It has been the unfortunate fate of the United Nations to have been most conspicuously unsuccessful in performing that task which was to be its major responsibility and for which it was supposed to be best equipped. Naturally this has also been the fate of the Security Council upon which the Members of the Organization, by the terms of Article 24, conferred “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security”. Against this background of failure and consequent dissatisfaction, many have been asking whether the Security Council is fated to become like the human appendix, an atrophied organ with no useful function to perform or whether the present condition is not one that can and should be remedied or that perhaps will be changed in any case by an improvement in the state of international relations. To form a judgment on these possibilities it is necessary to recall the original conception of the Security Council, to review its record, and to analyze the causes of its decline and the likelihood of their elimination or counterbalancing by other forces.

The economic programs of the United Nations have been jogging along for some time now. The pace, one fears, is not quite fast enough to get anywhere by sundown. Moreover, the road map, if it ever existed, has been mislaid and a thick growth of underbrush has sprung up to obscure the pathway.

The postwar tempo of political change in Africa has carried the “dark continent” from the diplomatic backwaters to a central position in world affairs in but a decade. The pace is likely to accelerate rather than abate in the next few years. A crucial question is whether this swift passage from tribal and colonial societies to independent national states can be achieved in a non-violent and orderly way. The stakes for the future are considerable. A peaceful and rational accommodation of the interests and aspirations of the European metropolitan countries with those of the dependent African territories is likely to preserve and enhance vital Eurafrican economic ties to the mutual benefit of both sides of the present colonial equation.

The signing of the ANZUS Pact represented a confluence of attitudes. Australia and New Zealand were disturbed at the liberal Japanese peace treaty, while the United States wanted the treaty to go through with as little opposition as possible. All three countries were afraid of the march of communism in the Far East. The ANZUS Treaty made the Japanese peace settlement palatable to the Pacific Dominions, and at the same time it improved the channels of military cooperation in the Pacific. The significance of ANZUS lay as much in what it did not say as in its formal provisions; the United Kingdom was not included in ANZUS, and its absence gave rise to an extended debate in several countries. There were objections from certain Australian and New Zealand political leaders, and in the United Kingdom the Conservatives lamented “exclusion” while the Labor government declared “… it would not have been unwelcome to us if we had been included in the proposed pact”.

The following summary covers the activities of the Security Council at its 806th meeting and from its 809th to its 826th meeting. At the 809th meeting three new members, Canada, Japan, and Panama, were welcomed, and thee retiring members, the Philippines, Australia, and Cuba, were paid tribute for their services.

The resumed 24th session of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) was held on December 10 and 13, 1957, under the presidency of Mr. Mohammad Mir Khan (Pakistan). The Council elected as members of the Council Committee on Non-Governmental Organization, Brazil, China, France, the Netherlands, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The Council also elected Morocco to membership on the Technical Assistance Committee to replace the Sudan, which had been elected to ECOSOC, thereby becoming ineligible for TAC as a nonmember of the Council. The appointment of a number of members of ECOSOC commissions was subsequently confirmed by the Council.

The Trusteeship Council held its twentyfirst session at UN headquarters from January 20 to March 28, 1958, under the presidency of Mr. Emilio Arenales Catalan (Guatemala). The provisional agenda, adopted by the Council, included the examination of the annual reports on the administration of Ruanda-Urundi, the Cameroons under British administration, the Cameroons under French administration, and Tanganyika and also petitions relating to trust territories, questions referred to the Council by the General Assembly, and other matters.

Case concerning the Guardianship of an Infant (Netherlands v. Sweden): In an order of April 17, 1958, the International Court of Justice fixed the following timelimits for the filing of further pleadings in the case concerning the guardianship of an infant: for the reply of the government of the Netherlands, June 18, 1958; and for the rejoinder of the government of Sweden, August 28, 1958.

The convention establishing the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization (IMCO) came into effect on March 17, 1958. The convention, which had been drawn up at the United Nations Maritime Conference in Geneva in 1948, came into force when Japan ratified the convention, there by fulfilling the requirement that 21 states must become parties before the convention was to come into effect. A twelve member preparatory committee, which held two sessions in 1948, was to meet at UN headquarters during the spring of 1958 to prepare for the first session of the organization's assembly or legislative body.

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development on March 1, 1958, announced a loan equivalent to $75 million to the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno, a governmental agency for industry, agriculture, and electric power development in southern Italy. The loan, in which more than twenty financial institutions in the Federal Republic of Germany, the United States, and Canada participated, was for a term of twenty years and bore interest of 5½ percent, including the 1 percent commission allocated to the Bank's Special Reserve. Amortization on the loan, which was guaranteed by the Republic of Italy, was to begin on February 15, 1961.

It was reported on March 16, 1958, that the government of the Netherlands had informed the International Monetary Fund that it no longer required its $68,750,000 stand-by arrangement, in view of the improved reserve position of the Netherlands Bank. Accordingly, the arrangement, which was to have continued for one year from September 12, 1957, was cancelled as of the close of business on March 11.

Included among the meetings organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) from July 1957 to January 1958 were a number of international conferences. The twentieth international conference on public education, organized by UNESCO and the International Bureau of Education, was held in Geneva from July 8 to 17, 1957, and attended by delegates of 70 member states. One recommendation adopted by the conference was concerned with the study of present and future needs in school building, while a second dealt with methods of appointment, training, and further education of staff engaged in the training of primary school teachers. The international conference on radio-isotopes in scientific research met in Paris, September 9–20, 1957. Twelve hundred scientists attended the conference, during which forty scientific sessions were conducted.

The fourteenth Congress of the Universal Postal Union was held from August 14 to October 3, 1957, in Ottawa, Canada, under the chairmanship of Mr. W. J. Turnbull (Canada). Work on over 1200 proposals which were submitted to the Congress was distributed among nine committees.

The Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) held its 21st session in Geneva, January 14–28, 1958, under the chairmanship of Sir John Charles. After discussing in detail the Director-General's proposed program of activities and budget estimates for 1959, the Board endorsed the Director-General's effective working budget of$14, 287, 600. It was suggested that in preparing the 1960 budget a greater percentage of the total expenditure should be set aside for strengthening the technical services at headquarters. In pursuance of WHO's policy of complete malaria eradication, the Director-General had drawn up a detailed program covering the operations for the following five years. Noting that the total resources available in the malaria eradication special account amounted to $5,112,000, and that the estimated expenditure for 1958 alone was $5,058,000, the Board expressed the hope that governments able to do so would make voluntary contributions to the account and requested the Director-General to take the necessary steps, including adequate publicity, to obtain additional funds, whether from governmental or from private sources.

Reviewing the year's activities, the annual report of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) for 1957 stated that WMO technical assistance to underdeveloped countries had reached a new high in number of national weather services aided and number of experts sent to the countries. WMO provided experts or granted fellowships to 26 countries or territories during the year, under the UN Expanded Program of Technical Assistance, and sent instruments and equipment used in weather reporting and forecasting in connection with technical assistance missions to Afghanistan, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Iceland, Nicaragua, Sudan, and Uruguay. During this period 24 fellowships were awarded for advanced training of personnel in weather forecasting, tropical meteorology, hurricane forecasting, maritime meteorology, and aerology.

The 25th meeting of the Caribbean Commission was held in Curacao, November 22–29, 1957–1 The meeting dealt mainly with recommendations made by the West Indian Conference, including consideration of a statement submitted by the conference on the procedure to be followed for the revision of the agreement establishing the Commission. It was decided to recommend to member governments that an ad hoc committee be appointed to make preparations for and facilitate the work of a revision conference proposed for November 1958. The Commission also approved the 1958 budget submitted by the Secretary General, considered the report of the July conference on the demographic problems of the area, approved the work program for the Commission's central secretariat, and noted progress reports on Commission-sponsored technical assistance projects, including aided self-help housing, an agricultural credit survey, a consultant on education and an education clearing house, and fisheries investigations.

The first part of the tenth session of the Consultative Assembly was held April 28—May 3, 1958, under the presidency of Mr. Fernand Dehousse.

The Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) met in joint session with the military committee on March 17, 1958, to exchange views on NATO defense needs. In a later meeting the Council, after studying the possible convening of a summit conference, approved a draft declaration, which was presented to the Soviet government on March 31, setting forth the western position on the preparation of such a conference. The message stated that preparatory work, such as exchanges through diplomatic channels leading to a meeting between foreign ministers, was necessary to examine the position of the various governments on the major questions at issue and to establish what subjects should be submitted for examination by heads of government. The foreign ministers would reach agreement on the date and place of the summit meeting and decide on its composition. The note stated that if this procedure were acceptable to the Soviet government it was suggested that diplomatic exchanges should start in Moscow in the second half of April.

The ninth annual report of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), entitled A Decade of Cooperation, Achievements and Perspectives?, was made public in April 1958. It included a summary of the origins of OEEC and reviewed the ten years of its history, considering such topics as the recovery and expansion of output, expanding exports and freeing trade, the creation of the European Payments Union and its activities, the fight against inflation, and cooperation in various fields of economic activity. It devoted a section to present and future tasks, noting that finding the means for maintaining adequate expansion along with financial stability was a major problem. The report stated that in recent months there had been signs, with one or two important exceptions, that the pressure on prices had slackened; raw material prices had fallen, and the price rise for manufacturing products had been checked. After reaching record levels, the pace of industrial expansion in western Europe had been considerably reduced as the investment boom tapered off; there had been no increase in total industrial production in member countries combined since spring 1957. A fall in many primary commodity prices, due largely to a continued upward trend in output of primary commodities in the face of a levelling off of world demand had reduced the purchasing power of third countries and eventually would tend to reduce their purchases from member countries. The present economic situation, therefore, had conflicting tendencies, making it difficult to establish firm lines of policy; demand pressures had eased, but the rise of the cost of living had not clearly been checked.

The European Parliamentary Assembly held its second meeting in Strasbourg, May 13 and 14, 1958, under the chairmanship of Robert Schuman. Mr. Paul Finet, President of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), presented the sixth general report on ECSC activities. Speaking of developments which the High Authority had to take into account in planning its future action, Mr. Finet referred to the direct exposure of the coal and steel industries to the consequences of an economic recession, the increasing competition and falling prices on the steel market, the need for stabilization of coal production and consumption, and the desirability of encouraging technical research and increasing safety in the mines. Turning to the matter of ECSC's cooperation with the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community, Mr. Finet pointed out that the absence of a decision concerning the seat of the European institutions constituted a major obstacle, but that the High Authority was ready to contribute toward further integration of the communities. Regarding a free trade area, the High Authority considered it essential that ECSC's power of action within the community should remain unimpaired. The High Authority believed that the price-fixing system prevailing within the European Economic Community called for the adoption of similar rules within the free trade area and that the granting of governmental subsidies should be prohibited.