Over the years I have often wondered whether Dag Hammarskjöld belonged to an age that is passing, or to one that is being born. He was a bold innovator in world affairs, and he opened up a future, having carried further than it has ever been carried before the principle of international action to promote peace. Yet he was himself the fine flower of the European tradition of civility which, if it is not dying, certainly is not flourishing today.

The Governments of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey and the Commanders in Chief of the French, United Kingdom and United States Zones of Occupation of Germany

The salary, allowance, and benefits system common in its broad lines to the United Nations and to a number of specialized agencies (the “common system”) has its origin in the relationship agreements concluded between the UN and the agencies concerned in pursuance of Articles 57 and 63 of the UN Charter. Some of these agreements were made nearly twenty years ago, a long period in the life of rapidly growing and rapidly changing international organizations. A critical examination of the present-day validity of the common system and its justification today in light of the reality of the international organization may be timely. In the present article such an examination of this major facet of administrative and budgetary coordination of the UN with the specialized agencies is attempted.

The second part of the eleventh ordinary session of the Consultative Assembly was opened on September 14, 1959. Mr. John Edwards, President of the Assembly, opened the sitting with a tribute to two retiring representatives, following which the report of the Bureau and Standing Committee was presented; it noted that both the head of the Political Department of the Swiss Federal Council and the Portuguese Foreign Minister had been invited to participate in the Assembly debates on the Organization of European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) reports and on economic questions. Mr. Franz Gschnitzer, Austrian Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, then presented the supplementary report to the tenth report of the Committee of Ministers. Replying to questions from representatives, he stated, inter alia, that the Committee had decided to re-examine its recommendation on the forestry situation in Europe after the results of the studies launched by the European Economic Community (EEC) were known; that the Council of Europe did not intend to advance a loan to the Resettlement Fund for Refugees and Over-Population; that the Committee had not yet examined the third report on the European civil service; and that the present arrangements between die Commission of EEC and the Council would in no way prejudge any over-all agreement which might be concluded in the future.

According to press reports, the foreign ministers of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, east Germany, Poland, Rumania, and the Soviet Union met in Warsaw with the deputy foreign ministers of Hungary and the People's Republic of China on April 27–28, 1959. Although for formal and legal reasons the Chinese minister had the status of an observer, he nevertheless took a full part in the bloc's determination of its European policy. The conference was said to have been the first occasion on which the Soviet Union had called together the other members of the Pact to brief and consult with them on its policy before a four-power meeting.

Professor Robert Cox's “Labor and hegemony” in the Summer 1977 issue of International Organization includes one of the most sophisticated versions of the corporate unionist or “revisionist” description and explanation of American labor's foreign policy that has appeared to date. Nevertheless, it is inaccurate both as description and explanation, and like other attempts to use the corporate unionist approach, it is a misleading paradigm impeding research into the nature of labor's transnational involvements.

No governmental functions are traditionally more suspect than those relating to public information. National legislators always demur at the public relations work of civil servants. They inevitably assume (at times, with good reason) that appropriating funds to inform people about the performance of government agencies only helps to preserve the bureaucracy and to create and nurture a public which ultimately will bring pressure to bear upon the legislature itself.

The International Whaling Commission held its sixth meeting in Tokyo, Japan, from July 19 to 23, 1954. Represented were all of the seventeen member governments except Iceland. Observers were present from Argentina, Chile, Italy, Portugal, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, and the Food and Agriculture Organization. Mr. A. T. A. Dobson (United Kingdom) acted as secretary of the meeting. The Commission approved its expenditure of £1,854 for financial year 1953/1954, and adopted a budget of £2,580 for 1954/1955. Attention was called to the great waste of resources represented by lost whales; the Commission accepted various suggestions from its technical committee for tightening up the present procedure with a view to reducing the number of infractions in the future. It was decided that the use of helicopters and other aircraft for the killing of whales should be brought within the scope of the Convention. A large number of recommendations emanating from the scientific committee were dealt with. The scientific committee's recommendation prompted a large number of proposals for the amendment of the regulations in force. At the invitation of the Soviet Union, the next meeting of the Commission was to be held in Moscow on July 18, 1955.

A special session of the West Indian Conference convened on July 28, 1959, in St. Thomas, the Virgin Islands, to consider revision of the agreement which established the Caribbean Commission in October 1946. The delegates were welcomed by Mr. John Merwin, Governor of the Virgin Islands, who referred to the proposed revision for the transfer of control to local governments as an exciting new concept which would witness the withdrawal from active membership of the metropolitan powers and the taking over of these functions by the non-self-governing territories and possessions. Before starting deliberations on the successor body, delegates went on record in support of a continuation of regional cooperation in the area through some machinery similar to the Caribbean Commission, the good work of which was unanimously acclaimed. After several days of discussion and working in committees, the Conference accepted a Statute for a new Caribbean Organization to succeed the present Caribbean Commission, agreeing that it should be submitted to the governments concerned. The statute gave the Organization consultative and advisory powers and defined the areas of its concern as being those social, economic, and cultural matters of common interest in the Caribbean area. Eligible for membership were the Republic of France for the Departments of French Guiana, Guadeloupe, and Martinique; the Netherlands Antilles; Surinam; the Bahamas; British Guiana; British Honduras; British Virgin Islands; the West Indies; Puerto Rico; and the Virgin Islands. The governing body of the new organization would be the Caribbean Council, which would hold annual meetings and to which each member would be entitled to nominate one delegate. The Organization was to come into being after an agreement with the members of the present Caribbean Commission—namely, the governments of France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States—for its establishment had been ratified. Following an offer from the government of Puerto Rico to contribute 44.3 percent of the total budget on the understanding that the new Organization would have its headquarters in that country, the Conference agreed on the following apportionment of costs to cover its proposed budget: France, $50,560; Netherlands Antilles, $24,490; Surinam, $19,750; British Guiana, $11,760; the West Indies, $44,240; Puerto Rico, $140,000; and the Virgin Islands, $25,200. As an interim step designed to facilitate the transition, the Conference recommended that the Commission appoint a working group of experts to examine the problems which would arise from the change-over, and to give its attention as well to the task of formulating guiding principles for the work of the Organization.

The twelfth annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund was held jointly with the Board of Governors of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in Washington D.C., September 23–26, 1957, under the chairmanship of Miguel Cuaderno, Sr. Per Jacobsson, Managing Director, reviewed the activities of the Fund during the previous year. Emphasizing that the Fund's assistance was of a short-term nature and designed to enable countries to adopt and carry out, within a limited period of time, programs to restore stability to their economies, Mr. Jacobsson stated that the Fund was being used to help countries meet emergency needs, ease strain in the balance of payments, meet temporary exchange difficulties, and fulfill stabilization programs. Mr. Jacobsson went on to discuss various problems encountered in connection with the Fund's activities and cited, inter alia, multiple currency practices, Fund liquidity, and, in connection with general aspects of the world economy, inflation, relative values of currencies, and financing for underdeveloped countries.

The thirteenth session of the Ministerial Council of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) was held in Teheran on April 7–8, 1965, under the chairmanship of Abbas Aram, Foreign Minister of Iran. Others attending the session were Muhammad Shoaib, Pakistan's Minister of Finance; Hasan Esat Isik, Foreign Minister of Turkey; Michael Stewart, the United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary; and Dean Rusk, Secretary of State of the United States. The Council's session had been preceded by a meeting of the CENTO Military Committee, held in London on March 30–31, 1965.

The Intergovernmental Committee of Ministers engaged in negotiating the proposed free trade area met in Paris, July 24–25, 1958. It was reported that following the session, the chairman of the group, Mr. Reginald Maudling, expressed hope for a definite agreement on most major issues. He stated that if real progress toward an accord were attained, less importance would be attached to the much-discussed proposal to extend to the members of OEEC the 10 percent tariff reductions to be made among the members of the European Economic Community.

The European Parliamentary Assembly met in ordinary session from May 12 to 14, 1959, at Strasbourg. One of the principal points on the agenda was the proposed creation of a European University. While it was admitted that, for the time being, it was essential for the proposed institute to concentrate on nuclear and technical research, most of the speakers agreed that the European University should progressively be extended to include other branches of learning such as European law. Furthermore, the University should not be limited to Six-Power Europe but should be open to professors and students from all the countries of Kurope. In a resolution adopted at the close of the discussion, the Assembly requested the executives of the three Communities and the Councils of Ministers to unite their efforts to create a European University destined to serve the interests of the European Communities and their overseas countries and territories, through the development of scientific and technical research, the study of social and economic science, philosophy, and history, and the elaboration and development of Community law.

In discussing recent developments regarding the United Nations, an earnest advocate of world government might label as significant any steps which would move the United Nations either toward or away from world government, while an American nationalist might consider activities of the United Nations significant if they either forwarded or frustrated American policies. Accepting, however, the value system of the United Nations Charter, developments may be considered significant insofar as they influence the probability of war, the security of fundamental human rights, respect for international justice, and the advancement of social and economic welfare. These criteria are vague, but they do exclude criteria flowing from values peculiar to any nation, religion, race, or economic class. Further, most of the peoples of the world have subscribed to them through the United Nations Charter.

The tenth annual economic review of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) appeared in February 1959 under the title Policies for Sound Economic Growth. Its major conclusions were as follows: 1) policy must generally be focused on the stimulation of an adequate rate of economic growth; 2) the measures adopted must not lead to a rate of growth of demand which might give rise to inflation and balance-of-payments disequilibrium, and which could not therefore be sustained; 3) in view of the large increase in productive capacity in recent years, there was scope for a greater emphasis on increasing consumption; 4) there was need for a stimulus to revive international trade, if possible through a more economic pattern of trade and use of investment resources; 5) member countries should act in concert and coordinate their national policies; 6) the countries in a stronger economic position had the major responsibility for ensuring a renewal of growth, although those still subject to inflationary pressures must continue to apply restraining measures; 7) special consideration must be given to the difficulties of those countries and regions in Europe which were in the course of development and relied heavily on agricultural exports; 8) there must be a stabilization policy appropriate to a phase of renewed expansion; 9) excessive over-all demand should be avoided, as well as cost inflation; and 10) improvements in short-term economic indicators needed to be promoted.

Between May 3 and July 26, 1965, the Security Council devoted 30 meetings to consideration of the situation in the Dominican Republic. The Council placed this item on its agenda at the request of Nikolai Fedorenko (Soviet Union) who in a letter of May I had called for an urgent meeting of the Council to consider the question of the armed intervention of the United States in the domestic affairs of the Dominican Republic.

Meeting at the request of the representatives of Canada and Denmark, the Security Council discussed the situation in the Middle East at its 1341st-1361st meetings, held on May 24-June 14, 1967.

Opening the debate on the adoption of the agenda, Nikolai T. Fedorenko (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) declared that his delegation did not believe there were sufficient grounds for a hasty convening of the Security Council in what he termed an artificially dramatic climate fostered by the representatives of certain Western powers. He observed that two members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), rather than any of the parties directly concerned, had asked for a meeting of the Council. To his delegation this indicated a desire to interfere in the affairs of other countries rather than a true concern for the peace and security of the Middle East.

The report covering the eleventh fiscal year, June 1, 1959, to May 31, 1960, of the International Whaling Commission, including the eleventh meeting of the Commission, held in London from June 22 to July 1, 1959, and also the meeting of the Commission's ad hoc Scientific Committee, held in London from May 10 to 13, 1960 was presented and approved by the Commission at its twelfth meeting in that city in June 1960. As no proposals were made at the eleventh meeting for altering the blue whale unit limit on baleen whales taken in the Antarctic, it remained the same (15,000 units) as for the previous season, and in the 1959/1960 season there were again twenty pelagic expeditions operating in the Antarctic, although the total number of catchers operating with the twenty expeditions was reduced from 235 in the previous season to 217, distributed among Japan, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Norway, and the Netherlands. The period over which the Antarctic catch was taken was considerably longer than in the previous three seasons, since, in accordance with a decision reached at the eleventh meeting of the Commission, the fin and sei whale season had opened ten days earlier than previously, although the opening date of the blue whale season had remained unaltered. Expeditions also continued whaling longer than in the previous season, the catching period for all the expeditions taken together averaging about 99 days in contrast to the 69-day total of the year 1958/1959, while the increase in the total catch was a little over 1 percent, consisting mainly of fin and sei whales.

The American States establish by this Charter the international organization that they have developed to achieve an order of peace and justice, to promote their solidarity, to strengthen their collaboration, and to defend their sovereignty, their territorial integrity and their independence. Within the United Nations, the Organization of American States is a regional agency.

A summary of its activities in 1950 was released by the Organization for European Economic Cooperation in January 1951. During the first two years of its establishment, the report stated, OEEC had been essentially an instrument for the distribution of United States aid but then became increasingly an instrument of cooperation for the solution of European economic problems. In two years, European production had been restored, trade had almost entirely recovered and international financial stability was achieved. The establishment of a European Payments Union was considered one of the main achievements of OEEC during 1950.