The impending tenth anniversary of the ratification of the United Nations' Charter in 1955 gave rise to a great deal of activity both inside and outside the organization preparatory to a statutory review of the Charter.

The direct occasion for this were the provisions of Article 109, par. 3, which authorize the General Assembly to convene a review conference by a simple majority vote, if within the first ten years of its existence such a conference has not been held, a situation which indeed obtained.

Extensive preparatory work on the technical level was undertaken by many governments and notably by the Secretariat in their Repertoire of Practice of the Security Council and Repertory of Practice of United Nations Organs; on the other hand political preparations, essential since the results of any review are subject to the “veto”, were sadly neglected.

Indicative of this situation was the announcement early in the debate by one of the permanent members of the Security Council (the U.S.A.) that they were disinterested in a technical review of the Charter, and that their main objective was the amending of Article 27 (3) in the sense that the admission of new members would seize to be subject to the “veto”. This proposition was, as could have been expected, wholly unacceptable to the Soviet-Union and their allies. Under these circumstances several members, especially from the Scandinavian countries, were quite willing to suspend the proceedings until a better political climate would prevail.

Yet the unique feature of Article 109 (3) which obviously could never again be applied continued to fascinate a majority of members. Finally in Resolution 992 (X) an ingeneous solution was found, by which a decision in principle to hold the Review Conference ex Article 109 (3) was made, while at the same time the actual date of the Conference was deferred for at least another two years. Both the political wisdom and the legality of this Resolution have been questioned, in the view of the author on good grounds.

Whatever the concrete results of these deliberations held during the Tenth Assembly in plenary sessions, some indications have at least been given which parts of the Charter in the view of member states could bear review. In addition to Articles 2 (7) and 27 (3) which are of course the basic points of the power relationship within the organization, and which for that matter are most unlikely ever to be changed, the incorporation of the Uniting for Peace Resolution, 377 (V) and the elimination of the term “enemy states” in Articles 53, 77 and 107 were advocated. It is perhaps an ironical commentary on the situation that one of the most forceful speeches in this debate was the one recommending a thorough overhaul of the whole of Chapter XVIII, the amendment procedure itself.

Meanwhile nothing illustrates better the present bleak outlook for charter review than the proposals introduced in 1956 to amend Articles 23 and 61 of the Charter and Article 2 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, with a view of increasing the membership of the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council and the Court under the provisions of Article 108, proposed by the Latin-American states and Spain. These proposals are motivated mainly by the progressively less satisfactory distribution of the non-permanent seats on the Security Council, which in turn is based on a “gentlemen's agreement” concluded in London in 1946, but on whose continued validity the Western and Eastern powers hold divergent views. This situation has become more urgent since the recent admission of a great number of Asian and African states for whom, even if the gentleman's agreement were observed to the letter, no place would seem to be available on that Council.

The belief prevails that unless the Councils be enlarged, eventually the Latin-American representation is bound to be decreased, which explains the initiative taken by that group.

Progress on these proposals has been thwarted by the Soviet-Union on the one hand by the injection of the China representation issue, and on the other by the insistence on ironclad guarantees on behalf of their Eastern European allies. The plans so far advanced have, however, also been deemed unsatisfactory by several non-European members, notably those from Africa.

Neither the eleventh nor the twelfth Assembly have been able to find a compromise agreeable to all the interested parties, and thus these proposals like those for a Charter Review Conference are being held over for future sessions.