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.

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.

1948 and 1949 were critical years of decision for many European nations caught in a web of events of such significance and suddenness as to call into question in a matter of months political traditions and concepts whose roots reached well back into die nineteenth century. Faced with the expanding east-west conflict, many countries felt themselves not only endangered and forced to look to their military defenses, but also obliged to choose one side or the other in die developing struggle.

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.

Preventing the spread of nuclear weapons is one facet of the problem of preventing nuclear war, a problem which has engaged the statesmen of the world ever since the dust of the Nagasaki explosion settled. In the Truman-Attlee-King declaration of November 15, 1945, the President of the United States, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the Prime Minister of Canada proposed that the United Nations set up a commission to study how atomic energy could be controlled so as to limit its use to peaceful purposes, how atomic weapons could be eliminated from national armaments, and how safeguards could be set up so as to ensure that all nations would comply widi the obligations which they undertook to these ends. Thus fell to the United Nations one of the most intractable problems of international organization, a problem which might be looked on as the creation of a new sphere of international law.

The eleventh special session of the Trusteeship Council was 'Held at UN Headquarters in New York on April 10, 1961, to consider the agenda item: report of the UN plebiscite commissioner for the supervision of plebiscites in the southern and northern parts of the trust territory of the Cameroons under United Kingdom administration. Introducing the report, Mr. Abdoh, the UN plebiscite commissioner, noted that the report included all the pertinent facts about the organization, conduct, and results of the plebiscites. In order that the General Assembly would have ample time to examine the report during the resumed fifteenth session, the Council did not discuss it but limited itself to transmitting the report to the General Assembly, as provided in a draft resolution sponsored by Bolivia and India and approved by the Council. After adopting its draft report to the General Assembly on the item, the Council set June 1, 1961, as the tentative opening date for its 27th session.

The argument whether the United States in the conduct of foreign policy should lean toward multilateral or unilateral action tends to revolve in the stratosphere. Proponents of each course cite the conspicuous failures of the other and submit wishful designs varying from triumphant world government to uninhibited national sovereignty. Unfortunately, the range of real choices confronting the policymaker is very much narrower. Constraints on decisionmaking in a democracy, even in a dictatorship, are very strict and nowhere more so than on issues having to do with sharing among nations decisions affecting major national interests.

Case concerning the Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v. Thailand): In an order of June 10, 1960, the International Court of Justice, having received the preliminary objections of the government of Thailand to its jurisdiction within the timelimit fixed for the filing of the countermemorial, set July 22, 1960, as the timelimit within which the government of Cambodia might present a written statement of its observations and submissionson the objections.

Scholars of international politics have recently offered the concepts of transnationalism and interdependence as alternatives to the state-centric paradigm for studying the impact of advancing technology on modern world politics.1 While these concepts in themselves are not new and may, to some extent, share the normative biases of earlier theoretical challenges to the state-centric model (e.g., regional integration theory),2 they should be examined separately because of the undeniable increase of transnational economic and social activities in the present system.

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.

The increasing manifestations of Soviet interest in the United Nations Technical Assistance Program and in the establishment of a Soviet “Point Four” program for the under-developed, non-Communist countries of southeast Asia are of crucial importance to the west. In great measure the ultimate defense of western civilization lies in its ability to guide the surging flow of Asian nationalism into constructive, stable and satisfying channels of economic, social and political reforms. Soviet interest in under-developed areas is not new, but since the death of Stalin, a precipitant and ingenious reversal of tactics has occurred. Nowhere has this interest been more evident than in the Economic and Social Council and in its subsidiary bodies. Though the changed Soviet tactics in no way signify a modification of the long term objectives of Soviet strategy, they do demand a corresponding flexibility and imaginativeness on the part of western diplomacy. By understanding past Soviet behavior, acquiring an accurate knowledge of early postwar Soviet policy toward underdeveloped areas, and investigating the rationale behind that policy, the direction and intensity of present Soviet policy may be better analyzed and viewed in its proper perspective.

When M. Schuman first presented his celebrated Plan over two years ago, American views, official and public, were divided between an easy cynicism and a careless rapture. Optimism was stirred by the promise of a unity of European peoples, achieving strength, peace and prosperity through their mutual interests in producing coal and steel. Cynicism amused itself with a vision of a new bureaucracy, exercising new controls through the monster international cartel hidden beneath M. Schuman's diplomatic dress. All groups of opinion, materialistic and democratic in outlook, would have agreed that the Plan, however conceived and dedicated, could not long endure unless it touched the popular heart through raising the standard of living. Here, as elsewhere, Americans looked for Europe's salvation in the joy, excitement, strength and sense of human kinship that is supposed to come from successfully executed achievements in engineering.

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 resumed 30th session of the Economic and Social Council (ESOSOC) was held in New York on December 21 and 22, 1960, under the presidency of Mr. C. W. Schurmann (Netherlands). At the beginning of the 1135th meeting, the President read a note from the Secretary-General concerning the projected working agreement between the United Nations and the International Development Association (IDA), and introduced a draft resolution co-sponsored by Denmark and Japan callingon the President to negotiate with IDA with a view to drafting such an agreement. Mr. Makeev, speaking for the Soviet Union, stated that his government could not favor the draft resolution unless the proposed agreement included a provision recalling the terms of Article 58 of the Charter, relating to the coordination of the activities of the specialized agencies; the President replied that, although he was authorized to negotiate with representatives of IDA, he could not impose conditions. The delegates of China and New Zealand stated that they supported the draft resolution, and added that the essential point was to ensure liaison between the various organs dealing with development. The representative of Afghanistan likewise voiced support, pointing out that the draft resolution in essence merely requested the President to negotiate with representatives of IDA. The draft resolution was adopted without dissenting voice with the understanding that the President would take into account the observations of the members of the Council in the course of the negotiations

This review essay will focus on four central questions which the author believes to be closely related to the problem of progress in the study of international organizations. These questions, narrowed to fit the scope of this essay, are the following: 1) What has been the role of international organizations in the national security strategy of the United States; 2) what has been the impact of the United States in the international organizations of which it is a member; 3) what has been the impact of participation in international organizations on the range of United States choices and methods in the foreign policy area; 4) what impact have changes in the shape of the international political system had upon United States participation in international organizations and upon those organizations' impact on the United States. This analysis will concentrate only on studies relevant to these themes.

Edwin Ginn, successful publisher of educational books, philanthropist, and founder of the World Peace Foundation, gave much thought to the problem of world peace and believed that he knew the answer. He was convinced that world peace, as he understood it, was highly desirable, was attainable, and was likely to be achieved in the not too distant future. To this achievement he devoted a third of the wealth accumulated during a lifetime of demonstrated business capacity and acumen. So confident was he of the correctness of his analysis of the peace problem that he stipulated in his will the use to be made, after world peace was attained, of the fund which he provided for the support of his World Peace Foundation. His trustees were charged with the duty of recognizing the attainment of peace and then transferring the fund to the support of his other favorite philanthropy, the Charlesbank Homes, which he expected to flourish in a peaceful world.

The Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) was set up under, and has as its charter, the Convention for European Economic Cooperation signed in April 1948. To understand the way in which the Organization works, it is worth looking at one or two of the provisions of the convention. This agreement consists of two parts: the first a statement of the principles of individual action and cooperation on which the contracting parties are agreed; the second, the charter of OEEC.

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.

Official international organizations are mechanisms which states join because they believe that membership will enable them more effectively to achieve the broad goals of their respective foreign policies. While there is no question that there has been a considerable element of idealism in its creation, the countries which have joined the United Nations have done so because they believe – or hope – that one or another of the instrumentalities provided by United Nations machinery can be used to their advantage. They may wish to improve their standard of living, to provide some increased measure of security either through implementation of the idea of world organization or through other specific policies, or to promote, perhaps, an expansion of their influence. With fifty–nine different Members, it would hardly be surprising to find fifty–nine differing points of view, and it should not be surprising to find these countries playing practical politics to get out of the United Nations precisely what they joined it to achieve, or, since there may be differences, what they desire to achieve after they have once been admitted. Each Member is, in short, using – or trying to use – United Nations machinery to further its own foreign policy.