The 117th session of the Governing Body of the International Labor Organization met at Geneva from November 22 to 26, 1951 under the chairmanship of Paul Ramadier. Meetings of the Governing Body's committees on manpower and employment, finance and administration, relations with other international organizations, industrial committees, technical assistance, and allocations preceded the session, at which reports of these committees were considered. Also on the Governing Body's agenda was the report of the third session of the Asian Advisory Committee, which was held in Geneva from November 10 to 13. The Governing Body authorized the Director-General (Morse) to consult the Egyptian government on suggestions which might result in an investigation by ILO of Egyptian charges that United Kingdom military authorities were using arms to force Egyptians to work in the Suez Canal zone. Among its other decisions the Governing Body accepted an invitation from Brazil to hold ILO's Fifth American Regional Conference at Rio de Janeiro from April 17 to 30, 19S2, authorized the Director-General to undertake consultations with a view to the convening of a tripartite meeting of representatives from coal-producing countries on problems of the coal mining industry, and reaffirmed the need for ILO to continue to assist governments in solving immediate practical problems in the manpower field and, particularly, to provide them with technical assistance concerning the migration process. An invitation from Turkey to locate ILO's Near and Middle East Manpower Field Office at Istanbul was accepted, and an agreement by ILO and the Council of Europe providing for cooperation between the two bodies approved. It was decided that the next session of the Governing Body should be held at Geneva from March 11 to 14, 1952.

The fifteenth session of the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization, meeting in Montreal, January 29 and April 2, 1952, referred thequestion of retroactive applications of amendments to Annex 1 of International Standards and Recommended Practices to the Air Navigation Commission for continued study; adopted amendment 1 to Annex 12 (Search and Rescue) and pertinent recommendations of the Air Navigation Commission; and accepted amendment 4 to Annex 10 (Aeronautical Telecommunications). In its discussion of secondment policy, the Council directed the Secretary-General (Ljunberg) to report to the Council on recruitment by the employment of secondment, as envisaged by the ICAO Service Code, and referred to a working group proposals for the revision of staff policy. The Council decided that the special conference for the finalization of a revised Rome Convention on Damage Caused by Foreign Aircraft to Third Parties on the Surface scheduled to convene in Rome on September 9, 1952 should be open to all states, including non-contracting states which were Members of the United Nations, and Rumania, and agreed to include in the documentation for the Rome conference the interpretation of the Air Transport Committee of the Council's insurance resolution of December 6, 1950 to the effect that the resolution was intended to establish maximum limits of state action to cover all forms of international air navigation.

The ninth and final session of the International Refugee Organization's General Council was held in Geneva from February 11 to 16, 1952. All but two (China and Iceland) of the member states were represented at the session, as were observers of six non-member states, the Holy See, the United Nations, the International Labor Organization, the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Having elected officers for the session and having approved the report on the eighth session, the General Council received and considered, from the acting chairman of the Eligibility Review Board, a report covering the period from July 1 to December 31, 1951; during which time 2,606 decisions were made after 1,086 appellants had received personal interviews. The acting chairman revealed that during the entire life of the board 21,906 personal hearings had been given and 36,742 decisions had been made involving approximately 80,000 persons, with the eligibility criteria for IRO services — under the policy guidance of the Executive Committee and General Council — becoming more and more lenient as the operation progressed. The acting chairman of the board, having outlined to the council the reasons why it was still useful for refugees in Germany and elsewhere to be determined eligible for IRO services despite the fact that IRO had ceased to grant such services, stated that the board would finalize as many outstanding appeals as possible before it ceased to exist on February 15, 1952.

The seventh annual report of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to the Board of Governors, covering the period July 1, 1951 to June 30, 1952, was transmitted by the President of the Bank (Black) to the Board on September 3, 1952. During the fiscal year reviewed in the report, the Bank continued to help its members to draw up long-term programs of economic development, which were designed to raise the level of productivity and to increase the standard of living through the dispatch of general survey missions, primarily, and through the appointment of a number of specialized missions to study specific development problems in member countries. Although it was considered too early to attempt any general appraisal of the impact of the technical assistance program, the Bank reported its encouragement with evidence that the work done by the survey missions was achieving results in most countries to which they had been sent. The Bank also indicated that survey missions could often have the effect of changing the attitude of the country toward development problems.

The fifth session of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization had authorized the Director-General (Bodet) “to assist in the establishment of a World Braille Council”, but subsequent investigation had revealed that the existing state of development of Braille in the different regions of the world, and the lack of properly established national or regional organizations, rendered impossible the creation of an independent council. UNESCO's Executive Board, therefore, at its twenty-eighth session, authorized the Director-General to establish provisionally a World Braille Council attached to UNESCO in the form of an advisory committee, in which connection the Director-General summoned a committee of experts to work out the composition and role of the proposed council. The consultative committee met in Paris from December 10 to 12, 1951, prepared draft statutes for the council, and made recommendations as to the methods of work of the council and the tasks which it should undertake. Under the terms of the proposed statutes, the World Braille Council (WBC), to be composed of nine members with technical and regional qualifications and to be convened at least once every five years at the call of UNESCO's Director-General, would have the following functions: 1) advise the Director-General on all matters relating to the maintenance or extension of uniformity in Braille usage; 2) advise the Director-General as to the best means of establishing liaison with interested organizations'; and 3) deal with any other matters referred to it by the Director-General. Further, the consultative committee recommended, for the purpose of the council's work, the division of the world into eight lingual zones and suggested that WBC's program include musical notation, mathematical and science symbols, the compilation of an international catalogue, the establishment of regional councils, and assistance in the continuation and coordination of uniform Braille systems for the African and southeast Asian languages.

The Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organization held its sixth session in Montreal from May 27 to June 12, 1952. Mr. John Paul Barringer (United States) was unanimously elected president of the assembly and Col. B. M. Amarante (Brazil), Mr. A. Kofoed-Hansen (Iceland), Dr. R. Sugoto (Indonesia) and Mr. E. Bisang (Switzerland), vice-presidents. The question of economy overshadowed the entire session and Canada's offer of a $130,500 reduction in annual headquarters rental, subject to parliamentary approval, was clearly “the highlight in savings”. Although certain delegations considered that the organization's activities should be curbed, the prevailing opinion of the conference was that the scale of effort for past years should be sustained in 1953. The Assembly adopted a gross budget of $3,259,384 for the fiscal year 1953 with assessments to contracting states amounting to $2,817,167, as compared with a net budget of $2,824,994 for 1952.

The annual joint meeting of the Boards of Governors of the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development was held in Washington from September 10 to 14, 1951, concurrently with the annual meetings of the Governors of the individual bodies. The Czechoslovakian Governor proposed at the opening meeting that delegates from the People's Republic of China be substituted (in all Fund, Bank and Joint machinery) for the delegates from the “Kuomintang group”. No action, however, was taken on the “expulsion” resolution. At the closing joint session, on September 14, the Governors disposed of the remainder of the substantive work of the Joint Procedures Committee by agreeing that: 1) the seventh annual meeting of the joint Boards of Governors be held in Mexico City in the first half of September, 1952; 2) the Governor for Brazil be chairman for the joint Board of Governors for the ensuing year, while the Governors for China, France, India, the United Kingdom and the United States be vice-chairmen; 3) the composition of the Joint Procedures Committee for the ensuing year be the Governors for Brazil (chairman), Australia (vice-chairman), Lebanon (reporting member), and China, Finland, France, India, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The sixth report of the International Labor Organization to the United Nations noted that, in the preparation of the 1953 program of ILO, the organization had found itself faced with the necessity of distinguishing between what was essential and what was desirable. “The criteria for this distinction have been the financial capacity of Governments to pay.’ Two general objectives toward which all ILO activities were directed were methods of increasing labor productivity and action to secure and maintain full employment. However, it was emphasized that these were long-range objectives which could not be measured in the “arbitrary time limit” of a single year. Shifts in emphasis in ILO's program were more apparent in different types of activity within these general fields rather than in the adoption of a different program. For example, the report continued, in 1950 when there appeared that a threat of recession in the United States and Europe existed, ILO placed particular emphasis on problems of full employment; since that time, ILO had placed increasing emphasis on problems of underemployment in underdeveloped countries.

The annual report for the year 1951 by the World Health Organization's Director-General (Chisholm) to the World Health Assembly and the United Nations stated that — while there had been neither any spectacular advances toward the goals of WHO, nor any disquieting setbacks — the year had been characterized by “the gradual but unmistakable development of a ‘world health consciousness’ and by a broadening of the general concept of the right to health”. Among the more important trends in world health, the report noted: 1) the increasing awareness of the importance of health in industrial, agricultural, and general social and economic advancement; 2) the growing emphasis on the education and training of medical personnel and increasing governmental recognition of the importance of WHO's health units and health demonstration areas; 3) the evidence of growing international cooperation in health matters; 4) the continuation, with WHO's help and guidance, of long-term governmental public-health programs and of the important campaigns to educate the masses of the people on questions of public and private health, in order to gain the enthusiastic support without which no amount of national or international planning or action could hope to be successful; and 5) the continuation of efforts toward the mass control of diseases such as yaws, non-venereal infantile syphilis, malaria, tuberculosis, and typhoid. The report also directed attention to WHO's work during 1951 in birth control, particularly through the Regional Committee for South-East Asia; the European influenza epidemic; the direction of health work among the Palestine refugees and the civilian populations in Korea; and the completion of the drafting of the International Sanitary Regulations and their adoption by the fourth World Health Assembly.

The thirty-fifth International Labor Conference was held in Geneva from June 4 to 28, 1952 under the presidency of Mr. de Segadas Vianna (Brazil), with Mr. J. B. Pons (Uruguay), Mr. V. V. Dravid (India) and Mr. G. P. Delaney (United States) as vice-presidents. The agenda was composed of nine items; 1) information and reports on the application of conventions and recommendations; 2) holidays with pay in agriculture; 3) objectives and standards of social security; 4) cooperation between public authorities and employers' and workers' organizations; 5) revision of the maternity protection convention of 1919; 6) protection of the health of workers in places of employment; 7) regulation of the employment of young persons in underground work in the coal mines; 8) the Director-General's report; and 9) financial and budgetary questions.

The General Council of the International Refugee Organization held its eighth session October 23 to 27, 1951 at Geneva. The Council reviewed the annual report of the Director-General for the period July 1, 1950 to June 30, 1951 in which Mr. Kingsley summarized the activities and achievements of IRO since its inception, defined the migration trends for the previous year, and discussed methods being employed to transfer IRO functions to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Allied High Commission for Germany, and to voluntary groups and local authorities. In a supplementary report on residual problems Mr. Kingsley emphasized the serious refugee problems in Greece, Trieste, Austria, Italy, China, and Korea which would survive the organization's closure early in 1952 despite the substantial completion of IRO activities by that time. He reported that 573 ‘institutional hard core’ cases were being resettled and 1,514 locally resettled but pointed out a lack in satisfactory arrangement for 477 hard core cases in Shanghai, Samar, Greece, and Spain, while particularly emphasizing the need to make intensive efforts to resettle the 398 cases in Shanghai and 900 additional cases in Trieste. Although the Council agreed to delay its communication on residual problems to the United Nations until its next session pending further information on Trieste and Shanghai, it approved a decision first to assist the 477 hard core cases, then to apportion expenditures equally between material assistance and resettlement. At the close of this report on residual problems Mr. Kingsley announced the favorable outcome of the shipping program and satisfactory arrangements with the ‘institutional hard core’, permitting resettlement of 9,000 additional refugees before closure.

On January 3, 1952, the International Monetary Fund1 announced that Burmahad signed the Articles of Agreement, becoming the fifty-first member of the Fund. Burma's quota in the Fund was designated at $15,000,000.

Par Values: The Fund announced on January 17 the establishment of the initial par value for the Ceylon rupee at 4.76190 rupees per United States dollar.

The Annual Report of the Executive Directors of the International Monetary Fund for the fiscal year ended April 30, 1952 was presented to the Board of Governors by its chairman (Rooth) on June 24, 1952. The report indicated that, despite a remarkable growth in production and one widespread adjustment of exchange rates over the previous seven years, international payments were still far from having attained a state of balance and exchange difficulties and restrictions existed again over large parts of the world, for countries constituting a large part of the world had followed policies aimed at achieving higher levels of consumption and investment than could be covered out of real resources available. This had resulted in a situation of inflationary pressures that in certain countries had been aggravated by rearmament programs, pressures which created excessive demands for imports and reduced the quantities of goods available for export. In this situation the use of exchange restrictions and quantitative import controls, frequently of a discriminatory nature, seemed inevitable to many countries; and during the past year there had been a tendency to extend and intensify these restrictions and controls.

The sixth session of the Contracting Parties to GATT met at Geneva, Switzerland, from September 17 to October 26, 1951 under the chairmanship of Johan Melander (Norway). Participating were delegates of the 34 countries which were contracting parties and observers from other governments and intergovernmental organizations.

The last annual report of the International Refugee Organization to the United Nations summarized the work of IRO and its predecessors from the decision by the General Assembly on February 12, 1946 to establish the organization to March 1, 1952 when IRO entered its period of liquidation. During this time, ninety percent of the refugees registered with IRO had been repatriated, resettled or otherwise assisted; over one million persons had been resettled while over 73,000 had been repatriated to their countries of origin or former residence. During the period from July 1, 1947 to February 7, 1952 the organization had received contributions from member governmentstotalling $398,596,802.

At the thirteenth session of the Caribbean Commission it was announced that agreements had been made between the Technical Cooperation Administration of the United States and the governments of France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom for technical assistance in the field of aided self-help housing, $68,000 being allotted for a two-year period. The commission, at this session, 1) accepted the recommendation that a statement of the radio stations issuing hurricane warnings and a list of frequencies and power output be sent to interested governments at the start of the hurricane season; 2) selected Guadeloupe as the site for the fourteenth session of the commission opening on May 5; 3) agreed that a trade promotion conference should be held, which would include a discussion on the effect of tariffs; 4) agreed on a provisional agenda for the fifth session of the West Indian Conference; and 5) agreed that the fields selected for emphasis in new projects should be limited to agriculture, forestry and fisheries development, industrial development and housing. The commission also adopted the following schedule of conferences for 1952: industrial development, in Puerto Rico in February; fisheries, in Trinidad in March; existing and potential timber trade, in Trinidad in April; Eastern Caribbean Hurricane Subcommission, in Trinidad in June (second meeting); cooperative workshop, in Puerto Rico in July or August; and home economics, in Trinidad in the latter part of the year or early 1953. A proposal that the commission study the problem of providing credit for small farmers and a resolution urging governments to encourage the maximum use and development of natural resources were approved, while the commission urged implementation of a previous resolution relating to freedom of the air.

The seventh session of the Administrative Council of the International Tele-communication Union met in Geneva from April 21 to June 6, 1952. The council studied the report of the Extraordinary Administrative Conference held at the end of 1951 in Geneva, considered that the conference had contributed greatly to the solution of the frequency assignment problem, accepted the extensive long-term responsibilities resulting from the agreements that the conference had adopted and decided to examine at each of its sessions until 1956 arrangements for the final implementation of the Atlantic City Frequency Allocation Table. Decisions were not unanimously taken, because a minority of the delegates were of the opinion that the principles adopted since 1948 for the preparation of a new international frequency list were “fallacious” and that the problem should be tackled from another angle.

Committee of Ministers:The tenth session of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe met in Paris on March 19 and 20, 1952 under the chairmanship of Oesten Bo Unden, Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs. This being the first meeting of the committee since the third session of the Consultative Assembly held in Strasbourg from November 26 to December 11, 1951, one of the items on the agenda was the examination of recommendations adopted at the session.

The Executive Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization held its twenty-eighth session in Paris October 23 to November 1, 1951. With the design of implementing the UNESCO twelve-year fundamental educational program to improve education and living standards in all the underdeveloped areas of the world and in accordance with the General Conference decision to build a network of regional centers to formulate teacher training methods, the board chose Sevsel Layyam, Egypt as the second regional training center. This village, 40 miles from Cairo, was selected, because it appeared typical of communities in lower Egypt and in the Arab nations in general. Representatives from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria were expected to begin a twenty-one month course of study early in 1952. However, should unsettled conditions in Egypt forestall its operation, the Board would select an alternate site in the Philippines. A $235,000 allocation of the 1952 budget was approved by the board for the operation of the Egyptian and the Patzcuaro, Mexico centers. The board urged UNESCO members to provide fellowships to Korea for assistance in the educational reconstruction of the country. This request was. based upon a report by the Director-General (Bodet) which states that 57 percent of the teachers’ training colleges and high schools in Korea had been destroyed by the war, teachers to training colleges had been reduced 41 percent and high school instructors 54 percent. The board appointed Ronald Adam (United Kingdom) and Constantine K. Zurayk (Syria) to serve with Mr. Bodet on a joint commission of the Organization of American States and UNESCO. A single draft covenant on human rights, including economic, social and cultural rights, as well as civil and political rights, was favored by the board.

The sixth meeting of the Administrative Council of the International Telecommunication Union was held in Geneva, April 16–May 26, 1951. The seventh session was to begin on April 9, 1952. Because of the nearness of the Plenipotentiary Conference of ITU, the agenda of the seventh session was limited to administrative and fiscal problems.