From this platform, which I have the honour to be the first to mount today, I salute Paris in all its splendour. Fluctuat nec mergitur. Our faith and our confidence in peace, freedom and right shall likewise never founder.
2. Like the poet of old, in admiration and gratitude I cry: “ Oh holy light, golden eye of day !” And in the glow of the hallowed radiance that greeted the birth of Lutetia two thousand years ago, let me render to France, welcoming us with all her matchless, stately charm, a tribute of solemn and heart-felt homage. In the name of all those peoples whose language echoes, even from afar, the tongue of Latium, I renew the oath of eternal fealty to Christianity, to the rule of law, and to the culture of the Mediterranean Sea.
3. The tradition of the philosophy of law, and of the basic principles which issue from that great original fount was proclaimed and adopted by the peoples and was embodied by them in the Charter of the United Nations at San Francisco. It is there that we shall find a constant source of inspiration for our labours in the sixth session of the United Nations General Assembly, labours bearing on matters of the highest import to international peace and security.
4. The diversity of the topics which the General Assembly must study during its sixth session brings out in clear relief the importance of the work of this session. No matter what the subject of debate, whether it be the vital, problem of the maintenance of world peace and security, or the details of economic and technical co-operation between Member States, the Assembly once again emerges as the quintessential body of the United Nations. Containing within itself the most varied trends of thought, analysing and discussing the whole gamut of the problems of international society, it assumes the character of a universal forum in which all the Members of the Organization are represented with equal rights.
5. The existence of the Security Council, the body specifically charged with the handling of issues relating to the ultimate purposes of the United Nations, does not in any way detract from the supreme authority of the Assembly. It is the Assembly that by reason of its structure is responsible for the effective working of the Organization and the realization of its aims. And the many obstacles which the Council has encountered in the attempt to achieve its high objectives fully justify the adoption by the Assembly at its last session of resolution 377 (V) which seeks to ensure that the great Powers shall work together in a spirit of mutual understanding and thus to make good any deficiency that might result from failure on the Council’s part.
6. In this connexion, may I recall that the Fourth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, held in Washington at the beginning of this year, showed its complete agreement with the spirit of that resolution, entitled “ Uniting for Peace ”, by recommending to all members of the Organization of American States that they should adapt their resources and their defence systems to the present-day requirements of international security without, however, prejudicing the legitimate needs of their own defence.
7. We have herein a concrete example of effective participation by a regional body in the endeavours of the United Nations to round off its task of international peace. There is no need for me to dwell on the importance of the activity of such bodies within the system instituted by the Charter. Regional organizations have a steadily increasing value as agents for the propagation of the United Nations and the development and application of its principles. The benefits that accrue therefrom are undeniable once it. is conceded that neither by their existence nor by their activities shall they ever detract from the universality upon which the hope of final victory for the United Nations rests.
8. If it is successfully to cope with the present crisis in international relations, our Organization must strive with a vigour renewed each day to expand its sphere of action and to increase its territorial domain by admitting all those nations which desire loyally to collaborate in its noble task. It is regrettable that we still cannot hear within these walls the voice of certain nations, particularly of certain great Latin peoples, whose assistance could be valuable indeed, not only for the United Nations but also for the large numbers of mankind dwelling within their frontiers.
9. Brazil recently convened the first Congress of the Latin Union. This is a movement for the progressive reinforcement of the peaceful and constructive work of the United Nations by inter-linking twenty-six European and American nations of Latin origin. The movement, the first Congress of which was held at Rio de Janeiro, reached conclusions that represent a reaffirmation of the principles on which western civilization is based.
10. In view of its competence and of its composition, universality is the vital condition for the success of the United Nations. We shall gain but little profit from the continual proliferation of specialized agencies and ad hoc committees, unless our labours are directed by a spirit of loyal, of unreserved co-operation on the part of all peoples of the world. As Mr. Trygve Lie, Secretary-General of the United Nations, has so truly stated, neither walls nor curtains will prevent the peoples from belonging to the United Nations, nor the United Nations from belonging to the peoples.
11. It is now almost a truism to say that the colossal difficulties with which certain communities are at grips are political and not technical in character. For the Brazilian delegation it is a sad thought that the human intellect, which has applied itself so successfully to the unravelling of the most arduous mysteries of science, is often baffled and frustrated in achieving practical results, through the lack of understanding of certain governments actuated by ideological fanaticism or a mistaken attitude of firmness. The growing interdependence, indeed the virtual coincidence, of the internal and external policies of States has had the truly paradoxical result of threatening the cause of world peace. An age which claims to be enlightened is faced with the grim reality of multitudes enslaved in a sombre moral and spiritual thralldom, a fertile soil for the propagation of doctrines both anti-democratic and contrary to the interests of peace.
12. The problems arising out of the nationalistic claims of certain groups are delicate and difficult to solve. While Brazil, in accordance with its political traditions, feels deep sympathy with the legitimate national aspirations of the peoples, it has none the less always been in the vanguard of those who advocate peaceful and conciliatory solutions for all the conflicts of international life. President Vargas, in his message to the Brazilian Congress this year, stated that all colonialism must be regarded as an undesirable survival in international life today. At the present juncture it is of pressing importance that peoples aspiring to total freedom should endeavour to act with the prudence and calmness demanded by the need for safeguarding the security structure that has been so slowly and painfully built up and that affords the best guarantee of the realization of their desires.
13r It is therefore vital to seek compensatory agreements through, friendly negotiation. To bring a dispute before the United Nations without having first exhausted all other means of peaceful solution is to run counter to the spirit of the Charter and to do it considerable harm. At a moment when the problems which weigh upon the world are submitted to the United Nations no reaffirmation can be too strong of the vital need for mutual confidence and for faith in our Organization and in its aims and objects.
14. It is imperative that the resolutions and recommendations, both of the General Assembly and of the Security Council, should be respected by all States Members and that the decisions of the International Court of Justice should be upheld by all governments. Brazil feels herself particularly well qualified to support such projects in that the spirit of conciliation and peace so often attested by her historical development and by her conduct within the community of nations, is part and parcel of her legal tradition and of the character of her people. For the true democratic spirit is founded upon a just reconciliation of group and individual interests.
15. In advocating, under the authority of the Charter, peaceful solutions for the problems which threaten the world, the Brazilian delegation has no intention of restricting the freedom, detracting from the rights, or ignoring the aspirations of certain peoples to the advantage of others, whether large or small. It seeks only to establish an equitable balance of interests by giving a measure of satisfaction to either party and by guaranteeing to all the minimum conditions of life which will permit them to enjoy the rights they have thus acquired.
16. Looking back on the work undertaken by the United Nations since its creation I feel we can say that it has already many positive achievements to its credit. As an example of those achievements, it is with great satisfaction that the Brazilian delegation, at the opening of the General Assembly’s sixth session, can point to the felicitous intervention of the United Nations in Greece and Korea.
17. Those who cast doubt upon the Organization’s activity up to the present time tend to an over-simplification of the issues and an unduly superficial analysis of the principles on which the United Nations is based. It is truly encouraging to review all that has been planned and achieved during these six years of work. We have established standards and techniques for the economic and social advancement of man as a pre-eminently political being. We have reaffirmed the fundamental rights of man enunciated in the draft convention which we shall discuss and which is one of the most ambitious attempts at legal and social creative action ever undertaken by an international organization. The United Nations is an institution created by man for man, and this fundamental feature expresses at once its whole weakness and its whole strength. Its vicissitudes, its setbacks and its hesitations are the vicissitudes, setbacks and hesitations of modem man, at a loss before a multitude of problems, war-weary and yet ever filled with the hope of peace notwithstanding the darker aspects of contemporary existence. The fidelity with which the United Nations has reflected and interpreted the situation in which man thus finds himself today is above all eloquent proof that it is a vital instrument of politico-social progress and development.
18. The experience of joint action in Korea, on bases which would have been thought highly improbable and even impossible a few years ago, has demonstrated the degree to which the peoples of the world are imbued today with the ideals of the Charter. Realization of the fact that peace is indivisible and that aggression against any State is not only a violation of world peace but an act directed against the community of free nations, has led to the establishment of certain standards of international conduct and the crystallization of certain principles which will complete the collective security system of the Charter in so far as they reflect the political and social systems of the contemporary world. It is for this reason that the Brazilian delegation is particularly interested in the careful analysis which we shall make of the report by the Collective Measures Committee [A/1891]. The preliminary work carried out by fourteen delegations, meeting throughout seven months at the United Nations Headquarters, provides us with a basis for discussion on the strengthening of the principles of collective security. As Brazil has already stated in that Committee, the establishment of a system of collective security is not the final goal of the United Nations. On the contrary, we regard it as a contingency arising out of the continuing precariousness of peaceful international relations, and as an admission that new acts of aggression are still possible.
19. The results thus far achieved are a step on the road to peace; but they do net signify that we have achieved the final objectives we have set before ourselves. We are striving to render collective security as universal as possible. But how much further on our way should we be if a glimpse were vouchsafed to us now of an age in which we could regard a genuinely universal system of collective security is something completely incompatible with a stage of political development in which the principles we are formulating today will be seen to be the inadequate and obsolete conceptions of men still obsessed by the fear of aggression and war.
20. We live in an age of profound political and social change; our task is not to oppose or to retard it. Our Organization, an the form in which we have planned it, has received from all nations the task of imparting substance and form and shape to these new aspirations, of creating a link between the achievements of the past and the promises of the future, between thought and action, between the ideas which inspire us and the aims which in the spirit of the Charter we have set before ourselves, and with the realization of the responsibilities incumbent upon us at a specially critical stage in the history of mankind.
21. I endorse the hope expressed by one of the outstanding leaders of Brazilian thought, who is a member of our delegation, that the storms of the soul may take hold of this Assembly.