Mr. EL-KHOURI stated that the agenda of the third session of the General Assembly contained forty-eight items, besides a supplementary list of about twenty items. Other items might be submitted later. In the general debate at the present session it would not be possible for each delegation to deal with all those items, which would be allotted to the respective Main Committees, where ample time would be given to the representatives to express their views.
He would deal very briefly with a few outstanding items, expressing the opinion of his delegation and his own views based on personal experiences in the General Assembly and in the Security Council during the past few years.
Four sessions of the General Assembly had already been held in the United States of America and one in London. It had been a happy idea to hold the present session in Paris, among the liberty-loving French people. In the bright atmosphere of that great capital, it was to be hoped that the present session would prove to be more fruitful than the preceding ones.
The essential objective of the United Nations was the maintenance or the restoration of international peace and security. The precedent of the League of Nations had been seriously considered by the authors of the Charter in order to discover and avoid repeating the defects inherent in the Covenant of the League of Nations. It had been discovered that the underlying defect lay in the inability of the League to implement its resolutions for eliminating war or preserving peace. It had been presumed that this weakness emanated from the fact that the League of Nations had no armed force available to enforce its resolutions. To redress that shortcoming, Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations had been drafted to provide suitable machinery. That attitude was emphasized in Article 43 of the Charter.
During the first two years, the Security Council had worked on the problem with the help of the Military Staff Committee composed of the Chiefs of Staff of the permanent members of the Council. However, no concrete, or even abstract, results had been produced by those efforts. This was primarily due to disagreements among the permanent members. Because of those disagreements, the Security Council had been faced with serious situations having no more means of coping with them at its disposal than had the League of Nations.
In view of the existing strained relations between the great Powers, it was to be feared that the Security Council was doomed to remain impotent and helpless far into the foreseeable future, deprived of any adequate armed force with which to give effect to the provisions of Chapter VII of the Charter. Its activities would continue to be confined to mediation and conciliation within the limited scope of the peaceful settlement envisaged in Chapter VI of the Charter. It would continue to rely solely on the moral weight of the prestige of the United Nations.
Under the existing conditions some of the resolutions of the Security Council were doomed to remain inert and destined to oblivion. Among them were resolutions on several situations and disputes which had been ignored or disobeyed by the Member States addressed. It had not been possible to take measures of enforcement either because a veto had been exercised or because other obstructions had been placed in the way, or because the means of execution were lacking.
The competence of the General Assembly, as defined in Articles 9 to 22 of the Charter, was limited to making recommendations. There was nothing in the text implying the imposition of these recommendations on the parties to whom they were addressed, nor was there any obligation of acceptance and application by the addressees. Declining to obey such recommendations did not imply violation of the Charter, nor did it involve sanctions of any kind. Sanctions were to be employed only in cases before the Security Council involving breaches of international peace or acts of aggression. Even then, the Charter granted the power of enforcement to the Security Council alone, and not to the General Assembly. That had been done with a view to reserving to the permanent members, in unanimous agreement, all sanctions and acts of enforcement. Therefore, no compulsory measure of any nature could be taken without being unanimously sponsored by the five great Powers. That safeguard was possible only within the framework of the Security Council.
For that reason, in many instances in the past, recommendations of the General Assembly had not been complied with. This was so in the case of the Union of South Africa, in connexion with the Palestine problem, the admission of certain nations to membership in the United Nations and with several other issues which might be cited to illustrate the ineptness of recommendations made by the General Assembly.
Some naive observers imagined that the General Assembly was a world government or a supreme court of justice empowered to legislate or hand out judgments. That was a wrong conception. The United Nations was only a group of nations united by an international treaty called the Charter. That treaty preserved, untouched, the sovereign prerogatives of its signatories which might not be violated or ignored except with their consent. The only effective safeguard of the honest respect of the treaty was the good faith, fair play, justice and honour of its signatories, together with the necessary justice in the recommendations which might be issued by the General Assembly or the Security Council.
The Charter could be violated in different ways. Some of those ways were internal and fell within the scope of the domestic jurisdiction of the State. Some of them were of an external nature, and fell under the provision regarding the Security Council.
Mr. El-Khouri recalled that the unanimity rule described as the veto was established in Article 27 of the Charter. The authors of the Charter at the San Francisco Conference had considered it a necessary evil. They had anticipated its evil effects on the activities of the Security Council, and had known that the privilege might be abused, that it might actually sterilize the efforts of the Security Council. But they had realized also, from the statements of the great Powers, at that time, that the rule was a necessary prerequisite and condition for the birth of the Organization of the United Nations and its Charter.
Representatives at the San Francisco Conference had been told clearly, especially by one of the representatives of the United States, that the defeat of the veto would mean that they should be obliged to return to their respective countries empty-handed, without a charter. Appraising that alternative, they had chosen to include Article 27, together with Articles 108 and 109, which made amendments to the Charter also subject to the veto rule. At that time, however, it had not been anticipated that the privilege might be abused to such a wide extent as to frustrate the essential objectives of the United Nations and to create a deadlock in the conduct of its business, as manifested during the past year in many important issues brought to the attention of the Security Council. Even before the stage of voting had been reached in the Security Council, the work had sometimes been brought to a standstill, as had been the case in the discussions concerning atomic energy and conventional armaments, the application of Article A3 and the activities of the Military Staff Committee.
Mr. El-Khouri remarked that the world, including the United Nations, was at present divided into two hostile blocs. The conflict resulting from that division had been manifest even in the first meeting of the General Committee on 25 April 1945 at San Francisco. The controversy had continued, becoming more and more acrid, as had been reflected in the activities in the Security Council, most of which were at present at a standstill.
It might seem strange that only one of the great Powers has practised the privilege of the veto, while the other four had not resorted to that device with the exception of one case only.
The Western Powers, however, had never needed the veto to secure their objectives. They had always been able to obtain the seven affirmative votes necessary for the adoption of their proposals. It was not certain how the representative of the United States, for instance, would have acted, had he been in the minority, as the representative of the USSR had always been. Was it not likely that in such circumstances he might have secured the objective of his Government by means of the veto? As long as the Security Council was considered a political organ, its members did not feel themselves bound by the principles of justice and international law. They did not consider themselves impartial judges in any cases presented to them.
It was to be noted that the USSR representative resorted to the use of the veto because he failed to secure enough votes in support of his wish and always saw the wishes of his opponents prevail.
Unless the rivalry between the leading Powers was stopped, the sublime expectations of the world concept could not be realized. It was indeed distressing to see the wave of disappointment spreading over all the world and the desired freedom from fear still far in the distance. Feelings of anxiety, despondency and even fright prevailed. The world atmosphere was being saturated by that wave which was diffusing among all people a spirit of defeatism, encouraging warmongering States, and leading to colossal preparations for a premeditated struggle on a gigantic scale. The small nations in the meantime had centred their hopes on the United Nations. They looked to the representatives of the peoples assembled at the present session in the city of Paris, where the first spark of liberty and human rights had been struck off. They pleaded for a spirit of conciliation to dissipate that fear.
The Syrian representative stated that, contrary to the intent of the Charter embodied in Article A, according to which membership in the United Nations was open to all peace-loving States they found that membership was, on the contrary, closed to them. It had been refused to seven new applicants whose applications had been supported by nine votes out of eleven in the Security Council, but had been blocked by the veto; five of her applications had failed to obtain the necessary seven affirmative votes. Thus, there were twelve States whose applications had not been favoured by the Security Council and whose admission to membership had not been recommended to the General Assembly by the Security Council. However, since the San Francisco Conference, seven new States had been admitted, bringing the total number of States Members of the United Nations to fifty-eight.
The Syrian delegation believed in opening the membership to all independent sovereign States whose independence and sovereignty within their defined borders were not contested or opposed by their neighbours and whose formation or creation was in conformity with the principles of international law, so that the United Nations might include all the rightful States of the world. It would be much easier for non-member States to give effect to Article 2, paragraph 6, of the Charter, which read:
«The Organization shall ensure that States which are not Members of the United Nations act in accordance with these principles so far as may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security. »
That task would be more difficult when the applications of States applying for membership were rejected. It was earnestly to be hoped, therefore, that the General Assembly, at its third regular session, would find a way to surmount the obstacles which had been set up in the Security Council, at least in the case of those applicants which obtained a legal majority in the Security Council; and at the same time that it would make recommendations in favour of the principle of universality of membership, whenever this was possible. It was unfair and unjust to disappoint sovereign States by denying them their aspiration to join the United Nations, to participate in it, and to contribute to world peace and progress. The United Nations was not a monopoly for its founders. The principles and purposes of the United Nations were defined in the Preamble to the Charter, which covered and included present and succeeding generations of mankind.
The Charter advocated the right of every peace-loving nation to join and take part in the privileges and responsibilities of the United Nations. The General Assembly, at the second part of its first session, had recommended to the Security Council that the Security Council should take steps to apply the provisions of Article 11 of the Charter for disarmament and the regulation of armaments entailed in preparations for war and to serve the fundamental principles of the United Nations; namely, preventing the resort to arms in international relations.
The Syrian representative recalled that the Security Council had taken up that question from the beginning and had been working on it for the past two years without any concrete results. Instead of decreasing armaments — or at least freezing the present forces in their fearful magnitude — the great Powers were engaged in an armaments race, in fortifying their military positions and multiplying their forces on an alarming scale. The other Member States were influenced by the example of the great Powers and were trying, so far as they could, to make preparations for self-defence. It was to be regretted that the good peaceful intentions which had inspired those who had laboured on the Charter wore being reversed and made void by the lack of confidence and the spirit of hostile competition adopted by the great Powers, which had brought about the dreadful deterioration in the world outlook.
Ninety-nine per cent — and perhaps more — of the world’s population abhorred war and military manoeuvering. They were eager to see peace established and reigning over the whole world. That overwhelming majority of mankind appealed pitifully to the leaders of the world, and to the fashioners of world policy, to have compassion on them and prevent eventual global destruction. The leaders who had been able to win a tremendous war should not fail to win the peace. The Syrian delegation earnestly hoped that the present session would serve to realize that cherished aim.
One of the most important problems which had engaged the United Nations during the past three years was that of atomic energy. It was while attending the San Francisco Conference that representatives had first heard of the horrible effects of the terrifying bomb which had been dropped on Hiroshima. They had been discussing the matter since and had been trying to find a way out. In the first part of the first session, held in London early in 1946, the owners of atomic energy activities had proposed to put them at the disposal of the United Nations, and the Atomic Energy Commission had been created. That Commission had had at its disposal the assistance of all the experts and scientists specializing in that field. Nevertheless, the result had been disappointing. It had been a waste of three years, during which time hundreds of meetings had been held and thousands of printed pages of detailed debates and discussions among the members of the Commission had been issued. It was true that the majority of the Commission had agreed on all the details of the convention or treaty to govern the objectives of the General Assembly’s resolution for prohibiting the use of atomic bombs or other weapons adaptable to mass destruction. That majority had also agreed on adequate safeguards to be taken against the violation of the General Assembly’s precepts by the proposal to create an international agency, but the minority of the Atomic Energy Commission had always been adamant and would not agree with the resolutions adopted by the majority. The majority had been composed of nine out of eleven members, and the minority of two members out of the eleven. The apparent point of disagreement had been the insistence of the minority on advancing the prohibition convention before establishing the control system. The majority had anticipated that, if this procedure were adopted, the control system might never be achieved, owing to obstruction by the minority. It had considered that the two instruments were inseparable and should be put into effect concurrently.
There were other points of dispute on which no agreement had been reached, such as the ownership of the plants, but the real motive for disagreement, and the real cause, was lack of confidence. As long as the great Powers looked upon one another as adversaries and rivals rather than allies, there could be no hope of a sound peace or dissipation of world anxiety.
The attitude of the Syrian delegation on the matter was that the Commission should continue its work to elaborate a draft treaty which would contain all the provisions of the prohibition and safeguards in their final form and submit it to the Security Council for its approbation. The members of the Security Council would then be called upon to take their respective responsibilities in adopting or frustrating the course of the action. Mr. El-Khouri hoped that the General Assembly would see its way to adopt such a recommendation.
One of the paramount impediments to the speedy settlement of world problems subsequent to the Second World War was the outstanding avidity for securing selfish interests in the occupied enemy territories rather than promoting the interest and rights of the local populations; such selfish desires were disguised by the avowal of certain ideological objectives and doctrines of social order. The victors had provisionally applied a device of partnership, by dividing Countries among themselves into zones of occupation, or zones of influence. They had applied that device in Korea, in Germany, in Trieste, and elsewhere. The result of that device of partitioning countries of military value or strategic importance had proved harmful to the fundamental interests of the indigenous population and very dangerous to the political and economic relations between nations. The victors had created centres of controversy and disputes which aggravated the situation. It was earnestly hoped that the deplorable jealousy among certain nations and the unlawful desire for expansion would be eliminated from the political programmes of the great Powers, so as to hasten the conclusion of peace treaties with the principal former enemies on the basis of justice and equity, and so as to restore confidence and good faith among them. Only in that way could permanent peace be substituted for the present state of an uneasy truce.
In conclusion, the Syrian representative observed that the Palestine question had been one of the most beclouded and most complicated to occupy the attention of both the General Assembly and the Security Council from April 1947 up to the present time. He would not deal with that question at the moment, inasmuch as the item appeared neither on the provisional agenda nor on the supplementary agenda, but he would do so when the item was opened for discussion on the agenda of the General Assembly. However, since the representative of the United States had referred to that question at the present meeting, Mr. El-Khouri wished to remind him that no solution of any problem could be considered final unless it was a just and rightful solution.