Italy

It is my pleasant duty to offer to Prince Wan Waithayakon my heartiest congratulations on his election to the office of President of this Assembly. The Italian Government is particularly glad that such a person, who has acquired so much respect for his work in the United Nations, has been called upon to preside over and direct our work and that this honour falls to his distinguished country, which is demonstrating so admirably that a love of independence can be combined with a love of freedom and justice. 92. I should like to express once again the gratitude of the Italian people to all the States that voted for the admission of Italy to the United Nations. This decision was a source of deep satisfaction to us, not only because it enabled us henceforth to associate ourselves fully with other peoples working for peace, for social advancement and, in short, for civilization, but also because it gave a fresh impetus to the movement which is leading the United Nations towards universality. 93. The Italian Government is convinced that the few operational difficulties which have been constantly arising during the last few years will gradually diminish as the presence and co-operation of all States strengthen the authority of the United Nations. When the General Assembly decided to admit our country, together with other countries, we were justified in thinking that after a period of consolidation, not to say immobility, the United Nations would resume its forward march. Today, speaking on behalf of the Italian Government, I could not state our feelings more clearly or accurately than by expressing the hope that the admission of other States, such as Japan, that are fully qualified to sit among us will not be further delayed. In expressing this hope, we feel that we are stating a vital need which governs the future development of the United Nations. 94. By its desire to become a Member of the United Nations and by all its activities the Italian Government has for long shown that it endorsed the objectives pursued by the United Nations. In its opinion the United Nations is the most complete expression of that education of the human race, acquired, as Lessing said, through suffering and error, and which synthesizes, so to speak, a direct experience of good and evil. After so much suffering and bloodshed, the people of the world drew from the misery caused by the last world war the superhuman strength to rise again and to look to the future, determined to break with the hitherto uninterrupted tradition of war as the ultimate means of settling their disputes. Again and again, in the not too distant past, there have been signs of this determination, but it was apparently not firm enough, since it finally collapsed. Tempered by the drama of the Second World War, hardened by longer and deeper suffering, and grown wiser as a result of its very setbacks, this determination has today produced the United Nations. 95. At present we are more inclined to remember — and this is unfortunately a natural tendency — what it has failed to do or to prevent rather than its positive achievements or the dangers that it has averted. It is not simply in order to strengthen our faith but rather to do justice to the truth that we shall refer to the watchful presence of the United Nations and its great contribution to orderly progress during these years of feverish, social, economic and political activity. We know perfectly well what has happened but we do not know what would have happened without the action of the United Nations. The modern world boasts tremendous material forces: had those forces become the instruments of conflicting passions they could have brought about incredible destruction and unspeakable suffering. 96. The credit for the fact that this has not so far been the case must go primarily to the United Nations. It has been possible to set up and to maintain the rule of law even though there have been local violations from time to time and even though it has been necessary to come to terms with those responsible for such violations, in order to prevent even greater evils befalling the international community. The judicial organs within each State went through a similar experience at the beginning of their history, when they stood up before men as the only alternative to violence, until they came to be regarded as the normal and customary instrument for settling individual disputes. For a time, in fact for quite a long time during those slow-moving times, justice rubbed shoulders with violence, yet justice exercised a restraining influence on violence and eventually triumphed over it. The United Nations, as the active organ of international justice, is at present going through a similar stage. It is still faced by unresolved and thorny problems and by differences that are difficult to eliminate in the relations among the peoples who are, so to speak, within its jurisdiction. 97. Nevertheless, in expressing our appreciation of the success achieved during the past few years, we cannot but regret that the resolute action of the United Nations in obtaining respect for the law has not always been matched by far-reaching political action in its attempts to solve outstanding problems. United Nations action has often been effective in preventing armed conflicts, or in limiting and containing them, and for that we should be grateful to it. Its action has unfortunately been less effective in solving disputes, or in. other words in eliminating the causes of disputes. It has even been said that the United Nations, which was set up to preserve justice, has actually been used by some as a means of avoiding the consequences of certain actions that are inconsistent with international law. If such suspicions were too often confirmed by facts, the time would come when each would wish to take the law into his own hands. 98. It is therefore not enough to prevent warlike manifestations: it is necessary to go to the root of the evil and to eliminate the causes which make a conflict inevitable. Negative action has never proved effective; at most it has delayed the fire that was smouldering beneath the embers. Failure to act at the crucial moment may lead to the outbreak of a conflict which it had been thought possible to avoid by disregarding it. Recent developments in the Middle East are an obvious and painful proof of this. The problems that have shaken this part of the world for many years have been left too long unsolved. The present crisis is simply the inevitable outcome of a long period of inaction, which is being covered up but scarcely changed by a police action, commendably zealous and selfless but nevertheless of limited value. The present happenings should teach us that the United Nations must expand its activities and play a greater part in the political field, for it is there that the prior conditions for its legal activities and its economic and social work are to be found. 99. The present state of the world calls for far-reaching, enterprising and courageous political action. The fear of tackling the crucial problems with which the peoples of the world are faced must be overcome. Failure to deal with these problems on the pretext that the attempt might prove unsuccessful would increase present anxiety and pave the way for a future conflict in which goodwill might be of no avail. Problems should not be allowed to become so serious that they are beyond the control of responsible men. The method of partial or temporary solutions, if substituted systematically for that of the basic settlement of disputes, could eventually lead to a state of confusion in which it would be impossible to determine who was responsible for the first offensive act. 100. The United Nations is the chosen instrument to _.et reason up against the rule of force. Yet if its action is to be effective, it must strengthen and increase the rational control of international events by responsible men. That is why it is essential that instead of beating about the bush it should make a frontal attack upon the grave problems that could loose the uncontrollable forces of folly against the international community. 101. The most recent events have proved that the road to salvation lies through the authority of the United Nations, but they have also shown that this authority is impaired because it was not exercised at the right time and in efforts to find the necessary solutions. The authority of the United Nations must be strengthened if there is to be peace today and security tomorrow for all the peoples of the world. This authority must, however, be exercised if it is to grow strong. There is no serious problem affecting the international community that cannot be solved through the United Nations at present. In these recent days we have learned that the gravity of any problem will increase to the extent that the United Nations shows itself unequal to its task. Hence there is only one thing left for us to do: we must unite more than ever before in order to endow United Nations decisions with the force and wisdom that the peoples of the world expect. 102. We hope that the action taken by the United Nations to put an end to military operations in Egypt will continue to be successful and that the truly historic decision to organize a military force to implement this Assembly’s resolutions will herald and facilitate the transition to a new stage in international relations. At the same time, however, we consider that steps should be taken forthwith to solve the Suez Canal problem and to restore peace between Israel and the Arab States. 103. It has been proposed that two committees should be set up immediately in the United Nations, to draw up the necessary draft resolutions. The Italian Government considers that this proposal should be adopted without delay and put into effect, so that the two committees can embark upon their task at once. 104. The basic problems which caused the Egyptian crisis must be settled as a matter of urgency if we are to avoid a repetition of this crisis, its causes having remained unchanged. The deep emotion that the recent events have aroused throughout the world should and must be used to impel the United Nations to find a coordinated and lasting solution for these two problems. There may be some to whose interest it is to focus attention on the intervention of the United Kingdom, France and Israel, for the sole purpose of diverting attention from the situation that existed before. Woe betide us if we allow our attention to be diverted and if we miss the opportunity we are offered by the very course of events to eliminate the most dangerous causes of instability in this part of the world. Whatever our opinions may be on the military intervention in Egypt, we should realize that it is not enough to have ended hostilities; steps must be taken to change the status quo ante by means of a settlement likely to restore confidence and security in an area where the situation has been deteriorating during the past few sterile and troubled years. 105. The Italian Government attaches importance not only to political action but also to economic and social action. One is impossible without the other if law is to be given its rightful place in international relations. How can we visualize the supremacy of one law for all in a world where living standards are so unequal? Since the end of the Second World War some 700 million people belonging to eighteen nations have achieved political independence. These new independent nations are not at the same stage of development. Even among the nations that achieved independence and freedom at an earlier date there are differences in living conditions. 106. The United Nations has a primary duty to fulfil: it must reduce these inequalities by helping the peoples of under-developed countries in their efforts to raise their standard of living. Poverty breeds resentment, a dangerous and virulent germ that undermines international relations. Any activity that creates wealth calls forth international co-operation. Any activity that creates wealth mobilizes the dynamic forces of the international organism. It is this activity that engenders the health and strength of co-operation. When the whole world is engaged in activity it regains confidence and peace is restored. Italy wholeheartedly supports any action that will promote the circulation of goods, capital and manpower, because it knows that this is one of the best factors of economic and social progress for the whole international community. A steady and broad flow of trade is essential if specific undertakings such as technical assistance and the proposed establishment of a Special United Nations Fund for Economic Development are to have the necessary effect; failing this, only limited action and narrow paternalism will be possible. 107. To be truly useful, such action should, moreover, be based on local, spontaneous initiative. Such initiative, however, will never appear unless the entire world works with an accelerated rhythm and carries along all the peoples of the earth in its movement. Economic development undoubtedly facilitates political action, but the reverse is equally true, for economic development could not be conceived without political action capable of sweeping aside suspicion, hatred and fear. 108. In the introduction to his Annual Report to the General Assembly the Secretary-General stated that “The goal of economic development implies for many countries a concerted undertaking to set up an industrial revolution more rapid than that which transformed western European civilization, and yet does not involve the extreme social costs which were then incurred” [A/3137/ Add.1, p. 4], We agree with this statement. Nevertheless we feel that it is necessary to point out that only international co-operation can, by promoting the influx of capital and of technical skills, bring about the rapid economic development of under-developed countries without demanding of the peoples concerned the unbearable price of the loss of their freedom. It is therefore essential that an atmosphere of confidence and security should prevail in the world. 109. The United Nations has to its great credit the fact that it helped to establish the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Italian Government sees in this initiative, which is both political and economic, a useful instrument of international co-operation and at the same time the fruit of a reassuring community of views. In its age-old struggle against nature, mankind has finally wrested from it the secret of its most powerful source of energy. This force fills us with terror if we think of all that it can destroy, but here, in this very hall, terror has been transformed into hope. Perhaps one day this energy will enable man to solve his most distressing economic and social problems. 110. Atomic energy can increase the productivity of human labour and impart new momentum to civilized life everywhere on our planet. If this hope one day becomes a reality, then the terrible and persistent causes of war will have been eliminated at one stroke. The Italian Government hopes that, having created the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations will spare no efforts to assist it in the accomplishment of its task. 111. Among the items on the agenda of this session of the General Assembly there are, in addition to technical, social and economic problems, some political problems which set certain Member States one against the other and thereby threaten international co-operation. The Italian delegation will express its views on each of these problems in due course. 112. For the moment, I shall merely remark that my country, which grew out of bitter and repeated struggles for independence during the last century, regards the efforts being made by other peoples to attain their national sovereignty with the keenest sympathy and greatest understanding. My country feels that not only should these efforts not be hampered but they should be encouraged, so that each member of the international community may become active and responsible. 113. Our experience has also taught us, however, that a nation’s progress towards independence must not degenerate into nationalistic isolation, which is a particularly fertile breeding-ground for the germs of hatred and rancour. The struggle of a people for liberty must at the same time be a struggle for the advancement of international co-operation. We are living in a period dominated by the law of interdependence. It is right and necessary that each nation should be master of its own fate, but it would be a serious mistake, fraught with consequences for the whole world, to destroy the ties created by history and replace them, not with new and more fruitful ties, but with suspicion and hostility. In international relations we must go forward and never backward on the road of co-operation. One example of this attitude is, we believe, to be found in the relations existing between Italy, as the Administering Authority on behalf of the United Nations, and Somaliland. During the past two years the Somali people have elected a free parliament which has formed a Government that co-operates with the Administering Authority. Italy hopes that, under the terms of its mandate, fruitful ties of co-operation in every field may be established between the two fully self-governing and sovereign nations. 114. Our century is harvesting the fruit of the seeds that were sown in the foregoing centuries. There are today nations which are capable of self-government and which cannot be denied that right. Yet there are many ways of preventing peoples from governing themselves: we should be making a serious mistake if we condemned the old methods without at the same time repudiating the new. Nations that are proud of their ancient civilization have become victims of a new tyranny, as we have seen recently in the sad and heroic case of the Hungarian people. The right of peoples to choose their own government should be universal; all attacks on the free will of a people, no matter by what doctrines the perpetrators justify their attacks, must be condemned. 115. This morning [586th meeting] the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union expressed surprise at my statement that it is not possible for the person who is called upon to judge a murder to inquire into the philosophical or political opinions of the victim in order to justify the murder without thereby ceasing to be a judge. I should like to remind the representative of the Soviet Union that when one kills a man because of that man’s faith, the act which is committed is still the brutal act of murder, as a courageous fighter for liberty of conscience stated. No label on the forehead of the victim can change the nature of the grievous fact. In the case of Hungary, the aspirations of a people have been crushed by another people. The United Nations cannot employ two different criteria: it cannot censure those who act with moderation and at the same time applaud the guile and cynicism of others. 116. To prevent the danger of this happening, it is essential, in the first place, to do everything necessary to stop up all the cracks through which guile might worm its way into this translucent home of justice. One such crack is provided by military intervention in another country, with the claim that it is not aggression because the authorities of the country which is the victim of the intervention have requested it. I venture to point out that when Nazi troops invaded Czechoslovakia in March 1939 the Hitler Government justified its intervention by stating that President Hacha, who then represented the highest authority in Czechoslovakia, had requested it. Nevertheless history has judged it as one of the most brutal and wicked acts of aggression of our time. I dare say the representative of the Soviet Union concurs in this judgement. 117. It is therefore necessary to define aggression in such a way as to prevent any aggressor from disguising himself as a defender of law and order. Any military intervention whatsoever by one country in another country, whatever the causes, must be considered an act of aggression if international law is to have universal application, just as criminal law has universal application within each State. 118. Another dangerous crack through which guile must not be allowed to infiltrate is provided by the United Nations volunteers. If the United Nations decides that a certain military action must be stopped, that decision places upon all Member States the obligation to take every necessary step towards this end. If a Member State merely allows — I do not say requests — its nationals to enlist as volunteers in order to sustain or to revive the military action halted by the United Nations, it is obvious that such a State would not be fulfilling that obligation and would thereby be flouting international law. 119. Present means of transport and communication make it impossible for stocks of arms to be built up in a given State in anticipation of the expected arrival of so-called volunteers. When these volunteers were able to take up the arms which had been sent ahead of them, a very strange case of war would ensue; from a legal point of view, the country that supplied the arms and the men could not be declared responsible. Thus it would be possible for a powerful State to wage war and make it appear as though it was being waged by another country. Not only would the law be violated, but it would be flouted and paralyzed. 120. It is enough to consider this hypothesis — for which no unusual effort of the imagination is required — to understand how urgent and important it is for the United Nations to examine without delay, and with the utmost attention, the problem of volunteers, with a view to drawing up specific rules to prevent the accomplishment under the guise of legality, of any acts which would undermine international law and order. No one should be permitted to invoke and use the privileges of international law while at the same time availing himself of expedients which enable him to reap with impunity the advantages of his acts of violation. 121. This eleventh session of the General Assembly will also have to discuss the problem of disarmament. During these last few days one of the great military Powers, through its most qualified representative, seems to have faintly rekindled the abiding hope of peoples that it might finally be possible to limit the armaments race, which constitutes one of the greatest threats of war. We believe that every manifestation of goodwill should be encouraged, but we cannot fail to note and to point out that in international life the past few weeks have shown a marked deterioration of that confidence without which it is impossible to reach any agreement on disarmament. 122. In order to smooth the path towards such agreement, which is eagerly awaited by all peoples, it is necessary that some specific action should be taken with regard to the most serious and urgent problems, to restore confidence. For that purpose it is essential that all States — and especially those that are most powerful — should make their decisions in the light of their duties towards the international community. Henceforth no one should any longer doubt the fact that anybody who seeks to benefit by betraying his duties is destined, sooner or later, to suffer the negative consequences of his calculations, which are mistaken because they coincide with an evil act. 123. In this world parliament we should expect every member, large or small, to pass its own actions through the filter of a scrupulous conscience before criticizing or condemning others. Each of us should try to rid ourselves of defects, for we must become capable of contemplating pure and lofty things. All countries, large or small, should make this effort; only thus can we be worthy of those who, through their sufferings and sacrifices, their faith and their hope, have enabled mankind, at a certain point on its weary march, to erect this great institution where mankind’s sincerest and noblest aspirations are expressed.