Mr. PADILLA NERVO hoped that, as the Assembly had met in the heart of France, in the capital of a great country to which humanity owed so much, the watchword of «Liberty, Equality and Fraternity », which had gone out from Paris to all the world, would, in all its profound significance, through the present anxious period of hope and aspiration, inspire the will and feeling of the representatives present at the Assembly.
The Assembly had unfortunately not met in an atmosphere of security and optimism. Throughout the world man was living in anxiety and fear. Governments had not succeeded in inspiring by their pronouncements an international confidence not justified by deeds. It could not be concealed that public opinion regarded the Assembly’s discussions with feelings of doubt and reserve which could not be changed by speeches but only by clear results, constructive agreements and satisfactory solutions.
The representatives of both great and small nations had, time and again, re-affirmed their faith in the purposes and principles of the United Nations and their intention to honour their pledges and respect freely contracted promises. They had one and all proclaimed before the Assembly their determination to settle their disputes by peaceful means and in conformity with the principles of justice and law; to practice tolerance and live together in peace as good neighbours; to develop friendly relations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples; to achieve international co-operation in recognizing and safeguarding human rights and fundamental freedoms; not to use armed force except in the common interest; not to encroach upon the territorial integrity or the political independence of any State.
The spokesmen of the great Powers had, in the Assembly, roused the hopes of the common man by the solemn promise that they would unite their forces for the maintenance of international peace and security. The fulfilment of that promise depended on their mutual understanding and agreement. It admitted of no division or graduation.
However great the spiritual and material contribution of the other nations — placed on a lower level of responsibility by their limited military and economic power — to the common task of outlawing war and creating world conditions for the preservation for all of liberty, justice, law and social progress, those ideals could not be attained in any permanent and universal way without the necessary support of the great Powers, the mutual harmony and understanding of which were the point of departure and the very basis of the United Nations.
For that reason Mexico viewed with alarm, not the inevitable and foreseen differences between the great Powers, for the solution of which the different organs and instruments of the United Nations had in fact been created, but the intransigence apparent in the search for equilibrium, the spirit which seemed to obtain in negotiations, the stagnation or slowness shown on the path to vital agreement, the growth of a political atmosphere of distrust, suspicion and lack of understanding.
The world could no longer be satisfied with mere repeated statements, however sincere, of adhesion to noble principles on the part of each Member of the Organization. The world was eager for concrete results which bore a relation to the lofty ideals professed; it hoped and indeed insisted that the profession of faith should be translated into and proved by everyday deeds. Humanity could not free itself from fear unless it saw daily that great and small nations alike were using their will and their perseverance to attain gradually a real solution of existing problems and not to carry out their national policies in the international field.
It was the supreme duty of the United Nations to restore meaning to their declarations; the salvation of the world demanded that they should practice what they preached. Their discussions should be carried on in a real international spirit which could arise only from the persuasion that there was one indivisible world and one human community. Interdependence and common destiny were the incontestable facts of the modern world, reflecting a historical reality from which contemporary humanity could not escape. For the preservation and improvement of the present-day modes of civilization; and indeed for them merely to continue to exist, it was essential that peoples and governments should adjust their conduct in the light of that truth.
Dealing with the Secretary-General’s annual report, Mr. Padilla Nervo said that the problems with which the Assembly would deal, especially those of a political character, had in general already been dealt with by the Assembly or by the Security Council. Although conclusions had been reached, they had not led to any final or full solution. Those problems formed yet other obstacles in the way of a final organization of the peace and they continued to exist largely because the co-operation of all the Members of the United Nations had not been obtained for their settlement and because the resolutions adopted had not been observed by all the Members.
The principle obstacle in the way of a complete settlement of the political problems before the Assembly was the fact that they could not be solved independently of the problems raised by the aftermath of the war and independently of agreement among the great Powers.
While the only disputes and situations submitted to the General Assembly were those in which small nations were involved, and as the disputes between the great Powers, which were precisely those the continuation of which most seriously endangered peace and security, were not submitted to the Assembly, any solution of the problems listed in the agenda would be inadequate and precarious. Even if it were admitted that the problems arising as a result of the war and the conclusion of all the peace treaties should be dealt with exclusively by the great Powers, the differences between them, which had in the past years become intensified as regards their negotiations on the peace settlement, should not be kept from the General Assembly, as the peaceful settlement of such differences was of vital importance to all the United Nations.
The mutual co-operation sought by the great Powers when they submitted to the General Assembly the political problems dealt with in previous sessions could not, and should not, be limited to those matters, but should be extended as well to the basic problem of ensuring that the great Powers reached a settlement on the organization of peace. That was the essential problem, which affected and included in itself all the others and if solved would, as a consequence, lead to the solution of all lesser problems. If the problem of peace were not solved quickly and in a spirit of justice, no other political question submitted to the Assembly would have a proper and final solution.
The Members of the United Nations which made up the Assembly, which was the authentic organ of world opinion and its most powerful means of expression, were fully dispose — and in conformity with the Charter, obliged — to co-operate in the search for a peaceful solution of the differences between the great Powers, whether such differences concerned the uncompleted war settlement or arose from opposition of views and interests relating to the peace treaty.
Reference had been made to tribunals set up for the settlement of differences through the impartial opinions of international society. In no other tribunal was international opinion so perfectly represented as in, the General Assembly, and its share in the adjustment of such differences was necessary and of great value. It was not contrary to the provisions of the Charter that the great Powers should accept, in the search for a solution of such differences, the disinterested co-operation of the United Nations.
In the last three years the great Powers had not been able, by themselves, to find a common basis of agreement, and if they did not associate other nations in their attempt, those other nations might perhaps find themselves inclined to recognize the futility of looking on as impotent spectators at the aggravation of a fundamental problem the solution of which was so deeply desired by all. It was essential to correct the course in time; otherwise the day might come when — if the ordinary sessions of the Assembly were no longer regarded as a place and opportunity for the harmonization of interests and the settlement of differences endangering the peace — it might be considered preferable to suspend the meetings rather than convert the Assembly into a field of sterile conflict and a seat of discord.
The Assembly could not continue to be year after year, a world tribunal used primarily for spreading disagreement.
The representative of Mexico hoped that the universal cry for an understanding between the great Powers would not be taken up only by the representatives speaking for their peoples and Governments but would also find an outlet in a joint statement of the Assembly, crystallizing the universal desire for redoubled effort in the quest of a just and lasting peace. He also hoped that the Assembly would unanimously decide to co-operate with those who could and should bring about peace in the accomplishment of the highest and most urgent of the tasks before it.
Mr. Padilla Nervo did not consider it necessary to give his Government’s opinion on each of the main questions on the agenda. His delegation would give its opinion in due course when they were discussed in the Committees, and it proposed to support every constructive and sincere idea, from wherever it came, that contributed to a just solution of the problems. His delegation would, in its work, follow the lines laid down by his country’s Foreign Minister when he said that his country would co-operate in so far as such co-operation meant agreement between States and would in full awareness support every effort to bring about the organization of peace within a framework of law.
The fact that the great Powers had not yet been able to come to an understanding did not diminish his country’s faith in the fundamental value of the United Nations, as the only international machinery able to maintain world peace and security through world co-operation. Mexico had faith in the moral force of the Assembly’s recommendations, even though, in some cases they had not been observed, for it considered that whoever ignored them was merely weakened thereby.
The Mexican Foreign Minister had recently said that there was nothing in the Charter to prevent the United Nations as a whole, or through a special conference, or by some other means, from studying the matter of the peace treaties. A recommendation of the Assembly to that effect would be in conformity with the spirit of the United Nations.
The Mexican delegation, accordingly, for the reasons given and in order to affirm and proclaim in a concrete formula the desire for peace of the small Powers, suggested that the Assembly should adopt a resolution reading as follows (A/662/Rev.1).
«1. Whereas it is the essential purpose of the United Nations to maintain international peace and security and to that end it must co-ordinate its efforts to bring about by peaceful means the settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
«2. Whereas the United Nations should be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of this common end;
«3. Whereas the United Nations cannot fully attain its aims so long as the recent war remains in process of liquidation, and so long as all the peace treaties have not been concluded and put into force;
«4. Whereas the great Allied Powers which bore the heaviest burden in the war and whose common sacrifice and effort were the prime cause of victory have reaffirmed, on many solemn occasions, their determination to maintain and strengthen in peace the unity of purpose and action which made possible the triumph of the United Nations;
« 5. Whereas the aforementioned Allied Powers which undertook, at the second Moscow Conference, responsibility for drafting and concluding the peace treaties have not been able, after three years of effort, to obtain the full realization of their high mission by building a just and lasting peace;
«6. Whereas the disagreement between the said Powers in matters of vital importance to all the United Nations is at the present time the cause of the deepest anxiety among all the peoples of the world, and
«7. Whereas the United Nations, in the performance of its most sacred mission, is bound to afford its assistance and co-operation in the settlement of a situation the continuation of which involves grave dangers for international peace,
« The General Assembly resolves;
«First, to express its confidence that the great Allied Powers will determine their policy in the' spirit of the declaration to which they subscribed in the Crimea, and in which they reaffirmed their faith in the principles of the Atlantic Charter, their pledge in the declaration of the United Nations and their determination to build, in co-operation with other peace-loving nations, a world order under law, dedicated to peace, security, freedom and the general well-being of all mankind;
«Secondly, to affirm its adoption of that part of the declaration signed at Yalta on 11 February 1945, by Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, which proclaims that «Only with continuing and growing co-operation and understanding among our three countries and among all the peace-loving nations can the highest aspiration of humanity be realized — a secure and lasting peace which will, in the words of the Atlantic Charter, « afford assurance that all the men, in all the lands, may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want»;»
« Thirdly, to recommend the Powers signatories of the agreements of the second Moscow Conference to redouble their efforts, in a spirit of solidarity and mutual understanding to achieve in the briefest possible time the final settlement of the war and the conclusion of all the peace treaties;
«Fourthly, to recommend the aforementioned Powers to associate with them in the performance of such a noble task, the States signatories of the Washington Declaration of 1 January 1942 either through the General Assembly of the United Nations or by means of a special conference at which all States which subscribed or adhered to the said Declaration should be represented.»
In conclusion, Mr. Padilla Nervo said that all the members of the United Nations expected from the great Powers the will and the capacity to settle their differences and bring about peace. It was necessary that they should listen to the unanimous hope for peace expressed by millions of men and women in all the countries of the earth.