Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, General; The United Nations, Volume I

IO Files: US/A/C.1/131

Minutes of a Meeting With Members of the United Kingdom Delegation, New York, September 24, 1947

New York, September 24, 1947

confidential

Participants:	Mr. Hector McNeil	}	United Kingdom Delegation
	Sir Hartley Shawcross
	Sir Alexander Cadogan
	Mr. Gladwyn Jebb
	Mr. W. E. Beckett
	Mr. V. G. Lawford
	Mr. P. S. Falla
	Mr. E. E. Tomkins
	Mr. John Foster Dulles
	Mr. Dean Rusk
	Mr. Elwood Thompson
	Mr. David Wainhouse
	Mr. Charles Noyes
	Mr. Hayden Raynor

General Assembly Interim Committee and the Veto

This meeting was arranged at the request of the British side in-order to exchange views on the two questions listed above. In view of the slightly late arrival of Messrs. McNeil, Shawcross and Cadogan, the meeting opened with a presentation by Mr. Beckett of a formula which he had in mind which he thought would accomplish our purpose and at the same time be completely legal from the point of view of the Charter. This plan was for the General Assembly to remain in session most of the year, operating however only through one committee, Committee 1. An outline of Mr. Beckett’s views is attached.¹ This will be submitted later as an addendum to this document.

Mr. Jebb then described certain reservations which he has to Mr. Beckett’s plan. His main point is a feeling that it at least strains Article 20 of the Charter, which states that the General Assembly shall hold an annual meeting. A copy of a memorandum prepared by Mr. Jebb outlining his views is attached. It will be noted that Mr. Jebb however feels that it would be legal for this Assembly to decree that its Committee 1 continue to exist during the interim period and he believes that there would be no question of the legality of Committee 1 then establishing whatever necessary Sub-committees or working parties which might be needed.

After the arrival of Messrs. McNeil, Shawcross and Cadogan, Mr. Dulles gave a comprehensive review of our background thinking which led to the proposal for the creation of an Interim Committee of the Assembly. He stressed the following two reasons:

a. Public opinion in this country, which is crying for some revitalization of the United Nations.

b. The acute need during this abnormal period to have some continuing body of the Assembly which can study and report on important questions requiring Assembly attention in view of the fact that there are too many major questions at issue at the moment for the Assembly to handle at its regular session.

In Mr. Dulles’ exposition he stressed the importance we attach to this committee handling matters referred to it under the purview of Article 14 of the Charter. He also stressed that we have no rigid ideas as to the exact method which should be employed to accomplish the aims of strengthening the Assembly which we have in mind. He mentioned the point that we look on the whole proposition as an experiment and thus provided for it to exist for only a year and to include in its terms of reference the responsibility of studying and reporting on the desirability of some such arrangement being permanent. In his discussion Mr. Dulles explained our view that Ave felt it was unwise for the General Assembly itself to remain in session for a long time in view of the impossibility under such circumstances of the leading political personalities of the world attending long meetings. He explained that the General Assembly’s strength is primarily based on its moral authority which in turn in world opinion depends to a considerable extent on the presence in the Assembly of leading world political figures.

In making a point as to a committee of the type we have in mind being able to do advance study and preparatory work on problems coming before the Assembly, Mr. Dulles cited the example of Korea² on which no one other than the Great Powers involved had probably given much thought and how it would have been desirable for this to have been studied by a committee of the Assembly in a preparatory way prior to the meeting of the Assembly itself. Mr. Dulles outlined the theory that when the Charter was drafted no one had expected that problems such as Korea and Austria might have to be referred to the United Nations for settlement in view of the inability of the Great Powers to agree. He said that now the United Nations might be faced with a great variety of such problems.

Sir Hartley Shawcross inquired if we envisaged members having the right to raise questions directly with this committee and Mr. Dulles replied in the affirmative but explained that we felt the right of the Assembly to make recommendations to Member States on the other hand was such a fundamental right that the Assembly should not delegate this.

Sir Hartley then inquired if we envisaged the committee resulting generally in a by-passing of the Security Council. Mr. Dulles replied in the negative, stating that while there might be some degree of competition between the two bodies he thought it might not extend beyond the stage of healthy competition. He explained our thesis that on the contrary the Security Council would be strengthened as we could at least hope that the existence of this Assembly body might result in more efficient operation of the Security Council (the Soviet attitude in the Security Council might be more reasonable).

Mr. Dulles also argued that there was an area of eases, such as Spain and the United Kingdom-Egyptian case,³ which in so far as the Security Council was concerned could be termed borderline cases and which probably never should have been brought to the Security Council as no direct threats to the peace were involved. He said the committee could handle this type of case and thus keep the decks of the Security Council free to handle the critical problems for which it was designed.

Mr. McNeil then raised the question as to whether it was legally possible for Member States to remit problems directly to a committee rather than to the Assembly. Mr. Dulles replied that we felt it was and explained our feeling that a body such as the Assembly could delegate such powers as studying, investigation, reporting, that in our view the only type of power which it could not delegate was its own power of judgment or discretion. Sir Alexander Cadogan expressed agreement with this view.

Mr. McNeil inquired if we envisaged the committee having the power to appoint investigating committees and Mr. Dulles replied in the affirmative. The British did not appear to challenge this.

Mr. McNeil inquired if we felt the committee had the right to call special sessions and Mr. Dulles said “Yes”.

Sir Hartley Shawcross at this point returned to the question as to whether the idea could not be carried out in a better way by some form of adjournment of the Assembly such as adjournment sine die. There was considerable discussion on this point.

Finally Sir Hartley raised the political aspect of the question, asking what our views would be on the desirability of creating the commission should the Soviet Union pursue the policy it did on the Trusteeship Council and refuse to participate because it felt the creation of the committee was illegal. He also said we should consider the possibility of certain other States taking the same course of action. We admitted that if this contingency arose, the committee could not be expected to function entirely in the way that we had in mind, but we did feel that nevertheless it should be created in the hope that at some later date any dissidents would join up. Mr. Dulles, in talking to this point, said that he now had some hope that the Soviet might decide in the relatively near future to participate in the work of the Trusteeship Council.

Before adjourning there was a very brief discussion of the veto. The major point raised by the British was to ask the question whether we would consider that a veto had been exercised in the case where there were seven favorable votes and four Great Power negative votes. Dean Rusk replied that we would feel that this type of situation would constitute a veto.

After the meeting Mr. Jebb and others on the British side expressed the hope that this group could meet again in the very near future to continue this discussion.

[Annex]

Memorandum From Mr. Jebb

My own reactions to Mr. Beckett’s note on “One way of carrying out Mr. Marshall’s plan for an Interim Committee” are as follows:

(1) I am not sure that the idea of creating a permanent Assembly which would virtually be in continuous session is not in itself a violation, or at any rate a straining, of Article 20 of the Charter.

(2) I should have thought that a simpler way of achieving the same object, and one moreover which might be more in accordance with the Charter, would be for the General Assembly, before ending its present session, simply to decree that its Committee I should continue in being until the opening of the next Session in September 1948.

(3) This action, which might, I suggest, be justified under Article 22, would of course mean that the body established would have its own powers of recommendation: but it would have ample powers of discussion and there would be nothing to prevent its forming subcommittees or working parties.

(4) It would, in addition, no doubt have also to be laid down in the Resolution of the Assembly establishing the continuing existence of Committee I, that any matter which was, after the end of the present session, referred to the General Assembly by any Member or any non-Member under Article 14 or Article 35, should be considered immediately and in the first instance by Committee I.

In the event of two-thirds of the Members of Committee I being of the opinion after discussion that any matter so referred to the General Assembly should be the subject of immediate attention by the Assembly itself, it will be open for that Committee so to inform the Secretary-General who would then have to dispatch the necessary telegrams to all Member States, and on receipt of the necessary majority (which would be automatic) summon a special session of the General Assembly.

(5) It is for consideration whether, if such a procedure were adopted, it might not be desirable for the Assembly to perpetuate, at any rate for a year, its own general Committee with the object of deciding exactly what subjects referred to the General Assembly should be discussed by Committee I, or which, on the other hand, might more profitably be left over for consideration at the regular General Assembly in September. The General Committee might also suitably be given rather wide powers in regard to the establishment of priorities, and might be instructed to confer with the Secretary-General from time to time on this important subject.

1. Not attached.
2. For documentation on the Korean question, see vol. vi, pp. 596 ff.
3. For documentation on these issues, see vol. v, pp. 761 ff. (the Anglo-Egyptian controversy) and Foreign Relations, 1946, vol. v, pp. 10–23 and Ibid., 1947, vol. iii, pp. 1053 ff. (the Spanish question).