Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, United Nations and General International Matters, Volume II

223. Paper Prepared by the Assistant Legal Adviser for United Nations Affairs (Meeker)¹

New York, October 10, 1960.

NEW RULES FOR THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY

The Problem of Slow and Inefficient Proceedings

The General Assembly is in danger of suffocation from a volcanic outpouring of words by 99 member delegations.

The Assembly has now been in session for three weeks. Despite a number of night and Saturday meetings—to debate the inclusion of items on the agenda and their allocation—the Assembly is still a long way from completing the general-debate speeches in plenary; more than a third of the delegations have not yet spoken.

Appeals by the President of the General Assembly for punctuality in starting meetings, for restraint in invoking the right of reply, and for brevity in interventions have not been effective to bring about efficient despatch of the Assembly’s business.

The lateness of the plenary in concluding its general debate has delayed the start of main committee meetings. The political committees may not meet until nearly the first of November. When the committees are all in operation, their proceedings are likely to be correspondingly slow, with the substantial increase that has taken place in United Nations membership.

These phenomena are occurring in the face of an Assembly agenda that is, if anything, heavier than in previous years. In the past, three months have been considered a long period to devote to the regular annual session of the General Assembly. Now, it would appear that the Assembly may be quite unable to get through its agenda in less than five or six months.

Since purely voluntary measures do not give real promise of enabling the General Assembly to escape a near-paralysis from excessive debate, other steps should be most carefully weighed.

Reasons for Reform

Before outlining some of these steps, it may be worthwhile to consider briefly the reasons which argue for expeditious and effective General Assembly proceedings.

It is in the interest of the United States and of most other countries to maintain an effectively functioning United Nations. The General Assembly is of great importance in the whole United Nations structure, and we want to keep it in operation as a working body. If the Assembly’s deliberations become unduly protracted, it will no longer be a dependable functioning instrumentality.

The attendance of foreign ministers and other high-level government representatives can contribute to agreement and accomplishment at General Assembly sessions. Such officials possess substantially greater authority than the regular delegations. If they attend, and if they involve themselves in the substantive business of the Assembly, progress out of the ordinary can be made. Such a pattern and practice deserves encouragement. If Assembly sessions become over-long, the proceedings are bound to deteriorate in effectiveness and in significance.

Suggestions

There is probably not time to work out reforms which could be applied to the fifteenth session of the General Assembly this year. But steps should be taken to get agreement on reforms to be applied in 1961. This might be undertaken through the proposing of a new agenda item and its allocation to the Assembly’s Legal Committee, which has this year a trivial agenda and which has a special interest in the Rules of Procedure (see, for example, resolution 684 (VII), and the 1952 Sixth Committee debate on the report of the Special Committee on Assembly Methods and Procedures).²

The following are specific measures which ought to be considered:

1. Time limits. At the present time, Rules 74 and 115³ provide only that the plenary or a main committee may limit the duration of speeches. In practice limitations are not imposed. The Rule could be re-drawn to provide definite time limits, with the understanding that these will be strictly enforced and will not be waived by the body in question except in extraordinary circumstances for the most pressing reasons. Forty-five minutes might be set as the maximum for a general debate speech in plenary (only one of these should be allowed per delegation); 30 minutes for the initial statement on any item being considered in plenary or committee; ten minutes for a single statement per delegation on resolutions; ten minutes for a single statement per delegation on amendments.

2. Explanation of vote. Oral explanations of vote could be abolished with an appropriate amendment of Rules 90 and 129. A delegtion which wished could have a brief written explanation of vote inserted in the record.

3. Rights of reply. The rights of reply have been invoked extensively in the plenary general debate this year. Speeches made allegedly in reply have contained all kinds of new matter. To prevent abuse, time limits could be imposed—perhaps ten minutes for plenary and five minutes for committee.

4. Points of order. A five-minute time limit should be placed on all points of order. To make Rules 73 and 114 even more definite, words might be added to provide that no representative shall be allowed to speak at all after a point of order until the point has been disposed of by ruling (and vote on a challenge if necessary).

Time limits require time-keeping machinery. A large clock could be installed in each meeting room in full view, to be started by the Committee Secretary as a representative begins speaking, and working backward to show the time still remaining. When time has run out, the presiding officer should require the speaker to end with the sentence he is then uttering.

5. Start of meetings. All meetings should open exactly at the appointed hour. If the President or Chairman is not present, a Vice President or Vice Chairman would preside. The Secretariat would have the duty of seeing to it that a presiding officer is always available on time. Rules 69 and 110 (Quorum) could be modified to apply only to voting and elections.

6. Closing the list of speakers. Rules 75 and 116 might be amended to provide that the list of speakers in any general debate shall be closed at the end of the second meeting given to such debate. The list would then be announced by the presiding officer. Any delegate not ready to speak when reached would forfeit his place, and would not be allowed to speak later in the same list unless (a) he had previously exchanged places with another delegate, or (b) the body in question voted, in exceptional circumstances, to allow re-inscription.

7. Voting. As soon as the list of speakers have been exhausted, the presiding officer should put proposals to a vote without delay.

8. Relevance of remarks. The General Assembly might exhort presiding officers to be strict in the application of Rules 70 and 111, requiring all speakers to limit themselves to the subject under discussion.

Conclusion

Many if not most or all of the above suggestions may be objected to by some on the ground of severity and infringing on the sovereign rights of States. With an international organization of 99 members, and having the prospect of further additions,⁴ definite measures to preserve order and efficiency are called for. Unless States exercise part of their sovereignty in self-limitation here—as they do by treaty and by international law in many areas of world affairs—international organization through the United Nations will break down.

Also, it should be recalled that in experience with the General Assembly’s Rules of Procedure the most explicit Rules have been applied with generally agreed success: e.g., Rules 76–79 and 117–120 (on procedural motions and their order of precedence).

1. Source: Department of State, L Files: Lot 69 D 306, LCM Chron 1960. Meeker was in New York as a member of the U.S. Delegation to the 15th U.N. General Assembly.
2. For text of U.N. General Assembly Resolution 684 (VII), see U.N. doc. A2361. For a record of the Sixth Committee debate, see U.N. docs. AC.6/SR.306–AC.6/SR.312.
3. For text, see U.N. doc. A520/Rev.15.
4. A Rule of Procedure should perhaps also be adopted to ban speeches on the admission of new members. A whole afternoon was taken up by the admission of Nigeria. The welcoming speeches could have taken some other form not occupying the Assembly’s time, and the debut of the Nigerian Prime Minister could have been made in the plenary’s general debate. [Footnote in the source text.]