NEW YORK, 18 September 1947

The General Assembly is meeting at a period in world history which
can be described as the half light between war and peace. It is
already over two years since Japan laid down its arms, yet the
peace treaties are still not concluded with either Germany or
Japan. Thus, although there is no longer any world war, it cannot
be said that peace has returned to the world. Over vast areas
there is a condition of fear and unrest which is not only
disturbing to the people of the world but is an active hindrance
to the work of the United Nations. The primary function of the
United Nations is to maintain world peace but, paradoxically,
there is as yet no world peace to maintain.

Peace Settlements Urgently Needed

In Europe political conditions are still unstable and the work of
economic reconstruction is held up by uncertainty as to the future
of Austria and Germany, whose industrial resources must prove a
vital element in the European economy as a whole. Nobody knows
what production will in future be permitted to these countries, or
what trade and political structure they will be permitted or
encouraged to maintain. Peace treaties with Austria and Germany
are, therefore, urgently necessary, and failure to reach these
settlements is a matter of concern to the United Nations. The
peace settlement with Japan, too, is urgently needed in order to
provide a firm basis for political and economic reconstruction in
the East Asian and Pacific region. The United Nations has a big
role before it in helping to raise standards of human welfare
throughout this region, a task in which Australia is particularly
interested and to which the Economic and Social Council should
turn its attention without further delay.

However, there is sound reason for believing that a peace
settlement with Japan will be negotiated in the near future. The
Australian Government considers that such agreement on the peace
settlement of the Pacific need not await the settlement in Europe.

As a result of Allied declarations of policy a large measure of
agreement already exists as to the principles of the Japanese
peace settlement. Over the past two years the eleven Powers which
took part in fighting and in winning the Pacific war have been
working together in Washington as members of the Far Eastern
Commission, establishing occupation policies based on the Allied
declarations I have mentioned. The basic policy of the Commission
provides a valuable outline for the peace settlement itself, and a
valuable precedent against restricting the peace-making to a few
major Powers and for including in its scope all belligerents which
made a substantial contribution to victory.

But the present disturbed situation in the world is not due
entirely to the failure to arrive at satisfactory peace
settlements. To some extent the delay in the drafting of the
treaties is a symptom rather than a cause of the disease. The
Australian Government had watched with deep concern the tendency
among certain nations to form dominating groups and rigid blocs or
alignments. Such a tendency was entirely contrary to the spirit of
the San Francisco Charter which stressed the need for tolerance
and declared as one of its purposes respect for human rights and
for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race,
sex, language, or religion and, above all, sought to substitute
justice and morality for physical power as the determinant in
international relationships. It is to the spirit which animated
the delegations at San Francisco that we should endeavour to
return.

The Role of the General Assembly

In this situation the present General Assembly has a specially
heavy responsibility in grappling with problems, including some
which the Security Council has been unable to settle. The
Assembly, because it represents all the members of the United
Nations, is more responsive to the public opinion of the world
than the Security Council, and it cannot be obstructed by the
procedure of the individual veto. Australia and other middle and
small Powers fought vigorously at San Francisco to enhance the
powers and influence of the General Assembly. Fortunately the
status finally established for the Assembly after a long struggle
still affords grounds for hope. There is no reason why this great
Assembly should succumb to the spirit of defeatism which has been
created in many quarters as a result of the Security Council
finding itself unable to reach decisions. The Australian
Government, which regards the support of the United Nations as a
cardinal principle in its foreign policy, does so largely because
of its confidence in the immense possibilities of the General
Assembly as an effective forum for international discussion,
bringing nearer to all the people of the world their chief desire-
freedom from fear and freedom from want-above all, for their
children.

I now refer to several aspects of the problems which will confront
us during the present Assembly.

The Use of the Veto

At San Francisco, in association with a number of middle and
smaller nations, the Australian Delegation sought to confine the
veto of each permanent member of the Security Council to the
matters contained in Chapter VII of the Charter, i.e., those
matters involving the use of diplomatic, economic, or military
sanctions against an aggressor.

In particular, we sought to prohibit the use of the veto in
connexion with the peaceful adjustment of international disputes
by the Security Council or with such matters as its
recommendations for the admission to the Organization of new
members. Our proposals were not adopted, mainly because it was
intimated that the Charter would not be signed at all if the veto
power was limited, although it was also intimated, not without a
certain degree of obscurity, that the permanent members would not
use their veto power 'wilfully to obstruct the operation of the
Council'.

The Veto in Practice

At the last session of the Assembly the Australian Delegation
again brought the matter of the veto to the business sheet of the
Assembly. We pointed out that the privilege of the veto had been
abused, and proposed that the Assembly should recommend to the
Council that the veto power should not be used in connexion with
the peaceful adjustment of disputes under Chapter VI of the
Charter. The Assembly finally adopted a somewhat indefinite
resolution 'earnestly requesting' the permanent members of the
Security Council to ensure that the Security Council was not
impeded in reaching decisions promptly. Even so, the intention of
the Assembly was clear enough and some progress was made in the
development by the Security Council of the principle that
abstention by a permanent member should not be deemed to have the
effect of a veto.

Despite the resolution of last year's Assembly, the veto practice
has continued and the matter comes up again for review at the
present Assembly. In the review, it will again be necessary to
distinguish sharply between the veto on measures of enforcement
under Chapter VII on the one hand and the veto on measures of
peaceful adjustment under Chapter VI and on administrative matters
on the other.

At and since San Francisco our view has been direct, consistent,
and reasonable. We have denied the soundness or justice of
applying the veto to the procedures of international conciliation
with which Chapter VI deals. In our view, conciliation of
disputants by the Security Council is a matter of duty and
obligation rather than of power or right, certainly if a majority
of the Council considers the case one for recommending
conciliation procedures. In our view no single nation should have
the arbitrary privilege of determining according to its own will,
overruling the clearly expressed will of the majority, that an
international situation causing friction must be left untouched or
that an international dispute must remain entirely unsettled. In
all such cases doing nothing tends to uncertainty, confusion,
dislocation and added friction.

It is most satisfactory to the Australian Delegation that after
two years of experience the United States Government has publicly
announced to this Assembly its belief that the veto should not be
applicable to the peaceful adjustment of situations as set out in
Chapter VI. However, our Delegation is also of the opinion that
all the relevant facts are sufficiently before the Assembly to
justify appropriate recommendations by the Assembly, and
accordingly the mere appointment of a committee to study the
matter further would not be adequate in the circumstances.

Jurisdiction of the Assembly in Disputes

In one vital respect-that of conciliation-the question of
reviewing the right of individual veto in the Security Council is
inseparably connected with the powers of the Assembly.

At San Francisco, most fortunately, the jurisdiction of the
General Assembly was broadened in several important respects. The
power of discussion under Article 10 was extended to cover any
question or matter within the wide scope of the Charter, the
Assembly being also empowered to make recommendations to the
Members or to the Security Council or to both. However,
recommendations are not permissible with regard to any dispute or
situation while the Security Council is bona fide handling that
dispute or situation.

The truth is, therefore, that, in relation to the pacific
settlement of disputes, the jurisdiction of the General Assembly,
although not so precisely described as is that of the Security
Council under Chapter VI of the Charter, is in essential respects
commensurate with and equivalent to that of the Security Council.

Therefore, just as the Security Council has power to investigate a
dispute or a situation which might lead to international friction
or give rise to a dispute, and to determine whether the
continuance of the dispute or situation endangers the maintenance
of international peace and security under Article 34, so the
General Assembly is permitted to exercise a similar jurisdiction.

The matter is entirely changed in relation to the executive power
conferred upon the Security Council in Chapter VII. Broadly
speaking, that Chapter deals with cases of an existing threat to
or breach of the peace or an act of aggression, and it proceeds to
endow the Security Council with jurisdiction to enforce
diplomatic, economic and military sanctions.

Summing it up, the position is that the jurisdiction of the
Security Council and the General Assembly in relation to the
pacific settlement of disputes and situations is a parallel
jurisdiction and the only limitation to the Assembly's full
exercise of jurisdiction is to prevent its making recommendations
while the Security Council is actually handling any such dispute
or situation.

United States Proposal for Assembly Committee

The United States representative yesterday pointed out with great
force that there is a definite need for making the facilities of
the General Assembly available continuously instead of only during
the annual or special sessions. This suggestion has particular
force in relation to the peace and security functions of the
Assembly because under the Charter there is a parallelism of
functions exercisable by the Security Council and General Assembly
in relation to the peaceable adjustment of international disputes.

If so, it would appear to follow logically that in cases where the
Security Council has failed to reach any decision recommending the
solution by peaceful means of any international disputes or any
situations causing friction, at any rate where that failure of the
Security Council is due, not to the absence of the majority of
seven, but to the exercise of the veto by one or more permanent
members, machinery should be made available whereby the process of
conciliation can be attempted by the General Assembly instead of
by the Security Council.

However, if this parallel and subsequent jurisdiction of the
General Assembly is to be exercised effectively, it will probably
be found necessary to continue or reconvene the Assembly itself
for the specific purpose of handling such matters of international
conciliation. By such machinery the letter and the spirit of the
Charter will then be obeyed because the situation will be handled
and disposed of by the Assembly where the Security Council has
failed to adjust the matter solely because of an individual veto.

Nothing is much worse than to leave situations or disputes causing
international friction to remain as they are, and the interval
which will ordinarily lapse between the Security Council's failure
to reach a decision and the next ordinary meeting of the Assembly,
is so long that all reasonable means to shorten the period should
be devised.

Therefore, without pinning ourselves down to the precise methods
suggested in the United States proposal, the Australian Delegation
feels that the course of international conciliation will be
advanced, and not retarded, by establishing means for the prompt
and continuous exercise, by the Assembly itself, of the
jurisdiction for the peaceful adjustment of international disputes
and situations wherever, as a result of the veto, the Security
Council has failed to devise any remedy for any such international
dispute or situation. Definite safeguards will, of course, be
required because the multiplication of the machinery for handling
disputes may, in certain circumstances, facilitate their creation
and nothing could be worse than to have the Assembly itself
brought together to deal with situations or disputes which are too
trivial to merit its attention. But such safeguards can be
devised.

I now turn from this question of moulding the Assembly's procedure
to enable it to handle certain international disputes, to two
other functions with which the Assembly will be required to deal
in committee.

The Greek Question

The case of Greece, until the other day before the Security
Council, affords an excellent illustration of the frustration,
futility, and positive injustice caused by applying an individual
veto in cases where the majority of the Council is attempting to
exercise conciliatory jurisdiction in a dispute between nations. A
Commission of Investigation was appointed to examine the questions
at issue and at a later stage an interim subsidiary group was
appointed to continue certain aspects of the work referred to by
the Commission of Investigation. Subsequently, in proceedings
before the Security Council, although no actual enforcement
measures were proposed and although the functions of a proposed
permanent commission were to be purely conciliative with the
object of restoring normal diplomatic relations between the
parties concerned, the veto was again applied contrary to the
clear majority of the Council members.

In these circumstances, the Security Council having failed through
the exercise of the veto to complete its job in an efficient
manner, it is only proper that the Assembly should itself take up
the problem. Permission was sought from the Security Council to
permit this Assembly to make a recommendation on the dispute
without liquidating the subsidiary group centred at Salonika. This
request was refused, once again by the use of the power of the
veto and as a result the Greek dispute had to be discarded
altogether from the Security Council agenda.

As I understand the position, it will be open to the Assembly when
dealing with the dispute to reinstate the present or to appoint
another subsidiary group-the Assembly acting in exercise of its
power to appoint a subsidiary organ.

It is unnecessary to deal specifically with the merits of the
Greek dispute, as to which Australia's representatives have
already expressed themselves with frankness and fully at the
Security Council level. No doubt there will be differences of
opinion as to the merits and demerits of the parties to the
dispute and differences of emphasis as to the importance of
certain findings of fact made by the Commission. But the point to
emphasize here is that, after many months of labour, the
proceedings in the Council have been practically nullified.

Accordingly, the Assembly will have to step in and exercise its
jurisdiction according to its own sense of what is appropriate and
just in this important matter of international security.

Admission of New Members

Perhaps the most striking example of the use of the veto power for
a purpose entirely unrelated either to enforcement measures, or
even to the vital interests of any permanent members, is in
relation to the admission of new members to the United Nations.

The Charter provides that membership in the United Nations is open
to all peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained
in the Charter and which, in the judgement of the organization are
able and willing to carry out these obligations. This does not
mean that all applicants for membership should automatically be
admitted. On the contrary, the case of each applicant state must
be considered carefully to see whether the conditions laid down in
the Charter are complied with. It is clear from the Charter that
the body to decide on the eligibility of a candidate is the
General Assembly, acting upon the recommendation of the Security
Council.

But what has happened in practice? Last year five applicants were
refused recommendation for admission by the Security Council,
three of them as the result of the veto of one of the permanent
members for U.S.S.R. In the Assembly a large number of
delegations, including the Australian Delegation, strongly
criticized the unjustified use of the veto in this connection.

Eire (Ireland) applied for membership last year and, though the
Security Council favoured her admission with only the Soviet Union
dissenting, that one dissent was sufficient to bar Eire from the
Organization. The same procedure was repeated this year.

It is impossible to justify exclusion of Eire from the United
Nations. It is true that she was neutral during the war, but
Sweden and Afghanistan were neutrals, and all members joined in
admitting them. As matters are now shaping, it is not impossible
that nations which not long ago were our bitter enemies will be
admitted to the United Nations before peaceful neutrals who were
sympathetic to the Allied cause. Was Eire kept out because it was
alleged that she was not a democracy? Such an allegation would be
palpably false, because Eire has a democratic constitution and
government, and the devotion of Irishmen to individual freedom is
well known. Eire is clearly a 'peace-loving nation' and should be
admitted to the United Nations. There can be little doubt that the
vast majority of the organization would accept this view. In this
case the right to exercise an individual veto has been used to
obstruct the overwhelming will of that majority.

Procedure for Admission of New Members

The Security Council, in fact, has virtually usurped the powers of
the Assembly in arrogating to itself the right to decide whether
or not a nation should be admitted to the United Nations. The
Security Council should confine itself in this question to making
recommendations on matters clearly within its functions, such as
the ability of an applicant to discharge its security obligations
under the Charter, and should leave the final decision about
admission for the Assembly, where no veto exists.

On Australia's proposal a committee was established at the last
session of the Assembly to devise rules of procedure as to
admission of members which would be acceptable to both Assembly
and Council. Largely because the Assembly did not express its mind
clearly enough or firmly enough, that committee, despite the
efforts of a few delegations, suggested to the Council only minor
changes. The Australian Delegation will at this session propose
the adoption of a more specific and comprehensive resolution,
drafted in the light of the fact that five states, whom 12 of the
14 members and ex-members of the Security Council considered
suitable for membership, have been arbitrarily excluded from the
United Nations.

The Assembly will have full power to express its views on the
position, safeguarding its own rights in relation to the admission
of new members, and it will have authority to discuss the merits
of individual applications for membership, if it so desires, with
power to refer the applications back to the Security Council for
future consideration during the course of the present Assembly.

We favor the latter course, namely, that while the Assembly is
sitting, the Security Council should be requested to review
recommendations on such individual applications as, in the opinion
of the Assembly, are entitled to be admitted to membership of the
United Nations.

Atomic Energy Commission

The Atomic Energy Commission has submitted two reports to the
Security Council which, if its recommendations are put into
effect, will be a landmark in international co-operation. These
reports concern directly the Assembly which established the Atomic
Energy Commission by its resolution of January 1946. It is a
significant fact that the principles and most of the details of
the plan of control worked out by the Commission have now been
endorsed by 13 of the 15 members and ex-members of the Atomic
Energy Commission. Detailed analyses have been made by the
scientific and technical representatives on the Commission, which
demonstrate without any doubt that production of atomic weapons
can best be prevented by an international agency with wide powers
to own dangerous atomic facilities and to control all other phases
of atomic development through inspection and licensing. So far,
however, the U.S.S.R. has not seen fit to accept the majority
proposals of the Atomic Energy Commission.

However, although the recommendations of the Commission have not
yet been accepted, there have been two advances made during the
past year towards the agreement which must ultimately be reached.

It is now unanimously agreed that there must be inspection by
international personnel of facilities related to atomic energy,
from the mining of raw materials to the final development of
power. It is also agreed that there should be no veto on the day-
to-day operations of the international control organ. While mere
periodic inspection is, in the view of the majority of the
Commission, inadequate to provide effective safeguards against a
violation or evasion of a convention for control of atomic energy,
its acceptance does mark a distinct advance from the position last
year. Similarly, the exculsion of the veto from day-to-day
operations goes part of the way towards meeting the contention of
the majority that there should be no legal right by way of veto or
otherwise, by which the violator of a convention can be protected.

We desire to congratulate the United States Government on making
radio-active isotopes available for international distribution.

This action, which was suggested by the Australian Government at
the opening sessions of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1946,
should assist in building up a measure of international
confidence, evidencing the intent of the United States Government
to assist bona fide scientific research and medical therapy, and
thereby to make available from the new discoveries results which
will be beneficial to all mankind.

Objectives of the United Nations

Important though proposals for specific disarmament may be, and
bound as we are under the Charter to facilitate their study, they
cause a tendency to turn the thoughts of the people away from the
two main objectives of this Organization.

The first of these two objectives is the prevention of war and the
substitution of the methods of conciliation and arbitration for
those of force and violence. We should be concerned primarily with
that objective, and in a secondary way with the fixing of the
rules and conditions under which future wars may be lawfully
conducted. The injury and damage that may now be inflicted as a
result of modern scientific invention is so vast, and so rapidly
extending, that war, however conditioned and restricted by rules
and regulations, is bound to threaten permanent devastation of the
human race. Enemy No. 1 is, therefore, war itself.

The second objective of the United Nations-empowered by those
provisions of the Charter dealing with the economic and social
side of our activities-is that the mere prevention of war is not
enough, but that the economic security and betterment of all
peoples and races is also to be pursued as an end in itself.

The Economic Work of the United Nations

There is today a fundamental economic disequilibrium throughout
the whole world. It demands a humanitarian solution generous in
concept and generous in execution. In truth we are members one of
another, and economic misery and depression in one part of the
world will inevitably spread everywhere.

What has been the United Nations contribution to the necessary
solution? It cannot, I fear, be said that the Economic and Social
Council has yet come to grips with the substance of the world's
economic and social problems. It is an extraordinary fact that it
has not yet made, or caused to be made, a general review of the
current world economic situation. It has dealt at length, and
successfully, with procedural and organizational matters, but a
definite priority for urgent matters of substance has yet to be
determined so that the Council can assume a corporate initiative
in dealing with the main economic problems of the world. To take a
striking example, so far as it has considered the economic crisis
that now grips Europe the result has been to produce machinery
(the Economic Commission for Europe) of which the main achievement
has been to absorb other machinery.

At San Francisco we wrote an agreement to pursue full employment
and higher standards of living into the Charter, and subsequently
into the constitutions of the appropriate specialized agencies.

The Economic and Social Council has completed its second year, and
the Assembly must now be concerned with whether the machinery is
working to translate these paper pledges into life. Or is it to be
all harness and no horse?
At its last meeting the Council recognized that the Economic and
Employment Commission had failed in its task, and rejected the
insubstantial resolutions it had prepared. The Council seemed
unable, by its own initiative, to make up for this failure of its
subordinate body. We believe that the Economic Secretariat must
have more clearly placed upon it the responsibility of providing
the Council and the Commissions with a basis of established facts
and economic analysis on which they may make their own
recommendations on policy.

The Specialized Agencies

However, it is the Assembly which has the final responsibility of
considering the whole complex of the economic machinery of the
United Nations and the specialized agencies. Agreements between
the United Nations and the agencies came into force at the
Assembly a year ago, but reports from these agencies are not
before us today. We understand the Council's desire to consider
them as a whole. But that will not be possible at least until next
year, and we are concerned that the Council has not been more
active to discharge its responsibilities to try and keep the
specialized agency programmes in balance. The Food and
Agricultural Organization has repeatedly pointed out that
increased agricultural efficiency requires a parallel industrial
development to use the farm labour thereby released and to produce
industrial products to exchange for increased agricultural
produce. This is only one example of an important practical
problem in economic development. Such inter-relations of
specialized agency programmes cannot be solved within the
competence of individual specialized agencies, and require active
consideration by the Council and ultimately by the Assembly.

Regarding the effective working together of the various
international secretariats, I believe that the Assembly must be
concerned that the Co-ordination Committee consisting of the
Secretary-General and the Director-Generals of the specialized
agencies has not found it possible to meet more than once.

Whenever there is any tendency for rival organizations to develop,
co-operation and leadership must come from the top.

Some Remedies for Economic and Social Council

We have pointed out these weaknesses only in order to assist the
Assembly and the Council to consider remedies. It is our hope that
the future work of the United Nations will be strengthened by:-

1. Less political or ideological division in the Economic and
Social Council.

2. A higher level of representation on the Council, actually
bringing together the persons responsible for economic policy in
each nation. In this way the Council's recommendations will tend
also to become the decisions of its Member Governments.

3. The reporting and analysis by the Secretariat of established
facts relating to world economic conditions and trends.

Conclusion

I have frankly discussed the great difficulties with which we are
confronted. But of course there is another side to the picture.

The United Nations is in its infancy. The League of Nations lasted
for nearly a generation and in the end it failed-not because of
organizational difficulties so much as by the fact that during the
rise of the vast and powerful fascist forces, the Governments
responsible for the leadership of the League failed to support it
with the full weight of their authority. It was they who failed
the organization.

Even in the last twelve months important successes in
international co-operation have been achieved both within the
United Nations and outside. There seems to be general agreement
that the action of the Security Council was wise and timely in
taking up the Indonesian situation with a view to substituting the
method of conciliation for that of force. I feel confident that
the special committee of conciliation of the Security Council
shortly to be announced will make a substantial contribution to
the well-being of the Netherlands and Indonesian peoples in South
East Asia. The Trusteeship system with its idealistic yet
practical objectives has been brought into actual operation. The
International Trade Organization despite all complexities and
difficulties is moving in the right direction. Outside but
parallel to the United Nations, an advisory South Pacific
Commission is being established and in its scope will be included
all six nations with dependent territories in the Pacific south of
the Equator. In the Western Hemisphere the Inter-American
Agreement for Reciprocal Assistance indicates that, within the
framework of the Charter, regional security arrangements of a
defensive character are not only permitted but are being
encouraged. In the Far East the settlement with Japan is nearer.

The Far Eastern Commission at Washington has been an outstanding
example of co-operation between the eleven countries which fought
the Pacific War. The Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East
has been established and may turn out to be an effective
instrument of Governmental co-operation in developing the economic
resources of that great area. The first shipments of food for the
International Children's Emergency Fund are on their way. A number
of nations have made a generous response to post-UNRRA relief
needs. The International Refugees Organization has begun to
function and substantial progress is at last being made in
reducing the numbers of displaced persons. The recent ratification
of five European peace treaties clears much of the area of Europe
from the uncertainty and dislocation which were threatening.

These are only a few instances, but they are sufficient to show
that we can and should resolve to use this great instrument of the
United Nations THIS GENERAL ASSEMBLY with courage and with
goodwill towards all. By so doing we can help not only to bring
peace to a troubled world, but to maintain peace upon a basis of
justice and decency in accordance with the purposes and principles
of our Charter.