The third World Meteorological Congress opened in Geneva on April i, 1959, under the presidency of Mr. Andre Viaut. Delegates from nearly 90 member states, two non-member countries, and several other international organizations were joined by a number of distinguished guests. Following several welcoming speeches, Mr. Viaut, in his presidential address, referred to the accession of the 100th member of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which had taken place just before the opening of the Congress, and to the ever-increasing world-wide cooperation which had made possible such a vast project as the meteorological program of the International Geophysical Year (IGY).

Case concerning the Aerial Incident of July 27, 7955 (United Kingdom v. Bulgaria): In response to a request from the government of Bulgaria, the International Court, in an order of May 27, 1959, extended the time limit for the deposit of the Bulgarian counter-memorial from June 9, 1959, to August 10, 1959.

The report as a whole on conditions in the Cameroons under United Kingdom administration, which was to be included in the Trusteeship Council's annual report to the General Assembly, was adopted on March 25 by 9 votes to 1 with 2 abstentions. The Council then adopted, by 8 votes to 1 with 3 abstentions, its report as a whole on conditions in the Cameroons under French administration; previously, the conclusions and recommendations in the report of the drafting committee on the French-administered Cameroons had been approved, as amended by Syria, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union. Also on March 25, the Council's report as a whole on conditions in Togoland under United Kingdom administration was adopted by a vote of 8 to.1 with 3 abstentions. This followed adoption by the Council of the conclusions and recommendations, as amended by the Soviet Union, contained in the drafting committee's report on this trust territory and a decision to postpone consideration of the administrative union affecting the territory until the Council's next session. This decision, taken by 9 votes to 1 with 1 abstention, was made in pursuance to a recommendation contained in an interim report of the Standing Committee on Administrative Unions on Togoland under United Kingdom administration. Incorporating amendments proposed by the United Kingdom and Syria, the Council approved the conclusions and recommendations contained in the report of the drafting committee on Togoland under French administration on March 22 and then adopted its report as a whole on conditions in French-administered Togoland by 11 votes to 1.

Since 1962 the United Nations, mainly through the Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (Special Committee of 24), has attempted to effect political change in dependent territories in accordance with the principle of self-determination of peoples. While the organization usually demands that the inhabitants be given a chance to determine their political future and to choose their government, its primary objective has been somewhat more specific. Spurred on by the influx of new members that occurred around the start of the decade, most of them former colonies, the UN has pressured for the complete displacement of alien rule in dependent territories and has tended to accept whatever type of government emerges as long as it is indigenous, that is, not controlled by a colonial power or European settlers.

A communiqué issued by the Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on May 7, 1959, expressed the Council's opinion that, on the eve of the Geneva conference of foreign ministers, the Soviet Union appeared to be misinterpreting western intentions in proceeding with the orderly development of their program for modernizing the forces of the alliance. The Council noted further that these programs for improving NATO defences were the consequence of long established NATO policies which were arrived at through joint decisions of NATO countries; moreover, they had been in the process of implementation for over two years, and therefore they could not conceivably be designed, as alleged by the Soviet Union, to prejudice the success of the forthcoming meeting in Geneva.

The World Health Organization sponsored an inter-regional conference on rabies, held on Coonoor, India, during July 1952, which gave intensive and individual training in complicated laboratory procedures to an international group. A consultant staff of eight members gave lectures, led discussions, and supervised the laboratory work of 47 participants. One of die objects of die conference was to teach standardized procedures in rabies tests so that results obtained in laboratories diroughout the world might be compared.

The Council of Ministers of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) convening in Paris under the chairmanship of Mr. Macmillan (Chancellor of the Exchequer, United Kingdom) received the report of a Ministerial Working Party of OEEC on November 15, 1956 which discussed the economic situation in member countries. The report noted the prosperity in western Europe, yet stressed the threats to it due to events in the middle east and interruption of traffic in the Suez. Besides a shortage of oil, the report noted a shortage of coal. It also stressed three weak points in the economy of western Europe: 1) the slowing down of the expansion of production; 2) the rise of prices; and 3) the imbalance in intra-European payments. It explained that the increase in production had fallen off due to a shortage of available labor; the rise in prices was due to excessive demand and increasing wages. The report called for serious fiscal measures, such as an increase in taxes, a reduction of subsidies to consumption and a cutting down of public expenditures. These measures could be supplemented by governmental action designed to increase competition in the home market and to enhance the free movement of workers in order to alleviate the man-power shortage.

At the seventh regular meeting of the Danube Commission in December 1952 it was decided to extend the mandate of the special commission established in July 1952 to examine the Yugoslav proposal for amendment of the rules of procedure and the Statute until the eighth regular meeting. However, despite Yugoslav objections, the report of the special commission was not put on the agenda for the eighth meeting. Also discussed at the seventh meeting were the Yugoslav failure to pay dues for the preceding year, and the action of Yugoslavia in taking over control of the locomotive traction of the Sip Canal. Yugoslavia took the position that it had a right to defend its national interests in the light of previous breach of contract by other Commission members. With Yugoslavia objecting to both nominations, the meeting elected the Rumanian representative as chairman and the Soviet delegate as secretary of the Com-mission, the latter for a term of three years.

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 eighteenth session of the South Pacific Commission was held at Commission headquarters in Noumea, New Caledonia, from September 26 to October 12, 1958. At the session the Commission placed emphasis on the need for an all-out campaign against the rhinoceros beetle, which had become a major threat to the economy of the South Pacific. The Commission decided that a meeting of its rhinoceros beetle advisory committee of leading Pacific entomologists would be held in Suva from February 16 to 20, 1959, to review results of present campaigns against the beetle, and to plan further action. The Commission also made a further grant of £3,000 for 1959 to assist the investigation being carried out on its behalf by the Institute of Scientific Research in Madagascar.

Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, in the introduction to his fourteenth annual report on the work of the Organization, June 16, 1958 to June 15, 1959 observed that the year had been characterized by intense diplomatic activities mainly outside the UN, although in some cases within its precincts or in informal contact with the Organization. The dual significance of this intense diplomatic and political activity, exemplified by the meetings in Geneva on a controlled cessation of nuclear tests and on die problem of the status of Berlin, as well as by die increasing number of exchanges of visits of leading statesmen, lay, on the one hand, in its indication that various international problems had been brought to a point where they called for renewed and urgent efforts to find a solution, and, on die other, in its introduction, through the broadening and deepening of personal contacts on different levels, of a new constructive element which might strengthen the hope that ways to reconciliation and to a reduction of tensions might be found. Although such negotiations were encouraged by the Charter of the UN, the Secretary-General continued, diere would be legitimate reason for concern if such developments outside the Organization were to reflect a neglect of the possibilities offered by the Organization, because of a lapse into bilateralism, disregarding third party interests. Likewise, the situation would be a reason for concern if it reflected a view that the Organization was unable to meet the demands which Member nations were entitled to put on it.

The General Assembly,

Having regard to its resolutions 181 (II) of 29 November 1947 and 194 (III) of 11 December 1948,

Having studied the reports of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine set up under the latter resolution,

I. Decides

In relation to Jerusalem,

Believing that the principles underlying its previous resolutions concerning this matter, and in particular its resolution of 29 November 1947, represent a just and equitable settlement of the question,

The 27th session of the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) was held in Rome from October 31 to November 1, 1957. In considering the provisional agenda for the ninth session of the FAO Conference/ the Council recommended a number of amendments and a rearrangement of certain items in the Director-General's program for work for 1958–1959. The Council approved various reports for submission to the Conference: that of the subcommittee on rules of procedure and financial regulations, containing proposed draft amendments to the constitution; that of the 29th session of the committee on commodity problems; and that of the 24th session of the committee on financial control.

In the introduction to the annual report for 1954–1955 on the work of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) the Director-General of FAO (Cardon) stated that although FAO had many separate projects in the fields of agriculture, economics, fisheries, forestry, and nutrition, the organization had an over-all program, that of improving human well-being by increasing and improving the production, distribution, and utilization of food and other products of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries. He stated that progress had been made in unifying and integrating FAO's work since 1) each division of FAO contributed to the five major aspects of the general program, and 2) the work of direct technical advisory assistance for economic development had been more closely integrated with the regular FAO program. In elaborating on his themes of integration, the Director-General stated that “…the need grows more pressing for the closest integration within each receiving government, within each agency, among agencies, and with the like activities of bilateral and other programs”. During the year under review, considerable progress had been made in the more effective association of FAO's work with that of other international organizations.

Those of us who have lived through the growth of international organizations during the last 45 years have witnessed a remarkable series of transformations in their membership, their procedures, their authority, their effectiveness, and even in their fundamental conception, purposes, and function.

Designed to supplement the inherited and traditional political structure of the world, the League of Nations was to consist primarily of new arrangements for avoiding any repetition of the breakdown in the conduct of international relations represented by the outbreak of war in 1914. The United Nations, as originally conceived, was designed to be a central element in a political structure of a world which was recognized to be changing. But there was little appreciation, when the Charter was drafted, of how sudden, far-reaching, and decisive the changes would prove to be.

At the 973d meeting the situation in the Congo was once again brought to the attention of the President of the Security Council, in a letter from the permanent representatives of Ethiopia, Nigeria, and the Sudan delineating conditions in Katanga caused by the lawless acts of mercenaries. Following communications from these respective delegations, representatives of Ethiopia, Belgium, India, and the Republic of the Congo (Leopoldville) were invited, at their request, to participate in the debate.

The second part of the tenth session of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe was held from October 10 to 17, 1958. The Assembly first discussed the supplementary report of the Committee of Ministers. M. Fatin Zorlu (Turkish Minister for Foreign Affairs and present Chairman of the Committee of Ministers), presenting the report, recalled that two of the Council's most important achievements during the period covered were the setting up of the Cultural Fund and the fulfilment of the requirements for the setting up of the European Court of Human Rights. He also reviewed several topics worthy of particular attention, such as strengthening the Assembly's relations with national parliaments, nuclear and thermonuclear tests, and the European Social Charter. Concerning the development of Africa, which was treated in the report, the Assembly adopted an order instructing its Economic Committee to present detailed proposals regarding an investment statute, a guarantee and financial assistance fund, and the expansion of technical assistance by the European countries.

International organization is not a new concept in the minds of men, but the creation of most of the international organizations now in existence has occurred within the memory of many who are by no means our oldest citizens. Before the last war, it was not too difficult for the interested layman, the scholar, the government official, or the teacher to keep abreast of new ideas and new philosophies. He watched the League of Nations, the Pan American Union, and a handful of specialized organizations like the Postal Union or the International Institute of Agriculture, and felt reasonably safe in his conviction that he could qualify as an intelligent citizen or even, at times, a teacher.

See Food and Agriculture Organization, p. 122.