security interests have banded together through security pacts. There are the Rio Pact, the North Atlantic Treaty, and comparable security arrangements between the United States and other countries in the Western Pacific. The Soviets have also built their own security system with a series of so-called treaties with their satellites.

Such arrangements operate free of Security Council veto, although self-defense measures are required to be reported to the Security Council.

I have stated some of the problems which will probably be raised in a 1956 Review Conference, without attempting to give categorical answers. That would, I think, be premature for me. Let me repeat, however, that while a Charter Review Conference should be welcomed as a means of strengthening the United Nations, difference of opinion about how to do this should not then be pressed to a point such that the Review Conference would result in undermining the United Nations or disrupting it. The United Nations as it is, is better than no United Nations at all.

It must be borne in mind that, under the present Charter, each of the permanent members of the Security Council has a “veto” on amendments which the General Review Conference may propose. The existence of this veto does not mean that the Review Conference is a futility. At San Francisco each of the nations which had joined to draft the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals had a “veto” over changes from these proposals. Nevertheless, they did not exercise that veto as against changes which were clearly reasonable and demanded by world opinion. We can hope that the same conditions will prevail at the prospective Review Conference. We can reasonably make our plans on the working hypothesis that no one nation will, in fact, be able arbitrarily to impose changes or to veto changes.

Let me end by reasserting my continuing faith in the United Nations. I fully share the view expressed by the Senate in its Resolution of June 11, 1948 that it is “the policy of the United States to achieve international peace and security through the United Nations”. As President Eisenhower said to the Congress on January 7, 1954, “The United Nations deserves our continued firm support.”

I believe that it lies within our power to advance the great objective of the United Nations provided we are patient, resourceful and resolute, and inspired by faith that man has the capacity to overcome evil with good.

1. Source: Press Releases of the Department of State, January–March. 1954.