My delegation has a few words to say on some of the interesting items on the agenda of this session of the General Assembly. I shall confine my comments to those particular items, not because I am unaware of the importance of the others, but because my delegation intends to deal with those at the appropriate time. The items on which I now propose to speak briefly are the following: the Suez crisis, the safety of the Holy Places at Jerusalem, the new nations and the review of the Charter. As for the occupation of Hungary by the Soviet Army, I spoke on that at the meeting last Monday [583rd meeting] when I asked the United Nations to adopt a firm and forceful attitude as regards aid to a heroic people fighting for its lost freedom.
55. As Spain was one of the signatories to the now celebrated Convention of Constantinople of 1888, my Government has from the outset been involved with the situation created by the Egyptian nationalization of the Universal Company. I myself took part in the London Conferences, while at the same time keeping in constant touch with the Egyptian Government. I accordingly feel that I am in a position to say a few words to the United Nations General Assembly on how a happy ending to the Suez drama or, in other words, a just solution to the problem of the Canal, can be found. First, however, the attitude of Spain on Suez at the London Conferences of last summer, must, if only briefly, be recalled.
56. At those conferences, Spain maintained a position of her own, because she was convinced that the object of some of the other Canal-user nations, to submit the Canal entirely to a purely international control would disregard the national status of Egypt and subject the sovereignty of that country to conditions that implied discrimination which an independent State could hardly accept. That was the case more especially as, in international relations, the test of whether or not a country is sovereign, and so eligible for membership in the international community, is precisely its capacity to fulfil the obligations imposed by the law governing those relations. The obligations imposed on Egypt by the Convention of 1888 would not, in our view, justify the intervention of an international body which would relieve Egypt of responsibility for directly complying with those obligations. It is true that the Convention provided for the concession of the Canal to the Universal Company and that the reversion of the Canal has been forestalled by the nationalization of that Company, but that fact merely constitutes a change of circumstances which, although providing adequate grounds for revising the Convention and bringing it up to date, do not authorize the user States to take over absolute control of the Canal.
57. The proper course of action in our view, would accordingly have been to supplement the provisions of the Convention and bring them up to date for the purpose of effectively guaranteeing the free use of the Canal, ensuring its proper maintenance, promoting its future development in accordance with traffic needs and establishing a procedure for the equitable disposition of the tolls.
58. In order, therefore, to take into account both the sovereignty of Egypt and the rights of the users, the Spanish delegation felt, and my Government still feels, that the management of the Canal should be in the hands of an Egyptian body the membership of which would include an adequate representation of the users. This arrangement is considered justified by the nature of the interests involved and by the fact that the economies of the countries using the Canal are to a large extent dependent upon that waterway, so that those countries should have some voice in its administration.
59. In addition to the participation of the users in the management of the Canal, there should, we think, be some arrangement for submitting disputes between the owner and the users to an arbitration commission, from whose decisions an appeal would lie to the United Nations, which, moreover, might provide the legal framework for the entire system.
60. This Spanish proposal, which we might call a “balance of interests”, might, if it had been taken as the basis of negotiations, have made possible a final settlement between the users and Egypt and thus ended the crisis provoked by the nationalization of the Canal.
61. To judge by subsequent events, two of the principal users did not regard a median solution such as that just referred to as adequate, because, despite the United Nations decision in favour of negotiation, they preferred to resort unilaterally to force. This they did regardless of the fact that the nations participating in the London Conferences, and the United Nations Security Council itself, had repeatedly expressed hopes for a peaceful settlement even though the renewed hostilities between Israel and Egypt provided a pretext for military intervention.
62. Even if we refrain from passing judgement on the moral and juridical significance of that action and even if we disregard the threat which it represented to world peace and which forced the United Nations to take the emergency resolutions now being carried out, there is still occasion to wonder whether, at the least, it was not a grave mistake to have failed to exhaust the possibilities for negotiation, perhaps on the basis of a formula such as that proposed by Spain in London, to secure a peaceful settlement of the Suez Canal problem.
63. The emergency resolutions passed by the General Assembly to localize the conflict and to put an end to the military operations which caused it do not in themselves solve the essence of the problem, for they are designed merely to eliminate the consequences of unilateral action and thus restore the juridical order which had been disturbed. The problem of the Canal’s future and of revising the anachronistic Convention of 1888 so as to adapt it to present conditions therefore remains unsolved. My delegation thinks that the only way to achieve this purpose is by negotiation, whether direct or through the United Nations, but in any case negotiation, between Egypt and the users, which, of course, must be clearly understood to include all the countries concerned in the traffic through the Canal.
64. In these negotiations, the regulations governing the free use of the Canal must be clearly specified in accordance with present needs, and the six principles contained in the Security Council resolution [S/3675] of 13 October 1956 must be taken up and further developed. In any case, my delegation would venture to insist on the following: that the management of the Canal should be entrusted to an Egyptian body, in the membership of which the Canal users would share; that compliance with the regulations to be established should be ensured by a procedure for recourse to a permanent arbitration commission with headquarters in Egypt itself, which would deal with infringements of the regulations and clear up any doubts concerning their interpretation; and that the whole system should be placed under the United Nations as the ultimate guarantee of its effective operation.
65. It may perhaps be thought premature to make specific suggestions concerning the substance of the future regulations for the Canal, but by way of anticipation and example, my delegation ventures to propose for consideration by the eventual negotiators that the Canal-user members of the Egyptian body responsible for the management of the Canal, whose functions would comprise technical operations as well as direction and administration, need not constitute a majority — for that might be regarded as prejudicial to Egyptian sovereignty — but should merely be sufficient in numbers and prerogatives to ensure that the Egyptian members could not single-handedly decide such important matters as the free passage of ships, the fixing of charges, physical improvements and the like. That could be accomplished through a system of quorums for the various boards and committees, both administrative and technical, responsible for the operation of the Canal, so that any important decision would always require the consent of the representatives of the users.
66. There is another element of crisis in the situation in the Middle East to which my delegation would like to draw the Assembly’s attention. I refer to the precarious position of those places in Palestine which Christendom regards as holy and which also to those of the Jewish and Moslem faiths have a sacred character. Owing to the failure to give effect to the General Assembly resolution of 9 December 1949 [303 (IV)] by reason of the conflicting territorial and political claims of the States in that area, the situation now is precarious and unstable, and for that reason liable to deteriorate into conflict.
67. However well-founded those claims may appear to be, none of them can be allowed to take precedence over the respect demanded by the religious interests of the faiths which have their holy places in that country. These interests are of such outstanding spiritual significance and are so deeply rooted in history that they cannot be subordinated to aspirations of any other kind.
68. The many political vicissitudes through which that area has passed in recent times should dissuade the countries now striving for political supremacy from such aspirations and should incite them to try a system of collective equilibrium by which all would be the gainers. My delegation does not believe that there have yet been exhausted the possibilities of a special international regime for the Holy City, according to the plan suggested by the Trusteeship Council acting on the instructions of the General Assembly, the main features of which are that Jerusalem would be a corpus separatum, there should be free access to the Holy Places and they should be protected against all threats, and the spiritual interests of the three great religions should be safeguarded.
69. The recent crisis in the Middle East has also made it obvious that some settlement of this kind is urgent to promote peaceful co-operation between the peoples of Palestine. The strong political influence of this or some other kind of international regime would have helped to neutralize Arab-Israel hostility at Jerusalem. That would have resulted not only in safeguarding the Holy Places but also in reducing rivalries between the neighbouring peoples and would thus have laid the foundations for an agreement in principle which might have had a far-reaching effect throughout the frontier area.
70. I therefore hope that the United Nations will consider this question again and will at the appropriate time adopt decisions giving effect to previous resolutions or embodying other similar proposals, centred in all cases around the idea of the internationalization of the Holy Places.
71. If we were asked to be more precise concerning what we mean by internationalization, we should explain that we would like the city of Jerusalem and the other Holy Places to be treated, not as a “no man’s land”, but as an “everyman’s land”. The main object is not to withdraw those areas from either the Arabs or the Israelis but to arrange matters in such a way that they could live there together with each other and both of them with the Christians so that everyone might feel at home. We Spaniards think of internationalization as a regime under which there would be three kinds of personal legal status, one for the adherents of each of the religious faiths which do in fact live together in the Holy Land — a regime in which there would even be a system of administrative and judicial authorities- some of which would serve each community alone whereas others would serve all three and consequently be composed of representatives of all three on a tripartite basis.
72. Working along these general lines and in accordance with the criterion previously stated, the United Nations legal authorities should not find it difficult to prepare a satisfactory statute that would, I repeat, not only ensure peaceful relations among the inhabitants of the Holy Places but would doubtless also foster good neighbourly relations between the frontier countries by interposing along one section of the border this kind of intermediate zone which would serve in its own way as a kind of shock absorber.
73. Peace is not endangered only by a violent change in the status quo; it is also threatened when the aspiration of peoples to express their own personality in international life is systematically thwarted.
74. The United Nations has always been careful to place strict limitations on its right to intervene in the internal life of nations, and rightly so. To interfere in what is private and essential to each State would only create new conflicts or aggravate existing political difficulties.
75. Many of the nations represented here today have existed for centuries, others have only acquired legal personality more recently; all have perfectly valid credentials. Experience teaches that it is those very nations which have expanded most that should give sympathetic attention to independence movements outside their metropolitan territories, against which any determined and persistent opposition is likely to inflame feeling and poison the atmosphere. All creator peoples have known these extremely difficult situations. We ourselves never tried to conceal the heart-searchings which it cost us to accept the vigorous national personalities which have sprung from our own stock and which today are gloriously free and the pride of our lineage. Other outstanding examples have been given, and will continue to be given, by the nations chosen by Providence to bring civilization to less fortunate lands, later worthy of independence.
76. In my opinion, success in dealing with these dynamic tendencies of international society will be as decisive for the maintenance of peace as the system of guarantees which our Organization provides to defend the political independence and territorial integrity of its Members. Each country must seek practical solutions called for by concrete situations according to its own national characteristics and experience.
77. At this moment Spain can point to its relations with Morocco as an example of the prompt understanding of a people’s national rights, since it anticipated Moroccan aspirations for complete independence and took steps leading to a recognition of the full sovereignty of that empire which today is seated among us, Moroccan independence was expected by Spanish public opinion and planned for by the Spanish Government, since, by its very nature, the Protectorate is a transitional system, the object of which is precisely to bring about this independence gradually and by degrees. And this is what has been done — generously, without reservation or mistrust, so that both Spaniards and Moroccans are satisfied that they understand each other and that, in the future, the neighbourly and friendly relations between them and their common heritage of high moral principles will enable them to work effectively side by side in the general design embodied in the United Nations.
78. The example of Spain shows that the solution of highly delicate matters must always be approached by direct negotiation, by considering problems openly, and in a mood of confident hope, since it is seldom that anything can be gained by submitting such matters to international discussion and controversy. It is better to make a sacrifice and to offer a magnanimous solution ahead of time, than to indulge in indefinite delays, which are liable to embitter men’s minds and to be exploited by trouble-making proselytizers.
79. Another matter of concern to the countries represented in the General Assembly of the United Nations, must be the persistence of those mistakes and injustices which the passage of time can never heal, and which harbour within themselves dangerous and disturbing factors, while at the same time casting a shadow over what might be pure friendships and keeping alive unjustifiable conflicts in a world already overwhelmed with anxieties and complications.
80. Another age with fewer moral scruples than our own was able to subordinate the obvious dictates of public morality to alleged military necessities and security requirements. The so-called strategic positions, and their occupation by the Great Powers of the day acting as a self-constituted international police, have lost their last semblance of justification with the establishment of the collective security system of the United Nations, supplemented by the military agreements subscribed to by countries in the service of law.
81. The southern point of the Iberian peninsula presents an example of one of those anachronistic survivals which, it is hardly necessary to say, has engaged the painful attention of our country. With the disappearance of all the ostensible military reasons which were invoked to justify a usurpation of sovereignty in flagrant violation of international law, even the crudest realism would not serve to excuse its persistence today. The Spanish Government, deeply concerned with international peace and the general equilibrium as well as with its own inalienable rights, hopes that the juridical sense of the other party will help to solve this standing dispute bilaterally, and that it will not have to seek in the United Nations the moral and legal support provided by the provisions of the Charter.
82. I should like to complete my statement in this general debate by a few words on the Organization itself. Spain has joined with several Latin-American Members of the United Nations in proposing that the present Assembly make certain necessary amendments to the Charter for the purpose of increasing the number of nonpermanent members of the Security Council and the number of votes required for its decisions, for increasing membership of the Economic and Social Council, and for amending the Statutes of the International Court of Justice and the International Law Commission, and increasing the membership of these bodies. The present Assembly has accepted the inclusion of these proposals in its agenda, thus recognizing the need for adapting the provisions of the Charter and the aforementioned Statutes to the new circumstances arising from the larger membership recently acquired by the United Nations.
83. It seems logical to hope that as far as possible States recently admitted will also have a share in the new seats created in the above-mentioned bodies, although this might involve a readjustment of the practices and agreements previously governing participation by States from different parts of the world. Those practices and agreements might be regarded as inapplicable at the present time by reason of their regional character, and in any case are unsatisfactory to the new Member States which do not consider themselves bound by them.
84. It would also be desirable that the proposed increase in the number of seats should allow in practice as many Member States as possible to take part in the direction of United Nations activities and that suitable arrangements should be made to prevent plurality of seats. It would not be fair or reasonable for one country to be represented simultaneously in more than one of the principal organs of the United Nations, thus keeping out some other Member State from the same geographical area.
85. With respect to the Economic and Social Council, it is hardly necessary to recall that it occupies a completely different position from that of the Security Council, since it is not, like the latter, a primary organ, but functions under the direct authority of the General Assembly. This characteristic in our opinion, justifies a greater increase in the number of seats in the Economic and Social Council than in the Security Council.
86. From the constitutional point of view, the question of increasing the number of Member States represented in the International Court of Justice and the International Law Commission is a more complicated one. The legal nature of these two bodies seems to require a new form of organization which will be less subject to the changing political contingencies of the moment, and will safeguard the specific competence and complete impartiality of the Court. However, it is still desirable that the various legal systems of the world should be properly represented in the Court, as provided by its Statute. It is for the General Assembly carefully to weigh the balance between these two principles. The case of the International Law Commission is somewhat similar. Its membership should be increased in order to make it a more faithful reflection of the Organization.
87. However, it is hardly necessary to say that the most important amendment among those to be considered is the restriction of the right of veto, to which I have referred on earlier occasions. As is well known, the Security Council bears the chief responsibility for maintaining peace and security in the international community. Nevertheless, experience has shown that until the right of veto is modified there is not much hope that the Security Council can fulfil the obligations assigned to it by the Charter.
88. We feel that the right of veto should be limited to questions connected with coercive action when they arise. It is not only the right but the duty of the Council to settle disputes between States, the Council should be organized in such a way that none of its members have the right to oppose resolutions aimed exclusively at bringing about a peaceful settlement of such disputes.
89. In closing, I should like to add a few words about the absent nations. During this general debate several representatives have requested that Japan be admitted to the United Nations. Spain, which maintains excellent relations with that State, adds its voice to those of the others and announces its intention to cast a favourable vote for Japan when the time comes. However, the Spanish delegation, on the first occasion on which its country appears in this Assembly, cannot conceal its sorrow in finding that there is no representative of Germany here. And I say Germany advisedly, without any territorial qualifications, because, in the eyes of Spaniards and, I believe, of the whole world, there is only one Germany, although some of its provinces have been separated from it, and it is not possible to recognize any German Government except that of Bonn, which rightfully represents all Germans, although a part of its population has been forcibly removed from its obedience.
90. Hence the Spanish delegation asks the United Nations to take the proper steps to consider the case of Germany, to help restore the separated provinces to the Federal Republic of Germany and to invite the latter to become a Member of the Organization. It is Germany’s right to belong to the United Nations, and it is the right of the United Nations to have the valuable collaboration of this great people.