The annual report of the Technical Assistance Board (TAB) to the Technical Assistance Committee, which covered the activities of the Expanded Program of Technical Assistance (EPTA) during 1959 and, coming as it did at the end of the first decade of operations of the program, completed the record of the first ten years, was made public in June 1960. The report revealed that the period under consideration (July 1950 to June 1960) had ended with the pledge of an increase in UN technical assistance, following some reduction in the size of the 1959 program. Although the amount pledged by the 83 member governments for operations in 1959 had been $29.6 million, causing a 3 percent reduction in the amount spent to deliver aid, pledges for 1960 were expected to reach an all-time high of $33.4 million. In the face of the retrenchment necessary in 1959, the size of the technical assistance program in Africa had continued to rise modestly, the continent having received 14 percent of the aid given on a worldwide scale, as compared to 12 percent in 1958, while slight reductions in the Latin American and Middle Eastern programs had been necessary. However, the largest expenditure on regional projects, as in the past, had been in Latin America, where the cost of UN and specialized agency participation in such projects as the Fundamental Education Center in Mexico, the Andean Indian Program, and the Central American Economic Integration Program had reached $1.1 million. A substantial proportion of new EPTA operations had been in the form of assistance to the emerging states of Africa, financed by the use of contingency funds amounting to $1.2 million in all, thus making it possible to initiate assistance for which funds would not otherwise have been available.

Economic development involves the whole society of the developing country. The help that foreign countries can give in the process of development is necessarily limited, both in amount and in character. The United Nations has concentrated its aid to developing countries on “technical assistance”—a term that covers a wide range of activities. Along with help and instruction in particular techniques of industry and other such activities, UN technical assistance has also encompassed help and advice in matters of public administration and the execution of public policy in matters affecting development. Public finance is a field of special importance in this connection, both because of its direct importance to the process of development and because its complexity provides the need and opportunity for international assistance. The process of financing is intimately linked with every single activity in the economy and, therefore, the study of these problems affects every phase of economic development. Moreover, in countries which are still at the early stages of development, public finance must necessarily be used to support a nascent private enterprise sector. There is a need for providing social overhead and a necessity for adjusting the revenue system to the requirements of productive investment without eroding the base to an extent which would make it impossible to mobilize the funds needed for economic expansion.

It has been said that the northern nations of Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland, personify unity within diversity.

Ties of ethnographic and cultural kinship give these northern peoples a sense of unity and a desire for working together. At the same time, the varying outlooks and aspirations which the five countries have come to hold as a result of their differing geographic, economic and political conditions and experiences, have produced a strong desire for independence and the preservation of their own ways of life.

No consideration of the place of Africa in the United Nations or of the role of international organization in the progress of this continent would be thinkable without an authoritative expression of views upon the subject by Africans themselves.

Since the United Nations Charter was agreed upon at San Francisco, with its provisions for a system of trusteeship for certain dependent territories, there has been considerable conjecture concerning the impact which this new machinery might have on “the colonial problem.” Extravagant claims have been made that this crystallization of the concept of collective responsibility was a panacea, that it could provide a suitable resolution for the forces which have for so long exercised a disturbing influence on our society. The trusteeship system has been compared both favorably and unfavorably with the League of Nations mandates system. It has been both lauded and condemned before it has had an opportunity to demonstrate what, if any, are its capacities.

According to the report of the United States High Commissioner for Austria (Donnelly) covering the first quarter of the year 1951, the most significant political event of the period was the decision of the Austrian government to elect its new president, successor to Dr. Karl Renner who died on December 31, by popular vote instead of by parliamentary ballot. This new presidential election law, enacted by the Austrian parliament on January 16, was one of the subjects under discussion at the February 9 meeting of the Allied Council. Although the three western powers voiced their approval of the new law, the Soviet delegate contended that since the Austrian constitution of 1929 had not been approved by the Allied Council he saw no legal basis for the law and insisted on having it replaced by a “special constitutional law”, which would have been subject to the Soviet veto. The United States representative supported the validity of the Austrian constitution, pointing out that the Soviet Union had already approved many laws modifying the 1929 constitution —a slightly amended form of the 1920 constitution — which had been voided by the Nazis in 1938. The point at issue was the fact that instructions had been given to the Austrian government to prepare a new draft constitution by July 1, 1946, and the Austrian parliament, instead of attempting the task of formulating a constitution which would be acceptable to all members of the Allied Council as well as to Austria, had passed resolutions in April 1946 reviving the Federal Constitutional Law of 1929.

On April 1, 1948, following lengthy discussion of methods of implementing the General Assembly resolution of November 29, 1947, concerning the partition of Palestine, the Security Council approved a resolution calling for the convening of a special session of the Assembly. The resolution requested the Secretary General “in accordance with Article 20 of the United Nations Charter, to convoke a special session of the General Assembly to consider further the question of the future government of Palestine.”

Following months of preliminary planning and negotiation, the first concrete steps toward the establishment of an International Trade Organization were taken by the Preparatory Committee of the International Conference on Trade and Employment, which met in London from October 15 to November 26, 1946. Called by the Secretary-General of the United Nations pursuant to a resolution of February 18, 1946, of the Economic and Social Council, the meeting was the first of a series of conferences to consider the possible integration of national trade policies and the removal of trade barriers on a world-wide scale. Its work, however, has been essentially preparatory in scope; its recommendations are not binding upon the governments represented.

The Governments of Australia, the French Republic, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America, (hereinafter referred to as “the participating Governments”),

“We do not want to entrust to five great Powers or to two great Powers the task of deciding … what our common destiny will be…”.

To anyone who attended the great assemblage gathered at San Francisco in 1945 to write the Charter for the United Nations, these words have a familiar ring. Indeed, they might have been uttered (and no doubt were ad nauseam) by small-power representatives during the seemingly interminable debates over the rule of unanimity—the veto—in the Security Council. In fact, these words were spoken in February 1965 by the Mauritanian delegate explaining, on the final day of the “abortive” nineteenth session of the General Assembly, why he voted with Albania in protest against the “basis of consensus” which had governed the session.

One hundred and two of the 110 states members of the International Labor Organization (ILO) met in Geneva from June 17 to July 9, 1964, for the 48th session of the ILO General Conference. Among those attending the Conference were 196 government delegates, 95 employers' delegates, 95 workers' delegates, and 63 ministers of labor. Mr. A. Aguilar Mawdsley (Venezuela) was elected President and the following three delegates were elected vice presidents: Mr. K. R. Baghdelleh (Tanganyika and Zanzibar), government vice president; Mr. S. Wajid Ali (Pakistan), employers' vice president; and Mr. H. Collison (United Kingdom), workers' vice president.

The first 1964 meeting of the Ministerial Council of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) took place in Geneva on February 13–14, 1964. Chaired by Dr. Hans Schaffner, Minister of Public Economy in Switzerland, the meeting reviewed all major developments relating to the objectives of EFTA.

The Eighth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Organization of American States (OAS) took place from January 22–31, 1962, at Punta del Este, Uruguay, to consider the threat posed to the western hemisphere's security by Cuba. Before the meeting, the Inter-American Peace Committee, a standing committee of OAS, after investigating charges made by the representative of Peru that Cuba was engaged in promoting subversive movements in other Latin American countries, unanimously approved a report to be put before the meeting of the foreign ministers. This report included the following points: 1) that the identification of the government of Cuba with the Marxist-Leninist ideology and socialism of the Soviet type presupposed positions that were basically antagonistic to the principle established in the OAS charter that the solidarity and high aims of OAS were based on the effective exercise of representative democracy; 2) that the present government of Cuba impeded the exercise of the right of self-determination, as it was conceived in the inter-American system; 3) that the serious and systematic violation of human rights by the government of Cuba not only constituted one of the principal causes of the international tensions affecting the peace of the hemisphere but was also in open contradiction to various instruments of the inter-American system. Also, it stated 4) that the connections of the government of Cuba with the Sino-Soviet bloc of countries were incompatible with the principles and standards that governed the regional system, and particularly with the collective security established by the OAS charter and the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance; and 5) that the intense subversive activity in which the countries of the Sino Soviet bloc were engaged in America and the activities of the Cuban government that had been pointed out in the report represented attacks upon inter-Amercian peace and security as well as on the sovereignty and political independence of the American states, and therefore a serious violation of fundamental principles of the inter-American system.

The Executive Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) held its 54th session in Paris, June 1–12, 1959. Under the heading, Execution of the Program, th Board took the following decisions, inter alia:1) to appoint a rapporteur, commissione to follow the successive discussions of the Director-General ‘s reports by the Board, for the purpose of assisting in the preparation of comments by the Board on these reports for information to the General Conference at its forthcoming session; 2) to authorize the Director-General to request the Technical Assistance Committee to contribute for 1960 a sum of $505, 779 toward the Headquarters costs of administering the Technical Assistance Program; 3) to designate twelve Member States— namely, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and the United States—which were to be entitled to appoint a representative for two years on the Intergovernmental Advisory Committee for the Major Project on the Extension of Primary Education in Latin America; 4) to request the Director-General to accept the invitation of the government of Denmark to hold in Denmark in i960 an intergovernmental conference on international oceanographic research and training vessels; 5) to approve the celebration of the anni- 1 Document 54 EX/Decisions, June 22, 1959. For a summary of the 33d session, see International Organization, Spring 1939 (Vol. 13, No. 2), p. 324. versaries of the great personalities (Frederic Chopin and Charles Darwin) listed in one of the documents before the Board; and 6) to authorize the Director-General to signify UNESCO&'s agreement in principle to the proposals by the government of the United Arab Republic concerning international action for the study and protection of the archaeological monuments of Nubia threatened by submergence as a result of the construction of the Aswan High Dam.

Acting Secretary-General U Thant, in his Introduction to the Annual Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, 16 June 1961—75 June 1962, stated that the serious situation in the Congo, which had led to the tragic death of Dag Hammarskjöld, was particularly crucial among the problems of the last year. The peace-keeping operation in the Congo (ONUC) and the UN Emergency Force (UNEF) had incurred large expenditures, while a number of Member States had failed to pay their assessments for the maintenance of these peace-keeping forces. As a result, the financial difficulties facing the Organization had become increasingly serious in the last year. In an effort to ease the UN's financial problems, the General Assembly had requested the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on the question of whether the expenditures for maintaining ONUC and UNEF constituted expenses of the Organization within the meaning of Article 17, paragraph 2, of the Charter and therefore represented binding legal obligations on Member States to pay their assessments for these operations. The General Assembly had also authorized the Secretary-General to issue during 1962 and 1963 up to $200 million of UN bonds.

Too often world food problems are viewed as North-South problems, as matters to be resolved between rich and poor. In fact, most world food trade takes place entirely among the rich. The industrial nations of the European Community, Japan, and the USSR import more food today than all of the poor countries combined. These industrial food importing nations make a dubious contribution to the stability and security of the world food system. In different measure, they seek to shift adjustment burdens onto others, to enjoy something of a free ride. All have subsidized production for export in times of world surplus, and all have stepped ahead of poor countries to purchase high priced imports in times of scarcity. To these burden-shifting trade policies, the USSR in particular adds its own troublesome nonparticipation in most multilateral efforts at world food policy management. Prospects for improved burden sharing in the future are dim. Fortunately, the world food system still gains most of its stability and security from separate production decisions within nations, rather than from collective storage, trade, or aid decisions among nations.

The first part of the eighth ordinary session of the Assembly of the Western European Union (WEU) took place in Paris from June 4 to 8, 1962. Mr. Arthur Conte (French Socialist) was re-elected President. In addition to the usual reports on defense questions, the Assembly took up the question of the negotiations between the European Common Market and the United Kingdom. On the solution of the Commonwealth problem in the negotiations, the Assembly recommended that special provisions should be worked out to cover a transitional period for imported foodstuffs, especially from the temperate zone. On political union, the Assembly's recommendation proposed that it should take the form of a Community institution, with an executive independent of the member states and responsible to an elected assembly and a ministerial council voting in some cases by qualified majority.