At the request of the Director-General (Chisholm) of the World Health Organization, the Secretary-General of the United Nations (Lie) transmitted on March 20, 1952 to the People's Republic of China and the People's Democratic Republic of North Korea WHO's offer of assistance in controlling reported epidemics in north Korea. Two further telegrams were sent on March 27 and April 3 but no acknowledgment or reply had been received.

On May 5, 1951, the Deputies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization announced the adoption by their governments of new terms of reference for the North Atlantic Council, a reorganization of the various committees of the Council, and the creation of a financial and economic board.

The United Nations action against aggression in Korea was aided by a series of fortuitous circumstances which included the absence of the Soviet delegate from the Security Council in June 1950, the existence of a United Nations commission in Korea which was able to provide a timely and unimpeachable report of the facts, and the availability to United Nations forces of a base in Japan from which military operations could be, conveniently undertaken. For the purpose of assuring so far as possible that united resistance to further acts of aggression would not have to depend so largely on coincidence, the General Assembly, on November 3, 1950, gave its overwhelming approval to the “Uniting for Peace” resolution.

Under the terms of the extension of the time limit for the signing of the Torquay Protocol, granted by the sixth session of the Contracting Parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the protocol was signed by the United Kingdom on December 19 and by Denmark on December 21, 1951, bringing to 31 the number of signatories. On December 27, Brazil notified the Secretary-General of the United Nations (Lie) of its intention to apply the tariff concessions of the Annecy Protocol and on December 31, 1951, India signed the First Protocol of Rectifications and Modifications and the First Protocol of Supplementary Concessions to GATT. The number of the contracting parties to GATT was increased to 34 with the accession, during the sixth session, of Austria, the Federal Republic of Germany, Peru and Turkey.

The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (hereinafter referred to as the Convention), signed in Rome on November 4, 1950 entered into force on September 3, 1953. It provides in Article 19 for the establishment of two organs whose task it is “to ensure the observance of the engagements undertaken” in the Convention by the contracting parties: a European Commission of Human Rights (hereinafter referred to as the Commission) and a European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter referred to as the Court).

Listed below is the membership of UN bodies for 1960. Unless otherwise noted, membership expires on December 31 of the year indicated.

The annual report of the Executive Directors of the International Monetary Fund for the fiscal year ended April 30, 1959, was transmitted to the Chairman of the Board of Governors on July 9, 1959. In its discussion of the world economy in 1958–1959 the report noted that the year which ended on April 30 had stood out not only because of the marked changes which had occurred in general business activity and in the international flow of funds, but also because important steps had been taken to consolidate the monetary improvements achieved since the war and to strengthen the financial structure of the world economy. Outstanding events had been the following: a sharp upswing of industrial production in the United States, together with indications of renewed expansion in other industrial countries; the increase of more than $3.5 billion in the gold and foreign exchange reserves of western European countries; the adoption in December 1958 of external convertibility by fourteen European countries and the complementary steps taken by fifteen other countries to adjust their exchange controls to the new conditions thus established; and the agreements reached to expand the financial resources of the Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. On the other hand, the experience of many of the primary producing countries had been much less satisfactory, inasmuch as the decline in the prices of many primary products which had begun in 1956 had continued into 1958, and there had been a reduction in the earning capacity of most of these countries, which had created further difficulties in their payments positions and acted as a brake upon their economic development

The third part of the eleventh ordinary session of the Consultative Assembly was opened on January 18, 1960, with a tribute to its President, Mr. John Edward, who had died at Strasbourg on November 23, 1959. At the onset, the Assembly unanimously adopted a motion against anti Semitic outbreaks presented by the Political Committee, which a delegation from the Israeli parliament gratefully acknowledged. A motion to adjourn the election of the President until the opening of the next session was also adopted. Following presentation of a report on the activities of the Bureau and Standing Committee, the second supplementary report to the tenth report of the Committee of Ministers was presented by its chairman, Mr. Pierre Wigny, Belgian Foreign Minister. He noted that the Assembly had been disturbed over the fact that the Council of Europe was no longer fulfilling an adequate role, and stressed the importance of the exchanges of views which the Committee of Ministers had decided could take place at the request of any member state. In the economic sphere he called attention to recent moves toward economic coordination, and, before concluding, asked the Assembly to examine further both the question of Eurafrican relations and that of rationalization of European institutions.

According to the press, a one-day meeting of the Political Consultative Committee of the Warsaw Pact in Moscow on February 4, 1960, was attended by premiers and foreign ministers of the eight pact members (Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, the Soviet Union, and Romania) and by observers from Communist China, Mongolia, North Vietnam, and North Korea. In a 4,000-word declaration issued after the meeting, the pact members expressed the hope that forthcoming East-West summit talks would be “a turning point in the relations” between the two groups of countries and proposed that the summit agenda include such topics as general and controlled disarmament, a German peace treaty, creation of a free city of West Berlin, a ban on nuclear weapons tests, and amelioration of relations between East and West. The committee also repeated the communist proposal for a non-aggression pact between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact countries and called on NATO members to respond to the Soviet Union's armed forces cut of 1, 200, 000 men by reducing their forces as well. It criticized NATO for maintaining “inflated armies” and for arming West Germany with atomic weapons, adding that the West German government was being given a free hand in the production of these weapons.

“To maintain international peace and security …” is the first purpose listed in Article I of the United Nations Charter, and it is generally conceded to be the Organization's most important one. Although the United Nations Charter provides procedures for both peaceful settlement and peacekeeping, the peacekeeping role has been more active and more contentious. Indeed, without an authoritative organ for interpreting the Charter each Member has been left to determine for itself the meaning of such fluid phrases as “enforcement action,” “national sovereignty,” and “primary responsibility,” to mention only a few. The result has been a divergence of views which surprises all but that consummate logician—the reasonable man.

A meeting of the Special Subcommittee of the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) on extra-long staple cotton was convened in Alexandria, Egypt, on September 7, 1959. Delegations were present from the principal extra-long staple cotton-producing countries (the Sudan, the United Arab Republic, and the United States), along with observers from Brazil, Peru, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the Food and Agriculture Organization. Mr. Abd El Latif Ezzat, Under-Secretary of State for Cotton Affairs of the Ministry of Economy of the United Arab Republic, was elected chairman, and Mr. Robert B. Evans, executive secretary of ICAC, served as secretary. The meeting adjourned on September 12 after eight sessions. Its agenda was devoted to a consideration of production plans and policies, pricing and export policies, and steps needed to encourage consumption.

Case concerning the Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v. Thailand): According to an order of December 5, 1959, the International Court of Justice in the case of the Temple of Preah Vihear fixed January 20, i960, as the time limit for filing the memorial of Cambodia, and May 23, 1960, for filing the counter-memorial of Thailand.

The report of the Director-General, Dr. Vittorino Veronese, on the activities of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1959 dealt, as usual, with: 1) relations with member states and international organizations; 2) execution of the program; and 3) administrative services. Under the first heading, the Director-General reported that during the year in review the Singapore/British Borneo group associate membership in the Organization had ceased to exist as of December 31, 1959, when Singapore alone had assumed the rights and duties of an associate member, and that relations with the UN, the specialized agencies, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had continued to develop.

On June 7, 1960, it was announced that the government of Guatemala had entered into a one-year stand-by arrangement with the International Monetary Fund authorizing drawings up to $15 million in support of the country's currency. The purpose of the arrangement was to help Guatemala maintain the traditional stability of the quetzal by providing a second line of reserves to supplement other stabilization measures, such as an increase of reserve requirements against bank deposits, limitations on central bank rediscounts, and a further reduction of government expenditures. Guatemala, with a quota of $15 million, had not previously drawn upon the Fund's resources.

The 140th session of the Governing Body of the International Labor Office was held in Geneva from November 18–21, 1958. It decided to place three new items on the agenda of the 44th (1960) session of the International Labor Conference, viz.: contribution of the International Labor Organization (ILO) to the raising of incomes and living conditions in rural communities in countries in process of development; reduction of hours of work; and workers' housing. In general, the Governing Body endorsed the suggestions before it regarding action to be taken on the resolutions adopted by the International Labor Conference at its 42d session, specifically by authorizing the Director-General to communicate to the governments of member states resolutions concerning publication of labor laws, industrial health and safety campaigns, management development, and the expansion of international trade. The resolution regarding the last topic was also to be sent to the UN and to the Executive Secretary of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. A resolution dealing with labor-management relations was to be communicated to governments with the request that they bring it to the attention of employers' and workers' organizations, while a resolution concerning increased technical assistance for the integration of indigenous populations was to be sent to governments, to the UN, and to several relevant specialized agencies.

The European Parliament met in Strasbourg on February 5–6, 1963. The session opened with a statement by Mr. Robert Marjolin, French vice-president of the European Economic Community (EEC) Commission, on the economic situation of the Community. Provided that there was no slump in any important country outside the Six, Mr. Marjolin said that satisfactory economic growth was to be expected within the Community during 1963. He forecast that the rising costs of consumer goods would slacken then level off in the present year.

The seventeenth session of the World Health Organization (WHO) Executive Board was held in Geneva from January 17 to February 2, 1956. One of the principal decisions taken at the session concerned a comprehensive program of research and study for protection against the effects of atomic radiation. The program was to include studies under WHO auspices on the effect of radiation on human heredity, on the protection of health against radiation, the standardization of radiation units and radiation doses to encourage the adoption of uniform codes of practice, and the improvement of pharmaceutical standards for modes of preparation and specific activities of radioisotopes for medical use. Training of health personnel, provision of fellowships and training facilities for a study of the problem of radioactive waste disposal, and the collection and distribution of information on the medical problems of atomic energy and on the medical uses of isotopes were also to be included in the study program. Among other decisions taken by the Board were the following: 1) it expressed pleasure that the Soviet Union had expressed its readiness to participate actively again in the work of WHO, and referred to the Assembly the question of settling arrears of contributions by the Soviet Union; 2) it recommended a budget of $11,000,000 for 1957, an increase of $800,000 over the budget for 1956; 3) it approved the creation of registry centers for the study of cancer tissues on an international basis, in the hope that comparative research might give a clue to the cause of cancer; 4) it endorsed a program of research to overcome the danger of growing resistance of disease-bearing insects to modern insecticides; 5) it called for more decisive action, in the form of large-scale campaigns, against leprosy in every country still affected by the disease; and 6) it appointed a fivemember committee on malaria eradication to advise the Director-General on various aspects of the intensified malaria campaigns and on steps to obtain increased voluntary contributions from official and private sources. Before concluding its seventeenth session, the Board agreed to hold the eighteenth session in Geneva beginning on May 28, 1956, after the close of the ninth World Health Assembly.

A visitor from another, more advanced, planet would find many extraordinary paradoxes on earth, but surely the most extraordinary would be the fantastic destructive potential of nuclear weapons which contrasts starkly with the primitive and near-impotent institutions of global peacekeeping. He might marvel that a breed capable of producing the wealth for a $185 billion armory of lethal devices, let alone the technology for killing several hundred million humans in a single exchange of nuclear weapons, had not also produced a workable international order capable of regulating such apocalyptic man-made power.

The Assembly of Western European Union (WEU) held the second part of its fourth session in Paris from December 17 to 20, 1958, under the presidency of Sir James Hutchison (British Conservative). In the course of the session, the Assembly was addressed by the Foreign Ministers of Belgium, the German Federal Republic, and the Netherlands, by the United Kingdom Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, by the Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (M. Spaak), and by the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (General Norstad). The Supreme Commander considered that if a demilitarized zone was established in Europe, as suggested in the Rapacki Plan, his task would become impossible; M. Spaak also had little faith in a denuclearized zone, in an era of intercontinental missiles.