1. As the General Assembly convenes, our interest is without doubt concentrated primarily on the Korean question. The Swedish delegation expounded during the resumed meetings of the seventh session in August its views on the questions which were under discussion at that time. We were among those who wanted the political conference to have the character of a round-table conference in which countries other than those having contributed armed forces in Korea should also participate. I do not intend to deal with the Korean question at this stage. It will no doubt be debated further in the First Committee. It is of the utmost importance, I think, that the planned political conference should take place and that considerations of prestige should not make impossible even a preliminary agreement on the convening of the conference.
2. My intention is to limit myself in this general debate to some remarks concerning the revision of the Charter, an item which has now been included in the agenda of the Assembly.
3. Article 109 of the Charter provides that the question of a revision of the Charter is to be considered at the tenth annual session of the General Assembly at the latest. In view of that provision, there may be good reasons for the Netherlands proposal [A/2442] to request the Secretariat this year to review the manner in which the machinery of the Charter has functioned during the last few years and to put together the amendments that have been presented. It may perhaps be said that available literature gives sufficient information regarding the functioning of the United Nations up till now. The Swedish delegation, however, has no hesitation in voting for an instruction to the Secretariat to analyse the practice developed in the Security Council and in the General Assembly regarding the interpretation of important provisions of the Charter and to point out gaps in the system of rules or incompatibilities between various regulations.
4. Only a short time after the creation of the United Nations, proposals for an extensive revision of the Charter were presented from many quarters. Now that the first ten-year period is drawing to an end the provision in Article 109 has given rise to numerous contributions to public debate. In particular, I am sure that we have studied with great attention the observations on these problems made by the leader of the United States delegation in his recent speeches.
5. Many of those who are taking an interest in the development of the United Nations are obviously inclined to think that the imperfection and shortcomings of the Organization are due to the wording of the articles of the Charter. We have often heard it said, for instance, that the fundamental fault with the United Nations is the right of veto of the permanent members of the Security Council. If only another voting rule were established, it is argued, the United Nations would be transformed into an effective organization. Others have voiced the opinion that the United Nations should be given, in a higher degree than at present, the character of a real international legal system based on precise rules, as in the case of the individual State, and on a general obligation to accept the jurisdiction of courts in legal disputes. A comprehensive codification of international law should logically be the basis of the Charter.
6. Among the adherents of a general revision of the Charter are also those who aim at the creation of a world government. They wish to transform the United Nations into a supranational organization and to give the Security Council — or a council more suitably organized for the purpose — the position of a world government with extensive supranational powers.
7. As far as the more far-reaching proposals for a revision are concerned I should like to say first a few words about the right of veto.
8. From a recently published work on the United Nations I permit myself to quote a few observations concerning the veto rule. The authors write as follows: “The campaign to ‘eliminate the veto’, however, tends to confuse cause with effect. One negative vote, blocking unanimity of agreement, is merely a reflection of the power and inclination of the Soviet Union to pursue policies not acceptable to the other great Powers. It does no good to reach decisions by a majority vote if the minority has the power to prevent the decisions from being carried out. In such cases, the majority can prevail only by inducing the minority to co-operate or by finding some other means to make its opposition ineffective. Reaffirmation by balloting that the majority is the majority certainly does not reach the heart of this problem.” The same observation has been made by the London Times in the following words: "It is not easy to see how the revision of any document can change the awkward facts of international life.”
9. The political situation in the world is not such that either of the two most powerful States is prepared to accept in advance important and binding political decisions which may be dictated or influenced in a decisive way by the other. It is supposed that the Soviet Union would refuse to participate in the work of an international political organization where binding decisions on important questions influenced by the wish of the United States were as a rule to be expected. It may also, I am sure, be confidently argued that the United States would not care to be a member of an organization with rules of such a kind that binding decisions on questions of great importance to the United States could be expected to go against the United States.
10. In the League of Nations even the small countries had the right of veto in the Council; in the United Nations, on the other hand, their position is weaker. My own country, when it entered the United Nations as a Member State, agreed to waive the right of veto in the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter. But Sweden, as well as many other small Powers, regards the great Powers' right of veto on decisions concerning, for instance, military action, as a guarantee that our countries will not be bound, as the result of a decision of the majority of the Security Council, to take part in military action in cases where the great Powers stand very much divided.
11. I have dealt with the use of the right of veto in questions of paramount importance to the country concerned. It seems, however, that that right in the Security Council has also been used in connexion with questions having no real importance to the national interests of the State exercising it. It may even be argued that most of the cases in which the right of veto has been exercised have related to less important matters — and, above all, to the admission of new Members.
12. We have noted with satisfaction that the majority of the permanent members of the Security Council — including, I believe, the United States but not the Soviet Union — have expressed their intention to waive the right of veto so far as questions of the admission of new Members are concerned. I presume that that declaration would also apply to questions as to which government should represent a State already a Member of the United Nations. Furthermore, we have heard from Mr. Dulles [434th meeting] that the United States Senate, as long ago as 1948, adopted a resolution calling for the exclusion of the right of veto from all questions relating to the peaceful settlement of international disputes.
13. Such a reform would mean that the Security Council would be able to recommend the solution of a dispute despite the fact that a permanent member of the Council had voted against the recommendation. A Security Council recommendation is not a binding decision, and the above-mentioned reform would not encroach upon the sovereign right of determination of the disputing parties. Nevertheless, it would be of great psychological value if all the big Powers would, in conformity with the resolution to which I have just referred, declare that they were prepared to waive their fight of veto so far as that group of questions was concerned.
14. The inconveniences of a too-far-reaching rule of veto should not, however, be exaggerated. Since the right of veto does not exist in the General Assembly the raising of a question there may in many cases result in the adoption of measures which have not obtained unanimity in the Security Council. As an example I may mention the commissions set up by the Assembly for various purposes; the Balkan commissions, the Korean commissions, the commission to investigate the racial policies of the Union of South Africa, and so forth. The Assembly has also solicited the International Court of Justice for a considerable number of advisory opinions — requests to which all the permanent members of the Security Council would not have agreed. I may also draw the General Assembly’s attention to the resolution [377 (V)] of 3 November 1950, entitled "Uniting for peace”. Furthermore, the General Assembly had discussed and adopted resolutions on such items as Tunisia and Morocco — questions which would not have been taken up in the Security Council.
15. As I have just mentioned, the right of veto has perhaps been used most often in connexion with the question of the admission of new Members. It is not, however, exclusively the right of veto which is the cause of the negative result in connexion with that question. In some cases applications for membership have been rejected owing to the negative vote or the abstention of a group of members within the Security Council. In those cases the term "veto” cannot be used.
16. It is well known that, as the United Nations Charter is now drafted, no revision can be made without the affirmative vote of the five, permanent members of the Security Council. The abolition of the right of veto constitutes a change which has no chance of obtaining the approval of all the permanent members of the Security Council. This profound revision of the Security Council’s voting rules cannot, therefore, be legally attained at the present time. There are perhaps those who hold that the present United Nations should be dissolved and a new and more homogeneous organization created, without the right of veto. If such a conception exists, it should be expressed openly, but the truth is — and here I quote once again from the Times of London; "... that a United Nations which did not seek — and, indeed, depend upon — co-operation with the communist countries would be failing to do the work for which it was created. In the view of most of its Members it would be a disastrous setback for the future peace and order of the world if the United Nations were allowed to deteriorate into a permanent anti-communist alliance.” I am in complete agreement with that statement.
17. To mention another kind of demand for far-reaching reforms, to which I referred earlier, I would ask this: how would it be possible to achieve a world government without the consent of the governmental and legislative authorities of the countries which would be members of the organization and would thus be placed under the authority of the world government? Do the enthusiastic and well-intentioned supporters of the idea of world government believe that they can force countries to accept this goal? Do they hope< to surmount all obstacles by drawing up a constitution for the future supranational organization and then by tempting the peoples with its promises of a secure and rosy future? If the world were ripe for world government there would be no difficulty about giving an adequate legal form to an organization which would, in that case, meet a need acknowledged by all. But to write a charter for a Utopian world State now would be to begin at the wrong end. We shall not reshape the political reality merely by drawing up a constitution for the contemplated ideal State. The submission of a proposal — no matter how perfect — for such a constitution would not bring us a single step nearer to the goal.
18. It has sometimes been suggested, as I have already mentioned, that the United Nations should, to a greater extent, be given the character of an organization built on a basis of legal principles and rules. That is not a new suggestion. Even before the adoption of the Charter that idea was widely maintained — particularly here in the United States, where a large number of prominent jurists wished to endow the new Organization with stability by means of a skeleton structure of legal rules. For my part, I, as a jurist, have great sympathy for this opinion.
19. I recently heard about a man in the street who was philosophically inclined and who held the idea that, if everyone could learn to play chess, peace would be secured. A chess player understands the importance of the rules of the game and learns to respect them. He would also be prepared to respect the rules of the game with regard to human beings and States, this philosopher believed, in his optimism. Chess is a particularly popular game in the Soviet Union, but I do not have the impression that respect for international law — that is, the rules of this kind of game — is particularly striking in that country.
20. Perhaps it is right that future development must be directed towards firmer international legal rules if we are sometime to achieve more secure international relations. Why, then, were the recommendations of the United States jurists not followed in 1945? Presumably because their proposals did not find sufficient support among the countries organizing the United Nations. Experience has shown that opposition to the attaining of more clearly defined juridical rules for the United Nations in particular cases may come from unexpected quarters. We all knew the interest of the United States in binding legal pledges rather than in vague rules of a moral character. I shall, however, cite as? instance of a contrary attitude on the part of the United States.
21. In the Preamble of the Charter the United Nations affirms its “faith in fundamental human rights”. For several years the General Assembly has tried to define this declaration of principle in precise legal terms — a task very difficult in itself, since it is necessary to take into account to a certain degree the constitutional rules of the Member States. In the Council of Europe, however, a convention in that respect has already been signed, so the goal is not unattainable. But we have observed that objections of principle have been raised in the United Nations against the very thought of giving these general principles a legal aspect in the form of an international convention.
22. In this connexion the new representative of the United States on the Commission on Human Rights — the successor to Mrs. Roosevelt — declared recently that the climate of world opinion was not at the moment favourable to the conclusion of the two proposed conventions on human rights. She added that her Government had concluded that, at the present stage of international relations, it would not ratify the covenant. The United States representative read a message from the President of the United States confirming the fact that the United States believes that a formal international treaty or treaties does not provide the way to further understanding of and respect for human rights. This line of argument appears to be a criticism of the very idea of a stronger legal character in the rules of the Charter. One would otherwise be inclined to believe that the supporters of the idea of a firmer legal system would be prepared to begin with the codification of the rules regarding human rights.
23. Article 1, paragraph 3, of the Charter declares that one of the purposes of the United Nations is to promote and encourage “respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion”. How many Member States still continue to retain in their legislation a policy of discrimination as to race or sex? The policy of racial discrimination has been censured many times by the General Assembly, but a number of countries have failed to amend their legislations in regard to discrimination against women in certain fields. Are there any prospects for the abolition of all discrimination in the proposed revision of the Charter by transforming the “purpose” of the Charter into legal reality? I think the answer must be in the negative.
24. Article 73 of the Charter enjoins the countries which are responsible for the administration of territories whose peoples have not yet attained a full measure of self-government to ensure, among other things, the political advancement of the peoples concerned. If this maxim were made a definite legal rule, with legal sanctions, it would be necessary as a consequence to accept international control of the observance of the rule. Again, it may be questioned whether such an amendment to the Charter has any chance of being accepted. Several of the States administering such territories have so far denied the United Nations the right even to be officially informed of the political development of those territories. I have no doubt that they can be brought gradually to agree to a practice which would render the general exhortations of the Charter more real in substance, but they would hardly, at the present time, accept a definite legal rule in the Charter.
25. If the United Nations system were given a more accentuated legal character, such a system would have to include an obligation on the part of the Member States to accept a judicial decision in all legal disputes. In my opinion this would be a most desirable reform, and in this connexion I might say that I had the opportunity, during the last session of the General Assembly [379th meeting], to expound the views of my Government on the value of compulsory arbitration in international disputes. But a reform could be achieved technically without any amendment to the Charter. A number of States already have accepted the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in legal disputes — in many cases, however, with more or less far-reaching reservations which have not always been consistent with the idea of an actual legal system. We have made considerable progress in relation to the situation existing during the nineteen-twenties, when the Permanent Court of International Justice of the League of Nations began to function. Unfortunately, the members of the Eastern bloc are not among these States. However, neither by amending the Charter nor in any other way can we force them to change their attitude.
26. In my intervention I have aimed at illustrating concretely the significance of the idea of revision. I believe that a scrutiny of the suggestions for significant amendments to the Charter would reveal that they either reflect illusions as to the political reality in which we are living, or that they have some other aim than the realization of the proposed changes.
27. I should like to summarize my remarks by expressing the opinion that a revision of the basic parts of the Charter constitutes no immediate or important goal. As a matter of fact the Charter is, on the whole, satisfactory. Provided that there is sufficient will to co-operate, the machinery of the present Charter can render excellent service. I have no doubt that a review conference will confirm this fact.
28. It may be objected that the Charter is impaired by contradictions. Certain declarations of principle have been given a Utopian character and reflect the goals of a distant future rather than the reality of today. A reader of the Charter may easily gain the impression that the United Nations is an association of only such States as have accepted the principles of political democracy: whereas the fact is that the Organization was intended to become universal and that it embraces States with the most varying forms of government. A study of the Charter gives the impression that the Security Council can provide forces which may be dispatched promptly to take action against any aggressor. In actual fact, of course, that is not the situation. I have already cited other instances of contradictions between declarations of principle and political reality. However, I do not think that anyone will insist on a revision in order that the solemn principles may be translated into language corresponding more accurately to imperfect reality.
29. The demands for revision which have been presented in the general debate rather tend to take the opposite direction. They would render the contents of the Charter more Utopian; they would remove its provisions still further from reality. The general public should not, however, have the illusion that such proposals would constitute a short-cut to a more secure world order and a more stable peace. The prospects for a lasting peace depend on the international policies pursued by States, particularly by the great Powers, and not on the drawing up of perfect provisions in the Charter of the United Nations.