This issue covers the work of the Security Council from the 618th meeting on August 12, 1953, to the 645th meeting on December 3, 1953.

The third report of the Disarmament Commission, adopted at a brief meeting on August 20, 1953, noted that the Commission had not met since theadoption at the seventh session of the General Assembly of a resolution asking that the Commission report to the Assembly and to the Security Council not later than September 1, 1953. The report added that the Commission hoped “that recent international events will create a more propitious atmosphere for the reconsideration of the disarmament question” and suggested that a report be submitted to the ninth session of the Assembly.

At its seventeenth session, held in New York from March 30 through April 30, 1954, the Economic and Social Council elected Juan Cooke (Argentina), president and Sir Douglas Copland (Australia) and Jiri Nosek (Czechoslovakia) first and second vice-presidents respectively. The Council approved an agenda of 24 items; three items on the provisional agenda were deferred to the eighteenth session: the organization and operation of the Council and its commissions, the election of members of the Council Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations, and the removal of obstacles to international trade and means of developing international economic relations.

The sixteenth session of the Economic and Social Council was resumed at United Nations headquarters in New York on November 30, and concluded on December 7, 1953. The Council worked out its basic program for 1954 and considered the provisional agenda for its seventeenth session drawn up by the Secretary-General (Hammarskjold). It transmitted to the Commission on Human Rights for appropriate action the resolutions of the eighth session of the General Assembly on the draft International Covenants on Human Rights and measures of implementation; the right of peoples to self-determination; and the development of the work of the United Nations for wider observance of, and respect for, human rights and fundamental freedoms. Amending its resolution of July 31, 1953, on the program of concerted practical action in the social field of the United Nations and the specialized agencies, the Council added to the list of projects on which such a program should concentrate the improvement of health, education and social welfare in the non-self-governing and trust territories. The Technical Assistance Committee, which had been instructed during the first part of the session to submit recommendations concerning the financial arrangements for the expanded program of technical assistance, informed the Council that the working party it had established had decided to refer the question to the Technical Assistance Board, and that since the Board was not due to meet until December 1953, it had received no specific proposals. Finally, the Council confirmed the members nominated by Denmark, Panama, Cuba, the Byelorussian SSR, and China to the Statistical, Social and Human Rights Commissions.

The report as a whole on conditions in the Cameroons under United Kingdom administration, which was to be included in the Trusteeship Council's annual report to the General Assembly, was adopted on March 25 by 9 votes to 1 with 2 abstentions. The Council then adopted, by 8 votes to 1 with 3 abstentions, its report as a whole on conditions in the Cameroons under French administration; previously, the conclusions and recommendations in the report of the drafting committee on the French-administered Cameroons had been approved, as amended by Syria, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union. Also on March 25, the Council's report as a whole on conditions in Togoland under United Kingdom administration was adopted by a vote of 8 to.1 with 3 abstentions. This followed adoption by the Council of the conclusions and recommendations, as amended by the Soviet Union, contained in the drafting committee's report on this trust territory and a decision to postpone consideration of the administrative union affecting the territory until the Council's next session. This decision, taken by 9 votes to 1 with 1 abstention, was made in pursuance to a recommendation contained in an interim report of the Standing Committee on Administrative Unions on Togoland under United Kingdom administration. Incorporating amendments proposed by the United Kingdom and Syria, the Council approved the conclusions and recommendations contained in the report of the drafting committee on Togoland under French administration on March 22 and then adopted its report as a whole on conditions in French-administered Togoland by 11 votes to 1.

The thirteenth session of the Trusteeship Council was held at United Nations headquarters from January 28 to March 25, 1954, with Leslie K. Munro (New Zealand) as president. After adopting an agenda of eighteen items, the Council appointed China, Haiti, New Zealand, and the United States as members of the Standing Committee on Administrative Unions, and China, France, Haiti, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States as members of the Committee on Rural Economic Development of the Trust Territories. The latter committee was not scheduled to meet during this session.

Minquiers and Ecrehos Case: In a judgment of November 17,1953, the International Court of Justice unanimously found that jurisdiction over the island groups of Minquiers and Ecrehos was vested in the United Kingdom. The Court interpreted the special agreement concluded between the United Kingdom and France on September 24, 1951, by which the Court was seized of the dispute, as eliminating the possibility of finding the territories to be res nullius or having a status of condominium. The Court further interpreted the phrase “in so far as they are capable of appropriation” as meaning that the Court was asked to determine which party had sovereignty over each island group and not the sovereignty of individual units of which each group consisted.

The first part of the 18th session of the Economic and Social Council was held in Geneva from June 29 through August 6, 1954; Mr. Juan Cooke (Argentina) continued as President of the Council. Although the Council set no date for the reconvening of the session, certain decisions approved during this meeting indicated that it would reconvene before December 1, 1954.

The fourteenth session of the Trusteeship Council was held at United Nations headquarters from June 2 to July 16, 1954. At the opening meeting Miguel R. Urquía (El Salvador) was elected president and Léon Pignon (France) vicepresident. The Council accepted an Indian proposal to include a new item in the agenda of the fourteenth session: “General Assembly resolution 751 (VIII): revision of the Questionnaire relating to Trust Territories: interim report of the Sub-Committee on the Questionnaire”, and subsequently adopted an agenda of 18 items. The greater part of the session was devoted to the examination of annual reports on the administration of the trust territories of Somaliland, the Pacific Islands, Western Samoa, New Guinea, and Nauru; a number of questions referred to it by the General Assembly were also dealt with by the Council, which in its closing meeting decided to defer until the Council's fifteenth session a decision on a French proposal that at least one of the Council's annual sessions should be held at Geneva.

Case of the Monetary Gold Removed from Rome in 1943: On June 15, 1954, the International Court of Justice rendered a judgment on the preliminary question raised by Italy in the case of the monetary gold removed from Rome in 1943. Italy had asked the Court to declare itself incompetent to determine the first question raised by Italy in its application instituting proceedings; namely, whether or not the United States, United Kingdom, and France should deliver to Italy rather than Albania any share of the monetary gold which might be due to Albania under the Paris Act of January 14, 1946, in partial satisfaction for the damage caused to Italy by the Albanian law of January 13, 1945. Italy felt that the Court could not decide this question without passing judgment upon the international responsibility of Albania to Italy as a result of the Albanian law in question; Italy felt that the Court could not adjudicate such a question without the consent of Albania. Neither the United States nor France deposited formal submissions to the Court on the preliminary question; the United Kingdom, the third defendant in the case, argued that in view of Italy's objection to the competence of the Court, its application instituting proceedings of May 19, 1953, no longer conformed to the conditions or intentions of the tripartite Washington statement of April 25, 1951, and was, therefore, invalid and void. As an alternative, the United Kingdom argued that the action of the Italian government in raising the preliminary question constituted in fact a withdrawal or cancellation of its application.

In a general introduction to a survey of agricultural development in Latin America published recently by the Food and Agriculture Organization, the Director-General (Dodd) stressed the importance of the problem for the future development of the region. He pointed out that if the current rate of population increase continued, the population of the region would increase by 25 percent in the next ten years; in order to maintain even present standards of food consumption, therefore, agricultural output would have to be increased. Infact, he continued, per capita consumption had been rising, largely through decreased exports of food and increased imports of food; the implications of this policy were, however, undesirable in terms of the region's long-range development. Mr. Dodd emphasized that Latin America depended almost solely on the export of raw materials, largely agricultural products, for earning foreign exchange; a reduction in its earnings of foreign exchange resulting from fewer exports, coupled with the expenditure of a larger proportion of available foreign exchange for food imports, he pointed out, would delay general economic development which required large imports of industrial material. In order, therefore, to maintain the rate of economic development and at the same time to improve levels of food consumption, it was extremely important to increase greatly food and agricultural production.

Effect of Awards of Compensation Made by the United Nations Administrative Tribunal: On December 9, 1953, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution requesting the International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion on the following questions: 1) has the General Assembly the right to refuse to give effect to an award of compensation made by the Administrative Tribunal in favor of a United Nations staff member whose contract of service had been terminated without his assent? and 2) if the Court's answer to the first question was in the affirmative, what were the principal grounds on which the Assembly could lawfully exercise such a right? After copies of this resolution were transmitted to the Court by a letter of the Secretary-General (Hammarskjold) dated December 16, the Court fixed March 15, 1954, as the time-limit within which written statements might be submitted by any state entitled to appear before it or any international organization considered by the president as likely to be able to furnish information on these questions, and reserved the rest of the procedure for further decision. Members of the United Nations and the International Labor Organization were then notified that, in accordance with Article 66 (2) of the Statute, the president considered them likely to be able to furnish such information.

Annual Report of the Secretary-General: In the introduction to the eighth annual report ofthe Secretary-General on the work of the United Nations, which covered the period of July 1, 1953, to June 30, 1954, Dag Hammarskjold reviewed the role of the United Nations in the maintenance of peace and security in the light of the recent cessation of fighting in Korea and in Indochina. He stated that while every effort to further the purposes of the United Nations, even if outside the framework of the organization, should be welcomed, although such developments might weaken the prestige and effectiveness of the United Nations. More specifically, he noted that while the use of regional arrangements, when appropriate, was encouraged in the Charter, “where resort to such arrangements is chosen in the first instance, that choice should not be permitted to cast any doubt on the ultimate responsibility of the United Nations”. Mr. Hammarskjold expressed belief in the need for new approaches to peace inthe light of the failure of the subcommittee set up by the Disarmament Commission to reach any agreement at London. He took special note of the absence from the United Nations of “almost half the countries of Europe” as well as statesin other areas. The Secretary-General felt that the situation in the middle easthad deteriorated during the period under review; the United Nations had aspecial responsibility there, and should search for ways to eliminate points of friction not involving questions of principle, until such time as it would be possible to achieve a genuine peace settlement.

The eighth annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development was held in Washington from September 9 to 12, 1953, under the chairmanship of Mohamad Ali, Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs of Pakistan. Two of the six plenary meetings were joint sessions with the Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund. On September 11 an informal panel discussion was held on the subject of private international investment in under-developed countries.

The seventh session of the Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization was held in Rome from November 23 to December 11, 1253. The membership of FAO was increased to 71 at the seventh session by the admission of Libya, Iran, and Yemen. Dr. Philip V. Cardon (United States) was appointed Director-General of FAO for the following four years, to succeed Mr. Norris E. Dodd. The Conference appointed three commisions to deal, respectively, with agenda items pertaining to 1) the world situation and outlook in food and agriculture; 2) activites of the orgainzations; and 3) constitutional, legal, administrative, and financial questions.

From November 18 to 20, 1953, the eighteenth session of the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organization was held in Rome under the chairmanship of Josue de Castro. At this session a final survey was made of arrangements for the seventh session of the FAO Conference, which was scheduled to open in Rome on November 23. Having decided at its seventeenth session to report to the Conference on the most recent developments in the world agricultural situation and outlook highlighting issues for the special attention of the Conference, the Council drafted a statement which supplemented the report of the Director-General (Dodd) entitled The State of Food and Agriculture, 1953. The Council reported that since the sixth session of the Conference in 1951 when continuing food shortages were the main concern, the situation had changed considerably; supplies of many commodities were now pressing hard against effective demand. While stocks of some agricultural commodities had accumulated and nations were finding their disposal difficult, supplies were still insufficient to provide adequate standards of nutrition in large parts of the world. The improvement in supplies in the last few years had not been matched by an in-crease in consumption levels, and one or two bad harvests could wipe out much of the increase in annual production which had been achieved and reduce substantially present levels of stocks, the Council stated. The following points were commended to the attention of the Conference: 1) problems involved in the selective expansion of production, especially in the less developed regions, 2) methods of maintaining the level of farm incomes, especially by increased efficiency, and 3) methods of increasing per caput consumption levels.

On March 1, 1954, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development released a report supplementing its eighth annual report and covering its activities from July 1, 1953, until February 1, 1954. During this period, eighteen loans totaling $190,392,000 were made in ten countries, bringing the total of Bank lending to $1,781,158,464 for 96 loans in 31 countries. On February 1, 1954, total disbursements on loans amounted to $1,261,310,913, $158,049,798 of which had been made in the period covered in the report. Net earnings for the seven months ending February 1, 1954, totaled $11,072,000 all of which had been credited to the Supplemental Reserve against Losses on Loans and Guarantees, raising that supplemental reserve to $87,586,000. Approximately $6,550,000 had been added to the Special Reserve, increasing it to $43,787,000. Four issues of Bank bonds had increased the outstanding direct obligations of the Bank by $198,269,342 during the period; total Bank issues outstanding as of February 1, 1954, amounted to $753,479,877, of which $675 million was denominated in United States dollars and the remainder in sterling, Swiss francs or Canadian dollars. $15,448,464 principal amount of borrowers' obligations had been sold to private investors during the period; $10,163,766 of this total was sold without the Bank's guarantee. As of February 1, 1954, total sales by the Bank of the obligations of its borrowers totaled $85,463,118, of which $31,638,140 had been retired

Treatment in Hungary of Aircraft and Crew of United States of America: On March 3, 1954, the United States filed with the Registry of the International Court of Justice Applications dated February 16, 1954, instituting proceedings against the governments of Hungary and the Soviet Union in the matter of the treatment in Hungary of aircraft and crew of the United States. In two orders of July 12, 1954, the Court removed the cases from its list, since neither Hungary nor the Soviet Union had accepted the jurisdiction of the Court in the matter.

The first full-length session of the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization since the seventh session of the Assembly opened in Montreal on October 7, 1953. Members and chairmen of the Council's subsidiary organs were appointed by the Council upon the nomination of ICAO members: Walter Binaghi (Argentina) was reappointed chairman of the Air Navigation Commission; Enrique Loaeza (Mexico) was appointed chairman of the Air Transport Committee; and Joaquim de Brito Subtil (Portugal) chairman of the Committee on Joint Support of Air Navigation Services.

For the nine-month period ending March 31, 1954, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development reported a net income of $15,006,406, as compared with $12,947,735 for the corresponding period of 1953. With the addition of this income, the Supplemental Reserve against Losses on Loans and Guarantees was raised to $91,519,917. Loan commissions of $8,552,839 were credited to the Bank's Special Reserve, raising it to $45,789,316. Gross income exclusive of loan commissions was $36,994,782, $5,312,509 more than in the corresponding period in 1953. Total expenses were $21,988,376, including $4,417,789 of administrative expenses, $14,776,629 of bond interest, and $2,793,958 of bond issuance. Twenty-two loans totalling $275,482,000, were made during the period, increasing total loan agreements signed by the Bank to $1,866,248,464. Total disbursements on loans were increased to $1,314,852,214 by disbursements of $211,591,099 during the nine months covered in the re-port. Repayments from borrowers for the period were $2,715,263, bringing total repayments to $15,383,573. The Bank had sold or agreed to sell to private investors $21,607,456 principal amount of its loans, including $5,284,698 with its guarantee. As of March 31, 1954, sales of effective loans totaled $91,622,119.