Meetings of the Commission

The nineteenth meeting of the Caribbean Commission was held in Trinidad, instead of French Guiana as originally scheduled, from November 29 to December 4, 1954, under the chairmanship of H. R. van Houten (Netherlands). Because of the last minute change in the site, it was agreed to make the meeting a purely working session. The substantive work of the meeting took place in committees which studied the various items on the agenda and prepared reports for the plenary session; the principal items on the agenda concerned the proposed work program and budget for 1955. At the final session the report of the Central Secretariat's activities since the eighteenth meeting was approved by the Commission, which noted with satisfaction the increased number of requests for information received by the Secretariate. The Commission also approved the 1955 work program which included various conferences, meetings, and two cacao cultivation tours in Trinidad. The Secretary-General was directed by the Commission to request the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for the following: 1) a fellowship to be given for the training of a Caribbean home economist who would be appointed to work with the Commission after she had finished her training; 2) a forestry expert and a fisheries expert to be assigned to the Caribbean area; and 3) a three-week training course in home economics in the French Caribbean Departments. The latter request was also to be presented to the United States Foreign Operations Administration. The Commission approved in principle the recommendation of the Joint Conference on Education and Small-Scale Farming that the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) assignan educational consultant to the area to beattached to the Central Secretariat. In accordance with a recommendation of the Trade PromotionConference, the Commission agreed that a trade promotion officer should be attached to its staff at the Central Secretariat. The Commission decided to convene in 1956 a Conference on Cooperatives in the Caribbean, jointly sponsored by the Commission and the FAO, and a Conference on Town and Country Development Planning.

“The nations seem to be advancing to unity,” wrote Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835. “Our means of intellectual intercourse unite the most remote parts of the earth; and it is impossible for men to remain strangers to each other, or to be ignorant of the events which are taking place in any corner of the globe.”

Since the summer of 1949 a number of resolutions embodying proposals for world or regional federation have been pending in the Congress of the United States. During the early months of 1950, extended hearings on these various proposals have been held by the Senate Subcommittee on Foreign Relations headed by Senator Elbert Thomas. The purpose of this article is to present a critical study of the background, content, and the implications of the projects thus submitted for congressional action.

The tenth session of the Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) was held in Caracas from June 19 to July 16, 1956, under the presidency of Dr. Santiago Pérez Pérez (Venezuela).

A Point of departure for considering the evolution of t!he judicial function in the United Nations system can be found in three interrelated decisions of principle incorporated in the UN Charter itself, of which the Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) forms an integral part.

Case of the Norwegian Loans Issued in France (France v. Norway): In an order of September 28, 1956, the Court fixed December 20, 1056, as the time-limit for the counter-memorial of the Kingdom of Norway, February 20, 1957, as the time-limit for the reply of the government of France and April 25, 1957, for the rejoinder of Norway. In the same order, the Court joined the objections raised by the Kingdom of Norway to the merits in the proceedings instituted by the French government in order that it might adjudicate in one and the same judgment on these objections and, if necessary, on the merits.

Under General Assembly resolution 177 (II), paragraph (a), the International Law Commission was directed to “formulate the principles of international law recognized in the Charter of the Nurnberg Tribunal and in the judgment of the Tribunal”.

The 37th session of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), comprising the 1314th-1351st meetings, was held in Geneva from July 13, 1964, to August 15, 1964. At the 1314th meeting Sir Ronald Walker (Australia) was elected President of the Council; Mr. Matsui (Japan) was elected First Vice President; and Mr. Chanderli (Algeria) was elected Second Vice President.

On May 17, 1960, the European Parliamentary Assembly adopted unanimously, with 12 abstentions, a draft convention for election of its members by direct universal suffrage. The members of the Assembly were currently nominated by the six member national parliaments in proportion to party strength, but were the draft project, which had first to be approved by the Council of Ministers and ratified by the six national parliaments, to come into effect, a parliament directly responsible to the electorate of the six countries would be created for the first time. Elements of the proposal included: 1) an increase in the number of members from 142 to 426 who would vote individually and be forbidden to accept imperative instructions; and 2) a temporary provision proposing that, until the end of the transition period of the common market, only two-thirds of the members be directly elected, the other third to be appointed by the national parliaments as at present.

There was announced in Paris, in July, a series of meetings attended by representatives of the eighteen member countries of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), as well as by representatives of the United States, Canada, and the European Communities, which were concerned with the framework and scope of the new Organization for European Cooperation and Development (OECD), intended to replace OEEC. Discussion centered on whether or not the solution of trade problems should be included as one of the objectives of the future organization, with differences of opinion over the scope of the organization being expressed by proponents of the Europe of the old OEEC versus participants in the European Economic Community (EEC) and others, the former convinced of the need for a European forum of discussion of trade questions, and the latter preferring to work out such problems through the world organization of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). A special report, considered at a previous meeting of the same representatives in May, had recommended the establishment of an organization which was to be largely a consultative body with no definite responsibility for trade questions, but because of disagreement on the part of some of the smaller countries, notably Sweden and Switzerland, a working party had been set up, which, at the July meeting, recommended the establishment of a trade committee, whose task was to be the examination of all trade questions, subject to some liberalization of OEEC obligations.

Freedom of information and of the press is a fundamental human right and is the touchstone of all the freedoms consecrated in the Charter of the United Nations and proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; it is essential to the promotion and to the preservation of peace.

The General Assembly held its seventeenth session, comprising the II22nd–I202nd plenary meetings, at UN Headquarters from September 18 through December 20, 1962, during which time it took action on 95 items. The Assembly decided to convene a special session prior to June 30, 1963, for the purpose of considering the financial situation of the Organization. Six countries were admitted to membership during the session: at the II22nd meeting, Rwanda, Burundi, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago; at the II46th meeting, Algeria; and at the II58th meeting, Uganda. The membership of the UN was thereby brought to IIO.

During the period from July 10, 1947 to December 23, 1948, thirteen policy decisions were adopted by the Far Eastern Commission. These fell primarily into three categories–disarmament, democratization, and the determination of a self-sustaining economy for Japan. In the first category the Commission adopted a policy decision on February 12, 1948, entitled “Prohibition of Military Activity in Japan and Disposition of Japanese Military Equipment”. Under the terms of this decision a ministry of war was forbidden, and possession by Japanese of arms, ammunition and implements of war and the development, manufacture or importation of these articles was prohibited

The Assembly of the Western European Union (WEU) held the second part of its seventh ordinary session in Paris on December 11–15, 1961, under the presidency of Mr. Arthur Conte (French Socialist). In addition to discussing the state of European security, the Assembly debated questions concerning Berlin and the agricultural problems involved in the accession of the United Kingdom to the European Economic Community (EEC). The debate on agriculture was concerned with the implementation of recommendation 53, adopted in November 1960, in which the Assembly had called for negotiations for the accession of the United Kingdom to the EEC as a full member. Mr. Sicco Mansholt, vice-chairman of the EEC Commission, stated that if the United Kingdom entered the EEC, her agriculture would not have to overcome any exceptional difficulties which would justify a longer transition period than that of the six original members. He stated that this conclusion had been reached after a detailed comparison of relative prices and outputs in the United Kingdom and the six members of EEC. The Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution, presented by Mr. Hubert Leynen (Belgian Social Christian), calling upon the seven member governments of WEU to spare no effort to insure the success of the Brussels negotiations.

While analysis of any institution of such recent origin as the Interim Committee of the General Assembly can be only tentative in nature and must be subject to reservation at many points, it is possible at this time to identify certain trends in the development of the Interim Committee and its work. The broad questions to which an answer will be sought in the course of this inquiry are these: Why did a 1945 Netherlands' proposal for a standing committee on peace and security of the General Assembly meet with little response in the Preparatory Commission, while two years later a similar proposal by the United States was accepted by an overwhelming majority? For what purposes was the Interim Committee established, and, how successfully has it accomplished these purposes? Has the Interim Committee been organized in the best possible fashion for performance of its assigned functions? What, at this time, seems to be the future role of the Interim Committee in the United Nations system?

The Executive Board of the World Health Organization held its 14th session i n Geneva on May 27 and 28, 1954. Dr. H. Hyde (United States) was elected Chairman of the Board. Many of the decisions taken by the Executive Board implemented recommendations approved at the seventh World Health Assembly..

Pressures to extend the activities of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into fields other than the military, or actually to shift the emphasis to political, economic, and cultural objectives, have been so strong in recent years that one wonders whether there has not been a growing tendency, particularly in Europe, to lose sight of the purpose for which NATO was established and which makes it vital to the United States. Essentially, NATO is a multilateral military alliance for the protection of western and southern Europe against Soviet conquest, a means of denying these areas and their resources to the Soviets. If the members of the alliance, on one side or the other of the Atlantic, were ever to reach the conclusion that the threat of military attack from the east had vanished or that it could not be countered effectively by common military effort, NATO would have lost its original raison d'être, though it might be continued for the sake of what today are secondary non-military functions, such as political conciliation and economic collaboration. It should be added that the primacy of the military purpose of NATO, as it exists today, does not preclude the desirability or even the necessity of extending its scope beyond purely military matters. As Ruth C. Lawson has pointed out, there is little hope for reliable military collaboration among countries ohat do not succeed in attaining a reasonable degree of harmony between their political aims and policies. Cyprus, Suez, and Algeria are symptomatic of the problems NATO faces in the political field.