Suchergebnisse

The problem of squaring the circle is not confined to mathematics. A somewhat similar task confronts the members of the Organization of American States (OAS) as they seek to enlarge respect for human rights and to create a firmer basis for democratic institutions in the life of the western hemisphere while maintaining the treasured principle of non-intervention. Not a new problem, it has increased in urgency in the last few years with the mounting opposition to dictatorships throughout the continent, with the increasingly communist orientation of Castro's government in Cuba, and with the political unrest elsewhere in Latin America to which Castro's victory appears to have contributed. Faced somewhat obliquely at the Sixth and Seventh Meetings of Foreign Ministers in Costa Rica in August 1960, it will have to be confronted more directly at the Eleventh International Conference of American States to be held in Ecuador in May 1961. The agenda for the Eleventh Conference contains items relating both to the protection of human rights and to the preservation of representative democracy.

The spectre of bloc voting has haunted the United Nations since the Charter was first debated at San Francisco. Since then, the influence of certain groups of states in affecting the outcome of elections has occasioned considerable comment, and it has been suggested that the same groups have been inordinately powerful in deciding substantive issues. Some highly tentative conclusions as to the validity of these contentions may be drawn from a study of certain matters which have come before the Assembly during its first five sessions.