Suchergebnisse

Whether it is called an assembly, a conference, or something else, there is in most if not all international organizations an organ, for which the United Nations General Assembly is the prototype, in which the entire membership is represented. The importance of these bodies is generally acknowledged. Constitutionally, they usually have final authority in such matters as the appointment of the executive officer, the election of smaller organs, the adoption of the budget, and the determination of overall policy. Few studies of an international organization or of the interaction between a state or a group of states and an international organization can neglect the assembly of the organization under scrutiny.

The United Nations involvement in the Congo crisis can be viewed in various perspectives. It is a significant example of the UN's peace-keeping activities and a formidable test of Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjùld's concept of preventive diplomacy. From the viewpoint of legal analysis, it shows the flexibility of the Charter. In terms of the UN's institutions, it demonstrates both the potentialities and the perils of the development of the executive capacity of the SecretaryGeneral. In addition, in the Civilian Operations of the United Nations Operation in the Congo (abbreviated as ONUC, the initials of Organisation des Nations Unies au Congo), it has another, less widely known facet Alongside efforts to contain, ease, and ultimately eliminate the political-military crisis in the Congo, the United Nations has undertaken through ONUC's Civilian Operations emergency and longer-term functions which can most appropriately be called "statepreserving" and "state-building."

The record of the nuclear test-ban negotiations can well be read for its implications both for the procedure of negotiating and the substance of arms-control agreements. The history of the negotiations covers five years and includes an unpoliced moratorium on testing nuclear weapons which lasted nearly three years. Starting with the collapse of the Paris summit meeting in 1960, the negotiations took a radical turn for the worse, and, had it not been for the Cuban crisis and heightened Sino-Soviet tensions, they might well have been fruitless. The level of the United States technical prepara tion was not adequate to the task at hand, nor were crucial political decisions taken prior to 1961. The impunity with which the Soviet Union could abrogate the moratorium in 1961 demonstrates the danger of dropping one's guard. The experi ence of the negotiations suggests that areas where there is rela tive parity perhaps offer the most promise for arms-control agreements and that more progress might be made if greater emphasis were placed on national control or what has come to be called adversary or reciprocal inspection techniques.

Colonialism, at least as it is generally defined in the United Nations as Western rule of non-metropolitan areas, is rapidly being brought to a close. As a consequence, within a few years some of the activities of the United Nations will be reduced to almost insignificant proportions. Seven of the eleven territories that were once included within the trusteeship system have already achieved self-government or independence, and another, Ruanda-Urundi, will soon attain that goal. Unless new territories are added, only Nauru, New Guinea, and the Pacific Islands will remain under trusteeship. The list of territories which according to the General Assembly are subject to the provisions of Chapter XI of the Charter has not been cut as drastically, but in terms of the number of people involved, the reduction is equally impressive. Even with the high rate of population growth and the addition of the Spanish and Portuguese dependencies, the number of people living in such areas is about one-fifth of the 1946 figure of 215,000,000. With a few important exceptions such as Kenya, Uganda, Nyasaland and the Rhodesias, and Angola and Mozambique, the territories which in the UN's view "have not yet attained a full measure of self-government" are small and have populations of less than one million. It has already been recommended that the future of the Department of Trusteeship and Information from Non-Self-Governing Territories and the possibility of allocating its duties to other departments be reviewed in the light of these developments.