The heading under which these observations are brought together may well seem presumptuous. The request made to me was to deal with the subject: “collective security”—a phrase which I am hesitant to use, for it has come to cover the most diverse international political arrangements. The title adopted provides a convenient umbrella under which to bring together a number of general observations on the approach to the problem of maintaining peace.

Probably no other organ of the United Nations concerned with economic affairs has been so closely dependent on the current temper of east-west relations as the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE). The paralyzing effect of the cold war on ECE was such tiiat its activities, as distinct from its membership, have become truly all-European only within the last three years. To outline this development and reflect upon the present character of east-west cooperation within ECE is die concern of this article. But first a few words about die character of the organization itself, for its constitution is a poor guide.

When the Charter of the United Nations was being written and put into effect, the feature that was most emphasized by its supporters was the provision for the use of collective forces to keep the peace. It was the failure of this particular feature of the Charter system to become effective which was mainly responsible for the subsequent decline of confidence in the UN as a peace organization. For a time, hopes were rekindled by the role of the United Nations in meeting aggression in Korea. Recent events in the Middle East, particularly the establishment of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), have revived interest in the possibility of strengthening the UN as an organization to maintain international peace and security.Because of the hopes aroused as well as the results achieved, it is important to analyze objectively what UNEF is, what its role has been, and to what it may lead.

Viewed from its widest angle, the dormant but still unsettled question of the internationalization of Jerusalem is, in reality, a struggle between the Holy See and the Jewish state. Thus one protagonist will inform the United Nations that “the Catholic body throughout the world…will not be contented with a mere internationalization of the Holy Places in Jerusalem” and the other will proclaim to the Israeli Parliament that “for the state of Israel there is, has been and always will be one capital only, Jerusalem, the Eternal”. Since 1947 the Vatican has directed a campaign designed to make unmistakably clear to Israel and the UN that nothing less than the complete territorial internationalization of Jerusalem would be satisfactory; with equal steadfastness has Israel maintained her claim to sovereignty over the entire New City of Jerusalem.

On October 31, 1956, two days after the armed forces of Israel struck across the Israeli-Egytian Armistice line deep into the Sinai peninsula, and the day following the Anglo-French ultimatum to Egypt, Dag Hammarskjold, the United Nations Secretary-General, asked for the floor in the Security Council meeting. “Yesterday morning”, he said, “on the basis of the information then available— I would have used my right to call for an immediate meeting of the Security Council, had not the United States Government in the course of the night taken the initiative.

The development of the United Nations has been, and doubtless will continue to be, dependent to a high degree on the support of its largest contributor and most powerful member, the United States. The place of the UN in United States foreign policy is in some degree dependent on the public opinion process. To the extent that knowledge of the role of public opinion can be increased, the potentialities for the growth of the UN can be more accurately judged. Many current proposals—revisions of the Charter, the establishment of armaments control machinery, the founding of new social and economic programs—need to be evaluated in terms of the political possibilities of obtaining American support. What role will public opinion play in formulating United States policy on issues which are crucial in the strengthening of the UN?

The development, in size as well as importance, of the international civil service is a relatively recent phenomenon in the international scene. One of its consequences is an increase in die number of problems that may and do arise between an international organization and the members of its staff. Such problems exist in all civil services, national as well as international; they arise in relation to the legal position of the service officials, to their dismissals and promotions (or lack of them), to disciplinary measures against any of them, to their salaries, leaves of absence and other such administrative “details”. On all such questions, the views on which the organization, as represented by its higher administrative officers, bases its actions, may differ from the views of the officials concerned. The facts in each case may be in dispute, or the meaning of the terms and provisions of the contracts of employment and the regulations of the service, may be understood in different ways by die parties concerned.

It has been said that the northern nations of Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland, personify unity within diversity.

Ties of ethnographic and cultural kinship give these northern peoples a sense of unity and a desire for working together. At the same time, the varying outlooks and aspirations which the five countries have come to hold as a result of their differing geographic, economic and political conditions and experiences, have produced a strong desire for independence and the preservation of their own ways of life.

United Nations technical assistance is unique in many ways. Its popularity is attested by pledges and contributions from eighty-two nations, some of which are not members of the UN. Its success is indicated by increasing contributions from all nations of the world and increasing requests for assistance from underdeveloped countries. Most significant of all, the UN technical assistance program is the only setting where the Soviet Union, its constituent republics, and the eastern European countries in its orbit cooperate widi western powers in economic activities not specifically and directly for their own national purposes. Nowhere else can one find delegates from the United States, Czechoslovakia, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and many other nations wrestling not with high politics and ways to advance their power position, but, rather, with the practical problems of irrigation in Iran, statistical research in India, and malaria control in Ceylon.

The United Nations is the most comprehensive general international organization that has been established, but such organizations have existed before. General international organizations constitute a type of union of independent governments which has occurred in numerous instances in recorded history and even among primitive peoples.

The United Nations Charter states that, in building the Secretariat, the Secretary General must give “paramount consideration” to achieving “the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity”, and adds that he must recruit “on as wide a geographical basis as possible”. A dozen years have passed since these standards were set down at San Francisco, and in those years two Secretaries General have attempted to apply them. In their efforts to create a professional civil service, they have had to face extraordinarily difficult problems, but it is clear that the Secretariat today largely fulfills the expectations of the Charter

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to push a rock up the top of a mountain, from which the rock kept rolling down. International organization seems to be a modern illustration of an old myth. After each crisis, new attempts are made to push the rock of peace up again, and no crisis has revealed the frustrating task of international organization more sharply than the recent shock of the Middle Eastern and Hungarian explosions.

Economic development involves the whole society of the developing country. The help that foreign countries can give in the process of development is necessarily limited, both in amount and in character. The United Nations has concentrated its aid to developing countries on “technical assistance”—a term that covers a wide range of activities. Along with help and instruction in particular techniques of industry and other such activities, UN technical assistance has also encompassed help and advice in matters of public administration and the execution of public policy in matters affecting development. Public finance is a field of special importance in this connection, both because of its direct importance to the process of development and because its complexity provides the need and opportunity for international assistance. The process of financing is intimately linked with every single activity in the economy and, therefore, the study of these problems affects every phase of economic development. Moreover, in countries which are still at the early stages of development, public finance must necessarily be used to support a nascent private enterprise sector. There is a need for providing social overhead and a necessity for adjusting the revenue system to the requirements of productive investment without eroding the base to an extent which would make it impossible to mobilize the funds needed for economic expansion.

The salaries of international officials have again been under discussion in the General Assembly and, as the discussion is to continue during the twelfth session, this would seem to be an appropriate moment to review the situation. The eleventh Assembly had before it the report of a special committee requested to undertake “a comprehensive review of the United Nations salary, allowance and benefits system”. Although this report was praised in the debate, the Staff Council expressed the view that its “principal conclusions and recommendations are profoundly disappointing”. The committee, known as the Salary Review Committee (SRC), did not confine itself to salaries and allowances, but quite naturally dealt also with such questions as grading, recruitment and, to some extent, with pensions. Since Dr. R. N. Swift, in a recent article on personnel problems in this journal, has devoted sections to recruitment and salaries in the UN, I do not propose to consider recruitment policies, but to discuss the inter-related problems of salaries, grading and pensions in the wider setting of the whole UN family of international organizations.

The double crisis we witnessed last autumn dates back to six months ago, yet it may already be possible to outline a schematic picture of its repercussions on the international organizations in Europe. I shall describe neither the structures of these organizations nor the way they work, but, rather, the political context, which alone permits us to evaluate their potential for action and influence on the European scene. This paper will therefore deal first with the immediate consequences of the Budapest massacres and with the unsuccessful enterprise of the Anglo-French forces in Suez. It will then try to evaluate the present political motivations of the French, British, and German policies, and this will lead to an examination of the political decay of both NATO in Europe and the Western European Union. A cursory glance at what is usually called the European parliaments—already in existence or in the process of being created—will lead us to conclusions in which the Algerian question and the question of German reunification will figure more predominantly than international organizations whose juridical future seems more certain than their political effectiveness.

For more than a century intellectuals and statesmen in Central America have kept alive a Bolivarian dream of fashioning a political unity in the isthmian region of the Americas. The formation of the Organization of Central American States in 1951 marked a signal accomplishment along a pathway strewn with many obstacles and previous frustrations. The establishment of this organization added a third regional grouping to the two already present in the Americas— the Organization of American States and the Caribbean Commission. It remains to be seen to what extent the three will be able to work together when questions affecting interests of the hemisphere as a whole arise.

A new kind of “DP” plagued the conscience of the west after the Displaced Person of World War II had become an historical phenomenon. It was the “Disinherited Person”, the national of overcrowded western Europe who was surplus to the economy in which he lived but who, with international planning and assistance, might become a “plus” person in less densely settled areas overseas. In an effort to alleviate this problem of over-population in western Europe a new agency, the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM), was created and began operations on February I, 1952. Since that time, more than 570,000 Europeans who needed assistance in migrating have been moved to new homelands by the 27-nation ICEM, representing 36 percent of the total emigration from the main European emigration countries (Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands). Apart from numbers moved directly, the Committee's efforts have stimulated spontaneous emigration by opening or widening new areas of resettlement.

The Charter of the United Nations does not define the “veto”, and many questions have been raised as to what constitutes a veto. For the purpose of this repertoire it has been established that the veto has been applied if a substantive motion which has received a majority of seven votes has failed of adoption through the negative vote of one or more of the permanent members. Thus only the application of the extraordinary right of a permanent member to overcome a majority (seven) has been considered. Negative votes of permanent members on resolutions which have failed to receive the necessary seven votes have not been listed.

Report of the Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary: The Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary, at its last meeting, June 7, 1957, adopted its report to the General Assembly. The committee, composed of representatives of Australia, Ceylon, Denmark, Tunisia, and Uruguay, had been appointed by the General Assembly at its second emergency special session to provide information regarding the situation created by Soviet intervention in the internal affairs of Hungary as well as the developments relating to the Assembly's recommendations on this subject. The report, based on available documentation and the testimony of in witnesses, dealt with a brief history of the Hungarian uprising, the movement as seen by the Soviet Union and by the government of Janos Kadar, the Soviet military intervention and its political background, the effects of the use or threat of use of force on the political independence of Hungary, and specific acts violating other rights of the Hungarian people. The committee believed that the uprising in October and November 1956 had been a spontaneous, improvised national movement, stemming from resentments caused by longstanding grievances, particularly against the inferior status of Hungary in relation to the Soviet Union. The thesis put forth by the Soviet Union and the Kadar government that the uprising had been fomented by Hungarian reactionary circles and strengthened by western “imperialists” was unacceptable to the committee, which felt that the movement had been led by students, workers, soldiers and intellectuals, who had demanded, inter alia, that democratic socialism should be the basis of the Hungarian political structure and that such social achievements as land reform should be safeguarded. Reporting that Soviet authorities had taken steps as early as October 20 to make armed intervention possible, the committee felt that it could not say whether the Soviets had anticipated the occurrence. It stressed, however, that the Warsaw Treaty did not provide for Soviet armed intervention to dictate political developments within any signatory's frontiers.

One of the significant structural differences between the organization of economic and social work under the League and under the United Nations is the extent to which non-governmental organizations (NGO's) have been allowed to participate. NGO's have been granted far greater privileges in the UN than they enjoyed in the League. Initially, they were formally recognized in Article 71 of the Charter, which gives the Economic and Social Council the right to make “suitable arrangements” for consultation with them. While defined in differing ways during different periods, consultative status under this article has, subject to various conditions, always included the right to participate in the debates of ECOSOC, its commissions and committees, and to propose items for inclusion in their provisional agenda. NGO's have made extensive use of these privileges. Their use, however, as well as the entire record of NGO action in the UN, has been inseparably linked with the cold war. Russian demands at San Francisco for privileges for the newly created, communist-controlled World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) were a contributing factor in the decision to include Article 71 in the Charter. The initial definition of this article resulted primarily from the interaction of pressures by the Soviet Union and the WFTU and the western response.