The Palestine Question: Letter dated 1 April 1961 from the Permanent Representative of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan addressed to the President of the Security Council

The Council of Ministers of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), consisting of the foreign ministers of the member countries, met in Dakar, Senegal, on August 2–11, 1963, under the chairmanship of Mr. Doudou Thiam (Senegal) in pursuance of the decisions taken at the Addis Ababa Conference of African heads of state and government.

Toward the end of the Administration of Lyndon Johnson it became briefly popular to talk about programs for eliminating poverty at home versus programs for mitigating poverty abroad. But it can also be argued that the two are sides of the proverbial coin and that the experience of rhe one has meaning for the other. The present troubles of the domestic “war on poverty” do not diminish the value of the comparison. If anything, they enhance the need to consider the programs together.

The fourteenth session of the Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) was held in New Delhi from February 7 through 24, 1961. In his address the President of the Assembly, Dr. Arcot Lakshmanaswami Mudaliar, stated that among the many international organizations set up by the UN, WHO occupied a foremost place in its efforts to improve the conditions of millions of people in all parts of the globe. Dr. Mudaliar pointed to the contributions of the WHO regional offices in bringing the work of the organization more directly into contact with the countries concerned. WHO had achieved its most spectacular successes in programs designed not merely to control but to eradicate diseases of which the causative organisms were well known and with respect to which effective steps could be taken—in this regard Dr. Mudaliar mentioned the malaria eradication campaign. Other diseases of a communicable nature—smallpox, cholera, several of the water-borne diseases, and many others carried by insects—could hopefully lend themselves to similar eradication programs. Dr. Mudaliar also referred to the work of WHO in areas of the world stricken by natural or man-made disaster, and in particular to the organization's emergency work in the Republic of the Congo (Leopoldville). As for the future tasks of WHO, the President of the Assembly observed that although tuberculosis had been one of the four diseases that had been given priority by the first WHO Assembly, much still remained to be done to control it; the results of domiciliary treatment carried out in the city of Madras, India, he continued, gave some promise of success in the control and treatment of the disease. Dr. Mudaliar also singled out leprosy as a disease the organization should try to eradicate, and mentioned the problems of mental illness stemming from the stress and strain of modern society as being worthy of attention.

Identities and ideas can lead to international order contestation through the efforts of international actors to socially position themselves and perform their identities. International actors try to shape the world to suit who they want to be. To substantiate this argument, I examine the contestation of international orders in early modern Southeast Asia. The prevailing view portrays a Confucian international order which formed a consensual and stable hierarchy in East Asia. However, instead of acquiescing to hegemonic leadership, both Siam and Vietnam frequently sought to assert their equality and even superiority to the Chinese dynasties. I argue that both polities engaged in political contention to define their places in relation to other polities and the broader social context in which they interacted. I examine how international order contestation emerged from efforts to define and redefine background knowledge about social positioning, social categorization, and the political ontologies and beliefs about collective purpose on which they are based. I claim that agents seek to interact with others in ways that reify their sense of self, and challenge the background knowledge embedded in performances of other actors that threaten their ability to perform their identity. I also argue against theories that attribute international order contestation to hegemonic decline or the breakdown of a tacit bargain, which assume that orders are held together by a dominant power. One implication is that hegemony and hierarchy are based on dominant ideas, not dominant states.

This article presents an interpretation of the conflicts between universalism and nationalism as they affected United States policy toward the creation of the United Nations. Drawing on heretofore unavailable sources, the author stresses the rising influence of nationalism in the evolution of decisions on the veto power, trusteeships, and regionalism. His focus is on the decision–making process during Roosevelt's last year and the initial months of the Truman administration. He contends that Cordell Hull's universalist UN blueprint, which Roosevelt supported, was inexorably eroded by critics within the American government, especially military spokesmen. These leaders took advantage of the apprehension about the Soviet Union's future policy to further their own ambitions for a strong post–war military posture. Truman was sympathetic to the voices of nationalism, and when he became president the shift away from a strong UN became more pronounced.

This essay aims to assess the prospects of a larger role for multilateral assistance in world development. It does not attempt to review the familiar, often extreme, arguments made in favor of either bilateral or multilateral aid. It rejects the notion that the realizable possibilities of the many multilateral institutions and programs treated in detail in the other essays in this volume can be assessed as a unitary whole. The effort here will be to identify the specific kinds of multilateral aid which have especial potential of political support from aid-giving countries in the near future. As for the more distant future the reader is forewarned that the domestic politics of assistance, at least in this decade of stagnating support of aid of all kinds, recognizes no significant distinction between multilateral and bilateral aid. The web of will to help others develop is finely and infrangibly woven.

Charting the course of attitudes in Britain toward the United Nations is mainly a matter of defining small gradations within a fairly limited range, a range varying from sympathetic concern—and ritualistic commendation—at one end of the spectrum to barely dis uised indifference at the other. Among a small section of radical public opinion the Organization can still (August 1961) arouse fervent support, while the right-wing Beaverbrook press and its sympathizers lose few opportunities of pointing out its deficiencies. Nevertheless, during most of its fifteen years' existence, so far as public interest in Britain in its political activities is concerned, the limited impact the United Nations has had on most of the major issues of peace and war has discouraged “popular opinion” from waxing very enthusiastic-or bitter-about it; indeed, although a generally accepted part of international life, it has for long periods languished relatively unnoticed in a diplomatic backwater. Only at such moments of crisis as Korea, Suez, or the Congo, when the Organization has been forced into the mainstream of international politics has this rather tepid reaction been punctuated by heightened tension—and acrimony.

Ever since Adolph Hitler's invasion of Poland, American and European interwar diplomacy has, with good reason, been judged a failure. Analyzing what went wrong, American historians have been quick to note their own nation's withdrawal from European affairs following the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Consequently, they have focused great attention on the Senate's rejection of United Statesmembership in the League of Nations, an act which has been seen as both cause and effect of the ensuing years of isolation. Indeed, nonmembership in the Geneva-based international organization came to have—for contemporaries and historians alike—deep symbolic and emotional overtones as well as diplomatic significance, appearing as the quintessence of isolationism itself.

Protection of the City of Jerusalem: The third part of the second session of the Trusteeship Council met from April 21 to May 4, 1948, to consider measures for the protection of the City of Jerusalem and its inhabitants. The USSR sent a representative (Tsarapkin) to the Council for the first time. On March 10, 1948, the Council had passed a resolution stating that the Statute for the City of Jerusalem was in satisfactory form and that the question of its formal approval should be considered by the Council not later than one week before April 29, 1948. In view of the action taken by the General Assembly and the Security Council, the Trusteeship Council, on April 21, carried the proposal of the representative of the United States (Gerig) that the Statute be transmitted to the General Assembly, together with the resolution of March 10, for such further instructions as the Assembly might see fit to give. On April 26, the General Assembly requested the Council to study and report on suitable measures for the protection of Jerusalem and its inhabitants. In consultation with the Mandatory Power and representatives of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the Arab Higher Committee, the Council considered several proposals. The French delegate' (Garreau) proposed sending a United Nations official to Jerusalem with powers to recruit and organize an international force of 1,000 police, the United States proposed placing Jerusalem under temporary trusteeship, and Australia and the Jewish Agency favored the adoption of the draft Statute of Jerusalem.

One of the most heartening trends in research on international organizations and international affairs is the current emphasis upon an empirical, as opposed to a merely theoretical, approach to an understanding of problems. This approach involves a series of distinctive elements. A hypothesis must be offered and its terms must be defined in ways that permit observation of events and collection of data on the presence or absence of the defined items. Data must be collected systematically, rather than eclectically, to ensure the consideration of those events which do not fit the hypothesis as well as those which do. Wherever possible data is reduced to numerical form and various statistical tests are applied to determine, for example, positive or negative correlations, and to compute the statistical significance of those correlations. Conclusions are then drawn on the basis of the results of the statistical operations. While such efforts are often time-consuming and tedious, even with the aid of a computer, the results of such an effort have the enormous value of demonstrably reflecting reality. Presumably, these results can be replicated by other observers and, since the methodology has been explicitly articulated, methodological defects can be detected and their effect on the results can be fully evaluated.

The European Parliamentary Assembly held its second meeting in Strasbourg, May 13 and 14, 1958, under the chairmanship of Robert Schuman. Mr. Paul Finet, President of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), presented the sixth general report on ECSC activities. Speaking of developments which the High Authority had to take into account in planning its future action, Mr. Finet referred to the direct exposure of the coal and steel industries to the consequences of an economic recession, the increasing competition and falling prices on the steel market, the need for stabilization of coal production and consumption, and the desirability of encouraging technical research and increasing safety in the mines. Turning to the matter of ECSC's cooperation with the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community, Mr. Finet pointed out that the absence of a decision concerning the seat of the European institutions constituted a major obstacle, but that the High Authority was ready to contribute toward further integration of the communities. Regarding a free trade area, the High Authority considered it essential that ECSC's power of action within the community should remain unimpaired. The High Authority believed that the price-fixing system prevailing within the European Economic Community called for the adoption of similar rules within the free trade area and that the granting of governmental subsidies should be prohibited.

The Administrative Council of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) held its twelfth session in Geneva from April 29 to May 25, 1957, under the chairmanship of Mr. Lázaro Barajas Gutiérrez (Mexico). Reviewing its program of future meetings, the Council decided to hold the Administrative Telegraph and Telephone Conference in September 1958 and the Administrative Radio Conference in July 1959. In setting the date for the latter, the main consideration was the Atlantic City Table of Frequency Allocations. It was felt that sufficient progress had been made in this area to permit the confirmation of June 1, 1957, as the beginning of the final adjustment period of ten months. At the end of this period a new edition of the Radio Frequency Record was to be prepared.

Although ours is an age of transnational economic and political forces, itis even more an age of intense and intensifying nationalism. In fact, taken as a whole, the twentieth century has been a time of political fragmentation and disintegration. Much of the handiwork of political integration that characterized the nineteenth century has been undone and much else is under severe strain. The empires and multiethnic states that formerly provided order and unity over much of the globe have been destroyed. Once stable societies like Belgium, Canada, and the United States have become subject to severe internal strain. Yet despite the prevalence of this phenomenon, very few political scientists have studied from a systematic perspective the process of political disintegration.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Parliamentarians' Conference was held in Paris on November 12–16, 1962, and was attended by parliamentarians from all fifteen NATO countries.1 One of the Conference's principal objectives was to look into the possibility of turning itself into an Atlantic Assembly, and it took the first step toward this goal by accepting its political committee's recommendation to set up a special subcommittee, consisting of experienced parliamentarians, which would study the problems of such a reform. According to the political committee's report, the Atlantic nations were served by a multitude of separate international institutions, each controlled by a separate executive council. There were no formal means by which they could consult, plan, or act in coordination. The report complained that the present arrangements under which the NATO Parliamentarians' Conference received information from NATO was inadequate: it did not receive a formal annual report and did not have the right to put questions either to ministers or formally to the NATO secretariat.

The twelfth session of the Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) was held in Geneva, from May 12 to May 29, I959. In his inaugural address, the President of the Assembly, Sir John Charles, spoke of the tasks of the individual worker and of WHO in the field of medical research, stating that the task of the former ended with the presentation of his information, thereby enabling WHO to enter the field of medical research through its contribution—just as important and quite apart from its own research in fields such as tuberculosis and the virus diseases—in the way of coordination and communication. The Director-General, introducing his report on the work of WHO during 1958, observed that, as 1958 had marked the tenth anniversary of the organization, it was natural that the year's activities had been viewed in the light of progress made during the entire decade. He recalled that great strides had been taken in the eradication of malaria and smallpox, but stressed the fact that WHO's goal could not be accomplished without world-wide eradication: as long as malaria or smallpox survived in a single country it constituted a danger for all. He also spoke of the intensified international program of medical research, in which the WHO fellowship program was playing an important role, and of the problem of environmental sanitation, with regard to which WHO had failed in its attempt to arouse public interest.

The fifteenth session of the Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) was held in Geneva from May 8 to 25, 1962, under the presidency of Dr. S. V. Kurashov (Minister of Health of the Soviet Union). The Assembly approved an effective working budget of $29,956,000 for 1963, representing an increase of $5,092,200 over the figure for 1962.

The 1960–1961 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Tariff Conference was brought to a conclusion on July 16, 1962. The decision to hold the 1960–1961 conference was taken in May 1959, following a proposal of the United States that such a conference should be held. Approximately 4,400 tariff concessions were negotiated at the conference. There were three separate elements in the 1960–1961 conference: 1) renegotiations with the European Economic Community (EEC); 2) the “Dillon” or general round of negotiations; and 3) negotiations in accordance with the relevant provisions of the General Agreement with countries wishing to accede to GATT.