Current discussion about the Atlantic Pact has given a new emphasis and importance to an old controversy. Ever since the creation of the League of Nations men have disputed bitterly about the relationship of lesser groupings of states to an over-all organization. The view of President Wilson and many of his supporters was that the two were directly opposed to each other. It was argued that such limited security organizations were, in effect, alliances, that they would produce counter-alliances, a revival of the “balance of power,” and the destruction of an organization dedicated to the principle of world-wide “collective” security.

By the end of the war in Europe in 1945, it was evident that one of the major problems to be faced during the post-war period would be the rebuilding of the shattered European economy. Certain steps toward rehabilitation had already been taken by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and several temporary organizations dealing with specific aspects of reconstruction were created in 1945 to attempt an international solution of the problems involved. When the United Nations was inaugurated early in 1946, one of its first actions was to create a group to study both long- and short-range factors in the European economic situation. This Temporary Subcommission on the Reconstruction of Devastated Areas, reporting in the summer of 1946 to the Economic and Social Council, proposed the establishment of a regional commission to concentrate on European recovery.

The Economic Commission for Europe is an organ of the United Nations which deserves to be better known. In a period when public attention has been focused on the Marshall Plan, and on the recurrent crises between the Soviet Union and the west, it has been given, understandably, little public attention in the United States or in Europe. The ECE is an all-European forum where certain major decisions concerning the European economy are regularly made. Among the participants in the ECE are all of the nations snaring in the Marshall Plan, as well as the United States. The chief United States representative to the ECE is Averill Harriman, whose deputy, Paul Porter, is stationed permanently in Geneva.

The Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) was set up under, and has as its charter, the Convention for European Economic Cooperation signed in April 1948. To understand the way in which the Organization works, it is worth looking at one or two of the provisions of the convention. This agreement consists of two parts: the first a statement of the principles of individual action and cooperation on which the contracting parties are agreed; the second, the charter of OEEC.

During the last two years, the major organs of the United Nations have shown an increasing tendency to attempt the solution of international problems through the employment of special bodies and committees, rather than trying directly to resolve the myriad problems of each dispute. The General Assembly has established special groups on the Balkans, Korea and Palestine and has turned a number of questions over to its Interim Committee, while both the Trusteeship Council and the Economic and Social Council have often worked through ad hoc bodies. The Security Council has also delegated its powers under the Charter on a number of occasions. While retaining general supervision, and requiring that final results be subject to its approval, the Security Council in the case of Indonesia, Palestine and Greece, for example, has created sub-groups possessing a wide latitude of action operating under rather general instructions. Since this procedure enables a subordinate group to concentrate on the problem in hand – and since the creation of such a group may well be undertaken as a means of circumventing the Council's unanimity principle in voting – a study of the subsidiary commissions is of some interest. The United Nations Commission on India and Pakistan is a good case in point.

On April 5, 1949, the second part of the third session of the General Assembly opened at Lake Success. Items which were to be considered at the session included the disposition of Italian colonies, Israeli admission to the United Nations, the problem of voting in the Security Council, treatment of Indians in the Union of South Africa, creation of a United Nations guard, and violation by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of fundamental human rights. Reports of the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council, the question of Franco Spain, promotion of international cooperation in the political field, refugees and displaced persons, freedom of information, discrimination against immigrant labor, Indonesia, religious freedom in Bulgaria and Hungary, and adoption of Russian and Chinese as working languages were also to be discussed.

On December 12, 1948, the Committee of Good Offices submitted a special report on the direct talks between the representatives of the governments of the Netherlands and the Republic of Indonesia which, together with its appendices, made available previously confidential documentation that had been the subject of Security Council discussion. Of special interest were the so-called Crichtley-DuBois Memorandum of June 10, 1948, and the Cochran Memorandum of November 10, 1948. In the former, the Australian and United States' representatives had submitted to both parties a working paper for the resolution of differences containing the following suggestions: 1) that the extent of the Republic's representation in the Provisional Federal Government be determined on the basis that Republican territory would include all those portions of Java, Sumatra and Madura in which, through a plebiscite, the population expressed a desire to be incorporated into the Republic; 2) that it would be possible to create a fairly representative Provisional Federal Government through machinery which would consist of a Joint Commission of Technical Experts to delineate boundaries of states; a Constituent Assembly elected upon the basis of one delegate for each 500,000 inhabitants and given power to accept the report of the Technical Commission making changes in proposed state boundaries only by majorities of both the Assembly and the delegates from the areas affected by changes; and a Provisional Parliament. The memorandum proposed that the powers of the Lieutenant Governor-General be limited, in the provisional period, to a veto over acts of the Provisional Federal Government which were contrary to the Charter of the United Nations or to the Union Statute and to the direction, after consultation with the provisional authorities, of the employment of federal armed forces in cases of civil conflicts which the provisional authorities were unable to control.

The eighth session of the Economic and Social Council was held at Lake Success from February 7 to March 18, 1949, to consider an agenda of 53 items. At the Council's first meeting James Thorn (New Zealand) was elected as president for 1949, while V. V. Skorobogaty (Byelorussian SSR) was chosen as first vicepresident and Carlos Eduardo Stolk (Venezuela) as second vice-president.

Four reports on administration of West African trust territories during 1947, which had been deferred from the third session, were before the Council for consideration. In addition to these reports, covering Togoland and the Cameroons under British and French administration, a report on Western Samoa for the year ending March 31, 1948, had also been submitted. Following a new procedure suggested by its president, the Council reports were presented by the special representatives of the administering authorities, and members submitted both written and oral questions. Following general discussion a Drafting Committee on Annual Reports, consisting of representatives of all Council members, was appointed to prepare the Council's report on each territory.

After the General Assembly confirmed in November 1948 an agreement for the transfer of certain funds and activities of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration to the United Nations, Byron Price, Assistant Secretary-General for Administrative and Financial Services of the Secretariat, announced in January 1949 that the Communications and Records Division of the Secretariat would be responsible for administrative supervision of the UNRRA history project, which was prescribed by the agreement and which contemplated the completion, publication and distribution of a history to be compiled by March 31, 1949. Also this division would supervise both administrative and substantive matters in respect of the records and archives project contemplated by the liquidation agreement. The Department of Administrative and Financial Services was to perform the financial services required under the terms of the agreement, including the establishment of a special fund to record the financial transactions, the receipt and transfer of funds, provision of periodic financial reports regarding the history and records projects, processing of all payments from funds transferred, collection of accounts receivable transferred prior to and consequent on assumption of accounting functions from the Administrator for Liquidation and transfer of final residual amounts to the International Children's Emergency Fund, and arrangements for external audit of the liquidator's accounts. The Legal Department was to be responsible for examining and approving settlement of marine claims assigned by UNRRA to the United Nations for the benefit of ICEF, for the execution of the general releases required in the settlement of claims, and for such action with respect to legal proceedings as might be necessary.

On December 17, 1948, a Committee of Naval Experts was appointed by the International Court of Justice to report on eight technical points involved in the Corfu Channel case. Under the order of the Court the Committee, whose members were Commodore J. Bull of the Royal Norwegian Navy, Commodore S. A. Forshell of the Royal Swedish Navy and Lt. Commander S. J. W. Elfferich of the Royal Netherlands Navy, was to submit a report on the situation in the north Corfu strait at the time the incident took place, the type of mines involved, the possibility of laying mines without the knowledge of Albania, and the technical possibilities involved in testimony of a witness for the United Kingdom, former Lt. Commander Kovacic of the Yugoslav navy.

At its fifth session, held following the close of the fourth annual conference of FAO, the Council decided that its next meeting should be held in Paris in early June 1949, and elected three Council Vice-Chairmen – Professor André Mayer of France, B. R. Sen of India and Dr. G. S. H. Barton of Canada. The Committee on Financial Control was reestablished with the same membership as in 1948 with Enrique Perez-Cisneros of Cuba appointed as chairman, and the Committee on Relations with International Organizations was reconstituted. An ad hoc committee appointed in 1948 to assist the Director-General with Latin American affairs, particularly in establishing a regional office for that area, was also continued, and it was decided not to renew the Policy Committee on Production and Distribution which had been in operation since 1947.

On January 6, 1949 the International Bank granted two loans totalling $34,100,000 for electric power development in Mexico. These were in pursuance of a policy stated in the Bank's third annual report of a definite increase in its activities in parts of the world other than Europe, and was the second time the Bank granted a loan for development purposes in the western hemisphere. The joint borrowers in the case of each Mexican loan were the Comisión Federal de Electricidad, a Mexican Government agency charged with the development of electric power facilities, and Nacional Financiera, an official financing institution whose functions included negotiation of foreign loans on behalf of the Mexican Government. Both loans are guaranteed by the Mexican Government.

The Council convened for its sixth session on January 18, 1949 at ICAO headquarters in Montreal. It adopted a resolution establishing an Air Navigation Commission, which was to assume the functions of the former Air Navigation Committee. The commission was to consist of twelve members, with Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States having already appointed representatives. Annex 7 (Standards and Recommended Practices for Aircraft Nationality and Registration Marks) to the Convention of International Civil Aviation was adopted by the Council, and approval was granted to the provisional agenda of the third ICAO Assembly, scheduled to open in Montreal on June 7, 1949. Also approved by the Council was the convening in London on April 20 of a combined conference to deal with the problems of North Atlantic weather stations, joint support to Greece in respect to the development of the Ellinikon airport, and provision of essential air navigation services requested by Denmark for its Loran station in the Faeroe Islands. Approval was given to the convening on April 11 in London of a meeting of experts to consider revision of the communications network for carrying meteorological information in the North Atlantic region.

From December 8 to 11, 1948, the 107th session of the Governing Body of the International Labor Organization was held in Geneva. The Governing Body undertook to administer programs in the field of job-training and workers migration, activities urged on ILO by the Organization for European Economic Cooperation and by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. These were new activities for ILO, which had hitherto confined itself to studies and consultations but had not undertaken administrative responsibility. The Governing Body decided to review four of the nine labor conventions adopted by the 28th International Labor (Maritime) Conference in 1946. At the 32nd session of the Conference at Geneva in June conventions covering social security for seafarers, paid vacations, accommodations for crews, and wages and hours were to be discussed with a view to possible revision. It was decided to establish a field office on technical training in Asia, to appoint a tripartite committee or governing body of technical training experts to meet periodically on manpower problems, and to hold a conference of experts on technical training in Asia in the near future.

During November 1948 four sales of currency were made by the International Monetary Fund in response to requests for United States dollars by India, Norway, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. India purchased $8,060,000 for rupees. Exchanges of $500,000 each for Costa Rican colones and Nicaraguan cordobas were the Fund's initial transactions in those two Central American currencies. Norway sold 175,051.080 fine ounces of gold to the Fund in exchange for United States dollars at the official price of $35 per fine ounce. This gold was equivalent to $6,126,787.80, since the price paid by the Fund took into account certain expenses involved in the transaction. Thus, at the end of the month the Fund held $1,409,503,763.38 in gold.

A special meeting of the Executive Committee of the International Refugee Organization, scheduled to meet at Ottawa, was held instead at Geneva from January 25 to 29, 1949. The committee resolved, against determined British opposition, to lift the restriction of financial aid to immigrants to Palestine in effect since May 18, 1947, and authorized Director General William Hallam Tuck to re-imburse Jewish agencies, up to a maximum of $4,000,000 – the expenditure anticipated for Palestine migration in the 1948–1949 budget – for movements of refugees to Israel carried out between May 18, 1947 and January 1, 1949. The Director General was also authorized to support future Jewish refugee movements after consultation with the Palestine Conciliation Commission, to insure that IRO did nothing which would interfere with the commission's mandate to bring about the peaceful solution of the Palestine conflict. IRO support of future migration to Palestine depended on the availability of funds within the $4,000,000 limit after reimbursement of the agencies and on the result of negotiations with the Conciliation Commission. The resolution represented a compromise between those who felt that no limits should be placed on sponsorship of migration of eligible refugees to Palestine and those who argued that conditions in Palestine were too unstable and further complicated by an Arab refugee problem to justify IRO sponsorship. On January 26, 1949 the Secretary-General of the United Nations (Lie) and Stanton Griffis, director of United Nations relief for Palestine refugees, made a joint appeal to the governments for funds and supplies for the aid of more than 500,000 Palestine refugees, mostly Arabs, who had lost their homes during the fighting in Palestine.

The International High Frequency Broadcasting Conference opened October 22, 1948 in Mexico City with fifty-six of the sixty-four member countries represented. The Conference established committees to consider frequency requirements of all countries, technical engineering problems and a frequency assignment plan for high frequency broadcasting in accordance with principles determined by the Atlantic City Conference in 1947.

By April 1949 Australia had ratified the ITO Charter, contingent on its being put into effect by the United States and the United Kingdom. Other countries were awaiting action by the United States, where President Truman was about to submit the Charter to the Congress for decision. With the acceptance of the Havana Charter by twenty countries necessary for the creation of ITO, Eric Wyndham White, Executive Secretary of the Interim Commission, stressed the importance of bringing ITO into being without delay. He described the organization as essentially a business-like approach towards the reduction of trade barriers and the expansion of trade on a multilateral, permanent basis.

At the end of 1948 Julian Huxley, retiring Director-General of UNESCO, reported on the work accomplished by the organization during the year. In the social sciences considerable progress had been made in the study of tensions affecting international understanding, while a series of monographs had been written about the different ways of life of different national cultures and surveys had been commenced on ways to bring out ideas of the general public on their own and other countries. Modern techniques to change psychological attitudes were also being discussed.