The unanimous election of Prince Wan Waithayakon to the office of President of this Assembly is a deserved tribute to the tact and ability he has displayed amongst us. For many years he has participated in the work of the United Nations either as a Minister for Foreign Affairs or as Chairman of the Thai delegation to the annual sessions of the General Assembly, and his contributions have always been energetic, useful and fruitful. My delegation is happy to congratulate him, and I take this opportunity to recall the personal links of friendship between us.
83. It would be difficult for us to approach the work of the eleventh session of the General Assembly without giving high priority and urgency to the two very grave problems which affect the security system of the United Nations, and for a solution of which the whole world is anxiously waiting. The first is the conflict which has broken out in Egypt, the repercussions of which extend to all the States of the Middle East. The second imperils the very foundations of the Hungarian nation.
84. The armed intervention of Israel, France and the United Kingdom in Egyptian territory, and the decisions which the General Assembly found it necessary to take at its emergency special session, confirm an absolute principle of contemporary law, namely, that in international relations, preventive war, such as Israel claims to have launched, and punitive war, such as that undertaken by France and the United Kingdom, are illegal, however important the national interests invoked to justify them.
85. These principles have been part of positive law since the conclusion of the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy signed in Paris on 27 August 1928. War is lawful only in a case of legitimate self-defence or participation in international police and security action, such as that defined in Articles 42, 43, 44 and 45 of the Charter. To prevent the spread of the conflict in Egypt, the General Assembly, in the exercise of the powers vested in it by the “Uniting for peace” resolution [377 (V)], recommended that the parties involved should adopt certain provisional measures, such as a cease-fire, the withdrawal of the forces of Israel beyond the armistice lines and the immediate evacuation of the Anglo-French expeditionary force. According to Article 40 of the Charter, such provisional measures shall be “without prejudice to the rights, claims or position of the parties concerned”.
86. My delegation voted whole-heartedly for the adoption of those provisional measures, but it considers that, as Mr. Pineau has said from this rostrum [589th meeting], the United Nations must examine not only the consequences of the present conflict, but also its causes.
87. In this connexion, a proposal recently submitted to this Assembly [590th meeting] by the Cambodian representative on behalf of his Government appears to me to merit our attention. He proposed that, with a view to achieving a lasting solution of the crisis in Egypt and in the Middle East, a special commission of inquiry should be set up consisting of representatives of neutral States that have no important interests in the matters to be judged. It should perhaps be pointed out to the Cambodian representative that certain passages in the official communique which he read us give the impression that this special commission of inquiry is to be vested with judicial powers, or powers of arbitration, in addition to its ordinary functions. Such powers would obviously be beyond its scope.
88. In the Egyptian conflict, the General Assembly did not confine itself to urging the parties to comply with the provisional measures on which it had decided. It did more: it assumed the executive functions vested in the Security Council under Article 42 of the Charter, and proceeded to create an international police force.
89. Furthermore, the Secretary-General was authorized to enter into negotiations with specialized firms which, in collaboration with experts employed in the United Nations Technical Assistance Programme, will start the work of clearing the Suez Canal and reopening it. Following his conversations with the Egyptian Government, the Secretary-General presented two reports to the General Assembly on these new objectives of the United Nations.
90. My delegation was happy to vote in favour of the resolution of 24 November [A/RES/411], which confers full powers on the Secretary-General in the pursuit of these aims. Similarly, it approved the resolution on the financing of the United Nations Emergency Force [A/RES/412].
91. So far, so good. We give these measures our fervent support. Yet a comparison of the impasse which the United Nations has reached in the case of Hungary with the relatively smooth operation of its decisions in the Egyptian conflict leaves one with a feeling of profound anxiety. In vain has the Assembly in repeated resolutions, in emergency special session, exhorted the Soviet Government to withdraw its forces from Hungary, requested the Hungarian authorities to accept the dispatch of a group of observers to its territory and urged the Soviet Government and the Hungarian leaders to take immediate action to put a stop to deportations.
92. At this stage, public opinion throughout the world is deeply apprehensive. It has sound and valid reasons for believing that the efforts of the United Nations to relieve the terrible Hungarian tragedy are going to end in sad and humiliating frustration. What, in fact, can the General Assembly do in the face of the bad faith, lies and cynicism of those who act as they see fit in contempt of all principle? The Assembly has no means of ensuring compliance with its decisions, no penalties for non-observance.
93. If in circumstances with which we are all familiar, the “Uniting for peace” resolution enables us to relieve the Security Council of its primary responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security and to vest this function in the General Assembly, this can be done only within the scope of the limited powers conferred on this Assembly. It is true that Article 42 of the Charter empowers the Security Council to order coercive measures if there is any threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression. But how can the forces of the United Nations be brought into play? We find the answer in Article 43 of the Charter.
94. The three resolutions adopted by the General Assembly at its fifth session, and grouped under the heading “Uniting for peace”, undoubtedly constituted an important improvement in the United Nations machinery for safeguarding peace and security. They led, for instance, to the setting up of a Peace Observation Commission and a Collective Measures Committee, whose activities have often proved useful and effective.
95. In paragraph 8 of resolution 377 A (V), the Assembly recommends that Member States should maintain within their national armed forces elements which could promptly be made available for service as United Nations units. It must be admitted that this provision is far removed from the express terms of Article 43 of the Charter. Under that article, Members of the United Nations are required to negotiate agreements with the Security Council for ratification by the signatory States in accordance with their constitutional processes. As far as we know, however, no such agreement, based on the Charter itself and not on the “Uniting for peace” resolution, has been concluded.
96. The Charter has, it is true, provided means for remedying this omission. They are clearly set forth in Article 106, in Chapter XVII, under the heading “Transitional security arrangements”. The terms of this article are quite clear. It refers to the Conference of the four Foreign Ministers held at Moscow from 19 to 30 October 1943, when the representatives of the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and China adopted the historic Declaration subsequently subscribed to by France. In that diplomatic instrument, those Powers undertook that the united action pursued by them during the war would be continued with a view to the organization and maintenance of peace and security.
97. Article 106 of the Charter thus confronts us with a juridical fact which is difficult to evade, namely that, pending the conclusion and ratification of specific agreements for the organization of national units to form a United Nations international police force, thus enabling the Security Council to assume its responsibilities under Article 42, the five great Powers — the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, China and France — are expressly called upon by the Charter to take “such joint action on behalf of the Organization as may be necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security”.
98. My delegation does not venture to express an opinion on the merits of Article 106. It merely wishes to draw attention to the fact that, in the case both of Egypt and of Hungary, it would appear that the five great Powers have very definite responsibilities for the maintenance of international peace and security.
99. This does not mean that I wish to minimize the importance of the timely decisions taken by the General Assembly in these last weeks, or of the exceptional service which our Secretary-General has rendered, and continues to render to the United Nations with so much devotion, competence and skill. I must confess that, as the representative of a small country, I feel more at home in this democratic assembly than in the presence of a conclave of the five great Powers. But how can we escape the situation created by Article 106 with respect to the responsibilities placed upon the five great Powers, not as permanent members of the Security Council — and this is a very important point — but simply as being the nations that they are.
100. An analysis of the text of that article and its reference to the Moscow Declaration of 1943 will show that the role provisionally assigned to those great Powers of acting as guardians of the peace and, if need be, as policemen, does not necessarily depend on their status as permanent members of the Security Council. It will further be noted that the authority conferred upon the five great Powers by Article 106 of the Charter is only provisional, and its duration depends on the diligence with which the United Nations, on the initiative of the Security Council, proceeds to the formation of a real and imposing international police force. It should also be noted — and this too is of tremendous importance — that, by their very nature, the transitional security arrangements referred to in Article 106 are not subject to the use of the veto, so that, if fundamental differences were to arise among the five Powers as to the application of the necessary security measures, that obstacle would be circumvented by the joint action of the other States, constituting the majority.
101. These reflections lead us to express the fervent hope that it may yet be possible to arrive at a regrouping of the Western Powers — primarily France, the United Kingdom and the United States — and all the other Powers for the performance of the increasingly urgent common tasks which await them in connexion with the maintenance of international peace and security based on law and justice for all peoples.
102. It will be no easy task to form the regular national units which must constitute the United Nations police force. It will be necessary to co-ordinate the efforts of the United Nations, and particularly those of its Military Staff Committee, with the efforts of the competent regional organizations. In the implementation of such a plan, due consideration will have to be given, in view of the technical assistance problems involved, to the position of small countries like Haiti which, however much they may wish to co-operate, cannot saddle their national budgets with military expenditures inconsistent with their most immediate and vital economic and social needs.
103. Owing to the character of gravity and urgency rightly attributed to the conflicts in Egypt and Hungary, we shall refrain from prolonging the general debate by commenting on other aspects of the items on the agenda of the eleventh session. In my delegation’s opinion, some of those questions are very important, for example, those relating to the Trusteeship system, the Cyprus and Algerian problems, the policy of apartheid in the Union of South Africa, social and cultural matters, the progressive codification of international law, technical assistance, the system of international credits, the admission of new Members, such as Japan, the Republic of Korea and the Republic of Viet-Nam, the peaceful uses of atomic energy, and disarmament. My delegation’s policy as regards those items will be explained in due course, when they are considered in committee.
104. To sum up my delegation’s position, we fervently express our renewed devotion to the increasingly effective work of the United Nations, and, as that work is following a normal process of development, we do not think it wise to ask it to do too much. We must guard against cheap optimism, but we repudiate any suggestion that the setbacks of the United Nations mean that the Organization itself has failed in its great world mission. It is by trial and error that we learn the lessons of life and the rules of social coexistence.
105. I would have concluded my statement at this point, but my delegation, representing as it does a nation of almost 4 million coloured people, cannot remain indifferent to the diatribe delivered yesterday by the representative of the Union of South Africa against the United Nations in protest against the policy, consistently adhered to by the General Assembly for the past ten years, of condemning, as it should, the detestable policy of racial segregation practised in the Union of South Africa. The policy of racial segregation, which the Government of the Union of South Africa has made a part of the law of the land, has always stirred and still stirs the indignation of the people and Government of Haiti. The representative of the Union of South Africa has flung down a challenge to the United Nations, which is an insult to that great institution, to this Assembly and to its Members. We listened with amazement to the Chairman of the South African delegation, who said: “It has therefore been decided that until such time as the United Nations shows that it is prepared to act in accordance with the spirit of the San Francisco Conference of 1945 and to conform to the principles laid down by the founders of the Organization in Article 2, paragraphs 1 and 7, of the Charter, the Union of South Africa, while . . . continuing to be a Member of the United Nations, will in future maintain only a token representation or a nominal representation at the meetings of the Assembly and at the Headquarters of the Organization.” [597th meeting, para. 152.]
106. Paragraphs 1 and 7 of Article 2 are invoked here far too often in order to disguise, by pompous references to national sovereignty and the many-faceted principle of non-interference in domestic affairs, a lack of the respect due by all the signatories of the Charter to human rights and fundamental freedoms. We do not intend to reopen the much discussed South African question here. The repeated decisions of the General Assembly, taken in conformity with the Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, have given the question of the policy of apartheid practised in the Union of South Africa the status of res judicata. The Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Union of South Africa also referred to the “strong and growing opinion” in his country in favour of South Africa’s withdrawal from the United Nations. We fully understand the purport of that statement. I shall take the liberty of repeating for his benefit the incisive warning uttered by Mr. Paul Reynaud in Paris only four days ago: “To leave the United Nations would be to swim against the tide of history.”