The eighteenth plenary meeting of the International Cotton Advisory Committee was held in Washington, May 14–22, 1959. Governments from 34 countries were represented as members and 24 attended as observers; representatives from ten international organizations were also in attendance. Eight resolutions were adopted by the plenary meeting, the first four of which were concerned with budgetary matters. The fifth dealt with the future work program and instructed the secretariat to prepare a statement on government regulations on cotton and a report on harsh short staple cotton; the secretariat was also instructed to keep under review the extra-long staple cotton situation, to investigate the possibility of a similar survey on long staple cottons, and to provide as much information as possible on the effect of competition from the Soviet Union, communist China, and eastern Europe on world markets for cotton and cotton textiles. The sixth resolution drew attention to the present surplus situation of extra-long staples and indicated the desirability of convening a special meeting to examine the problems of this commodity with attention to production plans and policies, price and export policies, and steps needed to encourage consumption.

The Executive Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) held its 61st session in Paris from May 7 to May 29, 1962, under the chairmanship of Dr. Mohamed Awad (United Arab Republic). The Executive Board heard the Acting Director General's oral report on the activities of UNESCO since December 1961 and then reviewed the Acting Director-General's proposals on the Emergency Program of Financial Aid to Member States and Associate Members in Africa. It recommended that the Acting Director-General examine the possibility of carrying out the project for the establishment of a center for the production of school textbooks in Ethiopia and authorized allocations of $100,000 each for assisting educational planning in Southern Rhodesia and the Ivory Coast. The Board renewed its appeal to member states to continue contributing the emergency program so that at least the present deficit of $750,000 would be covered. The Acting Director-General was invited to report to the twelfth General Conference of UNESCO, to meet from November 9 to December 12, 1962, on the Organization's activities within the framework of the civilian operations of the UN in the Congo.

The fifth annual report prepared by the secretariat of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), International Trade 1956, opened with a survey of developments in the structure and pattern of international trade. During 1956 the value of international trade had risen by II percent from 1955 to more than $90,000 million during the first half of the year and $95,000 million in the second. Because of a slight increase in the general price level the volume of world trade had risen somewhat less, but had exceeded the rate of increase in industrial output. Trade between industrial and non-industrial areas had continued to decline. Due to the greater increase in value of exports of industrial countries than of those of the non-industrial areas, as well as to the greater rise in volume of exports of industrial countries to each other than to non-industrial destinations, the share in world exports of trade among industrial countries had risen to 40.3 percent, while the share of trade between industrial and non-industrial countries fell to 49.2 percent and that among non-industrial countries to 10.5 percent. The report attributed this trend to the decline in exports from non-industrial areas at a time when the share of their imports in world trade had remained unchanged, a situation due primarily to industrial development, slow growth of primary production, and increased domestic demand in the semi-industrialized countries. Examining the long-term market outlook for primary products in western Europe and North America, the report concluded that prospects for export of raw materials and fuels from non-industrial areas were favorable, but that with respect to the market for most foodstuffs the future was uncertain, depending on the rate of growth of agricultural production in the industrial countries.

On October 2, 1961, it was announced that the International Monetary Fund had entered into a stand-by arrangement with the government of Haiti under which that government could draw the equivalent of $6 million from the Fund during the following twelve months. The arrangement with the Fund was considered as a useful supplement to the country's reserves to assist the government in maintaining the convertibility of its currency. The Haitian government had not drawn on its previous stand-by arrangement with the Fund, which had expired on September 30, 1961; in earlier years it had drawn $5.4 million, of which $2.6 million had already been repaid.

The 25th meeting of the Caribbean Commission was held in Curacao, November 22–29, 1957–1 The meeting dealt mainly with recommendations made by the West Indian Conference, including consideration of a statement submitted by the conference on the procedure to be followed for the revision of the agreement establishing the Commission. It was decided to recommend to member governments that an ad hoc committee be appointed to make preparations for and facilitate the work of a revision conference proposed for November 1958. The Commission also approved the 1958 budget submitted by the Secretary General, considered the report of the July conference on the demographic problems of the area, approved the work program for the Commission's central secretariat, and noted progress reports on Commission-sponsored technical assistance projects, including aided self-help housing, an agricultural credit survey, a consultant on education and an education clearing house, and fisheries investigations.

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.

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.

As Secretary-General, it is my firm belief that a new and great effort must be attempted to end the so-called “cold war” and to set the world once more on a road that will offer greater hope of lasting peace.

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.

The thirteenth Congress of the Universal Postal Union was held at the Palais des Academies in Brussels from May 14 to July 15, 1952, with representatives from 91 countries present. The Congress, which met to revise the convention and its executive regulations concluded at Paris in 1947 as well as facultative agreements and their executive regulations also concluded in Paris, had before it more than 1,700 proposals for amending the Paris Acts. After electing E. Pineux (Belgium) President and F. Hess (Switzerland) Vice-President, the Congress established eight committees.

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.

In the past few months the attitudes of France toward Western European unity have been undergoing a perceptible change. Initiative, imagination, and drive have given way to hesitancy, skepticism, and even withdrawal. The change was placed in dramatic focus by the coincidence of the formal opening of the coal and steel pool, which owes its existence in large part to the work of the two Frenchmen, Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet, at the very time the newly created Mayer government was communicating to other interested states its reservations regarding the European Defense Community Treaty, for which French effort is also in large part responsible.

It has now become quite axiomatic to say that United States participation in the United Nations system is having an effect upon the substance I of United States foreign policy. What is not so well known as yet is that this participation is the cause for the creation of a new piece of machinery I for aiding the conduct of our foreign policy. Established in 1946 as the United States Delegation to the United Nations, this new outpost of the Department of State illustrates in its organization and operation many of the changes which have come about as bilateral diplomacy has given way to multilateral, “conference-type” United Nations diplomacy. Located at the headquarters of the international organization in New York City, the permanent Mission and its work are symbols of the importance and endless variety of problems posed for American foreign policy by our membership in and support for the United Nations. Since it is still in the process of development, the following study of the organization and role of the United States Mission to the United Nations should be taken as a preliminary analysis.

“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.

“Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and the end of political education,” wrote Henry Adams. But human beings have never been able to agree on what constitutes “knowledge” of human nature and what excessively negative or naively wishful thinking about it. Because we differ in our conceptions of who we are, difficulties exist in agreeing upon what is a fit society and the methods appropriate and necessary for bringing it into being. Conflicting conceptions of human nature play a role in shaping and energizing all levels of political competition and conflict, from the interpersonal through the global.