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À la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les États, effrayés par le déchaînement de la violence qui avait ravagé le monde pendant plus de cinq ans, ratifient une refonte des Conventions de Genève dans l'espoir de se doter d'un instrument de droit solide, destiné à préserver, même dans la guerre, la dignité de tous les individus. Ils s'engagent à respecter, dans les conflits armés, internationaux ou non, les droits fondamentaux de la personne humaine, et à limiter au strict nécessaire l'usage de la force pour mettre l'ennemi hors de combat. Les deux Protocoles additionnels de 1977 confirment cette volonté.

It was announced by the press in July that the 35-nation International Sugar Council, meeting in London, had decided unanimously to raise sugar quotas immediately from 85 to 100 percent of the basic export tonnages of member countries, and, as soon as the prevailing price came within the range of 3.25 and 3.45 cents a pound, to increase quotas automatically to 105 percent of basic tonnages. In its communique1 the Council was said to have stated that the action was based on a review of the current market situation, which revealed that, on the basis of an 85-pcrcent quota level, the deficit of sugar in the world market for the current year would have amounted to 1,250,000 tons. The effect of the Council's decision, the press pointed out, was to allow Cuba to dispose of the 700,000 tons of sugar that the United States had decided earlier in the year not to purchase.

The 123d session of the Governing Body of the International Labor Organization met in Geneva, November 24 to 27, 1953. On the basis of the report of the United Nations-ILO Ad Hoc Committee on Forced Labor, the Governing Body decided to take the following steps: 1) to appeal to governments which had not yet done so to ratify the four ILO conventions which dealt with forced labor or indigenous workers; 2) to invite metropolitan governments to consider applying the four conventions without modification to all their non-metropolitan territories; 3) to consider the desirability of revising the forced labor convention adopted by ILO in 1930 to make it provide for the complete suppression of forced or compulsory labor in all its forms; and 4) to affirm ILO's willingness to intensify its efforts toward the abolition of forced labor practices of an economic character, including practices not envisaged when the conventions were adopted.

The International Whaling Commission, created by a convention signed on December 2, 1946, which entered into force on November 10, 1948, held its first meeting in London from May 30 to June 7, 1949. Of the seventeen signatories to the convention, thirteen had ratified or adhered and, accordingly, were represented: Australia, Canada, France, Iceland, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Panama, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States; Union of South Africa and USSR. The commission, within the framework of the convention, determined its course of work as follows: 1) to amend from time to time as required the schedule of regulations controlling whaling; 2) to organize studies and investigations relating to whales and whaling; 3) to collect and analyze statistical information; and 4)to study, appraise and disseminate information concerning whaling stocks. At the first meeting of the commission, two standing committees were created: a Scientific and Technical Committee and a Finance and Administrative Committee.