IO files, US/A/3576
Plenary Position Paper of the United
States Delegation to the Seventh Regular
Session of the General Assembly
restricted
[New
York,] December 20, 1952.
Admission of New Members: Report of the Ad Hoc
Political Committee
1. United States Position
The United States should vote in favor of the seven resolutions on membership
adopted by the Ad Hoc Committee. The first of these
is the five-power Central American resolution which recommends the
establishment of a Special Committee to make a detailed study of the
question of the admission of states to membership and to examine the
proposals and suggestions which have been made in the General Assembly. The
second is the United States resolution requesting the Security Council to
take note of the General Assembly determination that Japan should be
admitted to membership because it is a peace-loving state within the meaning
of Article Four of the Charter and is able and willing to carry out its
obligations. The five other resolutions make similar determinations with
respect to the application of Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Jordan and Libya.
The Polish “package deal” resolution failed to obtain the required two-thirds
vote in the Ad Hoc Committee. If it is re-introduced,
as is expected, the United States should vote against its adoption. In the
event an amendment is presented by Egypt to delete the word “simultaneous”
from the Polish resolution, the United States should abstain as it did in
the Committee.
The United States should vote under Rule 67 against Plenary discussion of the
report of the Ad Hoc Committee. However, the United
States should make a brief statement in explanation of its vote along the
lines suggested in Annex A.
2. History in Committee
The seven resolutions adopted by the Ad Hoc Committee
received overwhelming support of the members: the five-power Central
American resolution was adopted 45–5–8; the United States resolution on
Japan carried by 48 for, 5 against, and six abstentions; the French
resolutions on Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam were accepted by identical
margins, 38–5–16 and the Libyan and Jordan resolutions carried each by
49–5-with 5 abstentions. The Polish package resolution was turned down
20–28–11.
3. Possible Plenary Developments
It is anticipated that the seven resolutions adopted by the Ad Hoc Committee will receive similar support in the Plenary. It
is also anticipated
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that, in the
event the Polish resolution is resubmitted, it will fail to receive the
two-thirds majority necessary for adoption.
It is expected that the Central American sponsors of the resolution
establishing the Special Committee will move to amend the composition of the
group by substituting Pakistan for India, the latter having stated it will
not participate. The United States should vote in favor of this
amendment.
Annex A
Draft United States Statement
Mr. Chairman: I should like to explain briefly
the votes my Government will cast on the resolutions before us.
It is clear from the debates which took place in the Ad
Hoc Political Committee that all of us regard the membership
problem as the outstanding organizational problem of the United Nations.
The future growth and vitality of the United Nations depends upon its
solution. So long as all of those nations qualified for membership are
not here among us, the United Nations cannot achieve its maximum
effectiveness. New blood would bring fresh energy and enthusiasm as well
as collective strength and wisdom to our discussions.
The debate in the Committee convinced my Government that the Central
American draft resolution calling for the creation of a Special
Committee offered the most constructive method of procedure. Such a
committee will be able to make an objective, careful exploration and
analysis of every aspect of the membership problem.
Of course, no one can guarantee that the Special Committee will find the
solution. We may recall, however, the work of the sub-committee set up
by the Interim Committee to study the problem of voting in the Security
Council. The results of that study were, in the opinion of most
delegations, highly useful. The results of the efforts of a similar
group on the membership problem should be of even greater utility to the
United Nations and help us to progress towards the goal of
universality.
During the course of discussions in the Committee, many suggestions were
made with a view to ending the membership deadlock. My delegation was
particularly impressed by the serious thought and study our friends from
Latin America have given to the membership problem. My Delegation
listened with great interest especially to the distinguished delegate
from El Salvador, Ambassador Urquia and to
Ambassador Belaunde from Peru. While a number of
the suggested solutions seem to my Government to raise grave
constitutional issues, I am sure that the Special Committee will wish to
study them all carefully to see if they offer a feasible method to move
towards fuller implementation of the principle of universality.
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I should like, also, to explain briefly why our delegation will have to
vote against the Polish draft resolution which was defeated in the Ad Hoc Committee. The Polish resolution, which
calls for a “package deal” admission of fourteen states, in our opinion,
prejudges the question of admission. This is true whether the text of
the proposal calls for simultaneous admission or
simply for admission. The Polish draft resolution would have the General
Assembly express by implication what we have not been willing to express
explicitly: that all of the states listed therein are qualified. It
would equate certain states which have not been found qualified (that
is, Albania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Rumania and Outer Mongolia) with such
peace-loving nations as Italy, or Austria, or Ceylon.
We are firm supporters of universality of membership, Mr. Chairman, but
it must be universality based upon principles and not upon deals. This
is another serious defect of the Polish proposal. It includes some
applicants and excludes others on the basis of no stated standard. It
includes some applications which have received endorsement by a majority
of the Security Council. It provides the United Nations with no clear
and defined criteria by which to judge the pending applications not
included in the partial list contained in the Polish resolution or to
judge future applications. We favor no deals which leave some existing
and all future applications to the whim of future deals rather than to
the disposition on the basis of stated principles or standards. It may
possibly be urged with reason that principles of admissibility should be
more liberal than those we now apply. But those principles upon which we
agree should be of universal application, so that they may be applied to
all future as well as existing applicants.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, a word of explanation of our vote endorsing the
candidacies of Japan, the three Associated States of Indo-China, Jordan
and Libya.
This will be the first time the General Assembly is able to pass on the
candidacy of Japan. As you know, the Japanese Government filed its
application for membership in June of this year. It would already have
had a favorable recommendation from the Security Council were it not for
the veto cast by the Soviet delegate to the Council last September.
However, in the view of my Government and in the view of the
over-whelming majority of representatives on the Ad
Hoc Committee, Japan is qualified for membership. It seems to
me, therefore, it is only fair for the Assembly to put itself on record
in this sense. Such action will provide Japan with further stimulus to
continue the positive contributions it is already making to the
specialized agencies of the United Nations of which she is a member. It
will encourage the Japanese people to continue on the path of peaceful
advancement.
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For similar reasons we have endorsed the candidacies of the three
Associated States of Indo-China and will vote for them in the Plenary.
And, finally, let me also say that we were happy to add our votes to the
Ad Hoc Political Committee’s endorsement of
the candidacies of Jordan and Libya. The Assembly has already found
these two states qualified for membership. We shall be glad to express
our endorsement of their candidacies again.1
