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The Uses of the Uniting for Peace Resolution since 1950

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Keith S. Petersen
Keith S. Petersen
Affiliation:
currently on leave of absence from his post as Associate Professor of Government at the University of Arkansas, is this year's recipient of the Rockefeller Fellowship for the Study of International Organization, at the World Affairs Center for the United States in New York City.
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Extract

The Uniting for Peace Resolution—or the Acheson Plan, as it was once popularly called—was adopted by the UN General Assembly on November 3, 1950. It is commonly conceded that its procedures were designed to help surmount an apparently major obstacle to the operation of the UN: the Soviet veto or its alleged abuse, and the concomitant stagnation of the Security Council. Its particulars were the product, at least in part, of both the accidents and the demands of the Korean War—for example, that the Security Council could and did adopt resolutions of substance pertaining to Korea up until the time (August 1, 1950) the Soviet delegate returned, after which it adopted no other; or that there was a UN commission already stationed in Korea which could and did report to the Security Council immediately upon the outbreak of hostilities in June of 1950. The resolution belonged to a longer evolutionary history, too: the general shift in emphasis away from the Security Council was manifested even before the Korean War by the creation in 1947 of an “Interim Committee” of the General Assembly. The Uniting for Peace Resolution was more or less a reflection of the immediate environment of the Korean crisis, but it was also part of the main stream of basic institutional change to which it at the same time contributed.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , Spring 1959 , pp. 219 - 232
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation and Cambridge University Press 1959

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References

1 General Assembly Resolution 377(V), November 3, 1950. General Assembly Official Records (hereafter cited as GAOR) (5th session), Supplement No. 20, p. 10–12.Google ScholarThe summary given here follows closely that which appears in Leland Goodrich, “Development of the General Assembly,” International Conciliation, May 1951 (No. 471), p. 272–273.Google Scholar The first point of these six-having to do with “transfer”—specifically includes mention of the Assembly's self-proclaimed capacity, in considering a matter so “transferred”, to make “appropriate recommendations, including in the case of a breach of the peace or act of aggression the use of armed force when necessary”. Quoted in Ibid., p. 272. See also the same author's “The UN Security Council,” International Organization, Summer 1958(Vol. 12, No. 3), p. 279.Google Scholar It is, however, dubious at best that this provision “adds” any “power” to the General Assembly that it would not have had under Article 10 anyway and/or had not already used, regardless of authority. See the brief but comprehensive discussion of the “Competence of the Security Council and the General Auembly” in Leland Goodrich and Anne Simons, The United Nations and the Maintenance of International Peace and Security, Washington, D. C., The Brookings Institution, 1955, p. 427–433.Google Scholar

2 For discussion of the first two reports and their consequences see Goodrich and Simons, op. cit., p. 408–414. A third report was presented in 1954.Google ScholarDocument A/2713, GAOR (9th session), Annexes, Agenda Item 19, p. 1–4. This was ‘noted with approval” by the Assembly in its Resolution 809 (IX) of November 4, 1954. GAOR (9th session), Supplement No. 21, p. 4.Google Scholar

The “additional measures committee” is not to be confused with the Collective Measures Committee with which it is identical in membership. The additional measures committee did take a direct hand in the making of United Nations policy in respect to Korea, but it had not been established by the Uniting for Peace Resolution.

3 In 1954 the Assembly “directed” the committee “to remain in a position to pursue such further studies as it may deem desirable …” Resolutoin 809 (IX), cited above (footnote 2).Google Scholar

4 See, for example, the brief evaluative summary of its work, including a doleful account of the abortive efforts to create, successively, a “United Nations Guard Force” and a ”United Nations Legion” in Frye, William R., A United Nations Peace Force, New York, Oceana Publications, Inc., 1957, p. 62–64.Google Scholar

5 Hoffmann, Stanley, “Sisyphus and the Avalanche: the United Nations, Egypt and Hungary,” International Organization, Summer 1957 (Vol. 11, No. 3), p. 450–451.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Frye, , op. cit., p. 59.Google Scholar

7 GAOR (7th session), Supplement No. 17, p. 13.Google Scholar The list of 22 members originally appointed to the panel is contained in Annex D of this second report. Ibid., p. 19.

8 The Committee's third report (August 1954) noted that two replacements had been made on the panel, which still consisted of 22 members: no action by this group was reported. Document A/2713, cited above (footnote 2).Google Scholar

9 General Assembly Resolution 109 (II), October 21, 1947. GAOR (2d session), Resolutions, p. 13.Google Scholar

10 GAOR (6th session), Ad Hoc Political Committee, Summary Records, 2d Meeting, November 20, 1951, p. 9.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., p. 18.

12 Ibid., p. 8, quoting UNSCOB's report.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid., p. 11.

15 Ibid., p. 13–14.

16 Document S/3220. Security Council Official Records (hereafter cited as SCOR) (9th year), Supplement for April, May, and June 1954. p. 10.Google Scholar

17 SCOR (9th year), 673d Meeting, June 16, 1954, p. 3.Google Scholar

18 SCOR (9th year), 674th Meeting, p. 13. Lebanon abstained.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., p. 16.

20 The New York Times, June 19, 1954.Google Scholar

21 Document A/2665, July 7. 1954. p. 3.Google Scholar

22 The New York Times, July 29, 1954.Google Scholar

23 Ibid., October 18, 1957.

24 S/PV.825, p. 7. The observation was made by Dr. Jorge Illueca of Panama.Google Scholar

25 General Assembly Resolution 377(V). (Cited above, see footnote I.)

26 Document A/C.x/654. GAOR (5th session), Annexes, Vol. II, agenda item 76, p. 15.Google Scholar

27 SCOR(5th year), No. 72, p. 22–23.Google Scholar

28 Document A/1618. GAOR(5th session), Annexes, Vol. II, agenda item 76, p. 2.Google Scholar

29 By adopting a new agenda item (No. 76): “Intervention of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China in Korea”.

30 SCOR (6th year), 531st Meeting.Google Scholar

31 Document S/1992. SCOR (6th year), Supplement for January, February, and March, 1951, p. 10–11.Google Scholar

32 These complexities are considered much more extensively in my unpublished manuscript, “The United Nations, the Uniting for Peace Resolution, and the Korean War”.

33 Letter dated October 29, 1956. Document S/3706. SCOR (11th year), Supplement for October, November, and December 1956, p. 108.Google Scholar

34 SCOR (11th year), 748th Meeting.Google Scholar

35 Ibid., 749th and 750th Meetings.

36 Document S/3710. SCOR (11th year), Supplement for October, November, and December 1956, p. 110.Google Scholar

37 Document S/3712. SCOR (11th year), Supplement for October, November, and December 1956, p. 111–112.Google Scholar

38 SCOR (11th year), 750th Meeting, p. 3.Google Scholar

39 Ibid., p. 7.

40 Ibid., p. 14.

41 All of the following quotations from this debate are taken from SCOR (11th year), 751st Meeting, passim.

42 GAOR (1st emergency special session), Plenary Meetings, p. 1.Google Scholar

43 SCOR (11th year), 751st Meeting, p. 12.Google Scholar

44 Document S/3690. SCOR (11th year), Supplement for October, November, and December 1956, p. 100.Google Scholar

45 SCOR (11th year), 746th Meeting. p. 7.Google Scholar

46 SCOR (11th year), 753d Meeting, p. 4. The draft resolution is Document S/3730. SCOR (11th year), Supplement for October, November, and December 1956, p. 126.Google Scholar This was subsequently slightly revised in Document S/3730/Rev.I. SCOR, Ibid.

47 SCOR (11th year), 754th Meeting, p. 12.Google Scholar

48 Ibid., p. 13.

49 GAOR (2d emergency special session), Plenary Meetings, p. viii.Google Scholar

50 See, for example, SCOR (11th year), 746th Meeting, p. 1–7,Google Scholar where Soviet delegate Sobolev, Arkady A. both quotes and supports the Hungarian disclaimer to this effect, before the item was first inscribed by the Security CouncilGoogle Scholar. When the Council voted, on November 4, to call the Assembly, Sobolev simply repeated the “same criticism” of transfer as of the original inscription of the item. SCOR (11th year), 754th Meeting, p. 13.Google Scholar

51 Document S/4057/Rev.I, August 6, 1958.Google Scholar

52 Document S/4056/Rev.I, August 7, 1958.Google Scholar

53 Document S/4007. Letter dated May 22, 1958.Google Scholar

54 S/PV.818, May 27, 1958.Google Scholar

55 S/PV.827, July 15, 1958.Google Scholar

56 Document S/4053, July 17, 1958.Google Scholar

57 S/PV.831, same date.

58 Document S/4047/Rev.I, same date. See S/PV.831, p. 47.Google Scholar

59 S/PV.834, p. 46.Google Scholar

60 Document S/4050/Rev.I, July 17, 1958.Google Scholar

61 Document S/4055/Rev.I, July 21, 1958. For vote on this resolution, which was 10–1, see S/PV.837, p. 7–10.Google Scholar

62 This was a Swedish resolution, Document S/4022, June 10, 1958. For the vote, see S/PV.825, p. 46.Google Scholar

63 MrSobolev's, . statement, S/PV.838, August 7, 1958, p. 81.Google Scholar

64 For an excellent brief analysis of these deficiencies, see the argument in this debate by Dr. Illueca of Panama. S/PV.838, p. 91–95.Google Scholar

65 Ibid., p. 139–140.

66 Ibid., p. 121.

67 Ibid., p. 132–135.

68 Ibid., p. 136–138.