Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- PART I International Court of Justice
- PART II International Arbitration
- PART III United Nations
- 15 The Origins and Development of Article 99 of the Charter
- 16 The International Character of the Secretariat of the United Nations
- 17 Secretary-General and Secretariat
- 18 A United Nations “Guard” and a United Nations “Legion”
- 19 Mini-States and a More Effective United Nations
- 20 Article 19 of the Charter of the United Nations: Memorandum of Law
- 21 The United States Assaults the ILO
- 22 Goldberg Variations
- PART IV International Contracts and Expropriation
- PART V Aggression under, Compliance with, and Development of International Law
- List of publications
- Index
17 - Secretary-General and Secretariat
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- PART I International Court of Justice
- PART II International Arbitration
- PART III United Nations
- 15 The Origins and Development of Article 99 of the Charter
- 16 The International Character of the Secretariat of the United Nations
- 17 Secretary-General and Secretariat
- 18 A United Nations “Guard” and a United Nations “Legion”
- 19 Mini-States and a More Effective United Nations
- 20 Article 19 of the Charter of the United Nations: Memorandum of Law
- 21 The United States Assaults the ILO
- 22 Goldberg Variations
- PART IV International Contracts and Expropriation
- PART V Aggression under, Compliance with, and Development of International Law
- List of publications
- Index
Summary
Introduction
The concept of a Secretariat which, as the Charter prescribes, shall be of “exclusively international character,” is relatively new; it might, in fact, in the context of modern nationalism, be viewed as revolutionary. The drafters of the Covenant of the League of Nations did not specify that the League Secretariat was to consist of anything more than a permanent grouping of national contingents, and it was actually Sir Eric Drummond who, as the first Secretary-General, made the epochal decision that the League Secretariat would be genuinely international. This “creation of a secretariat international alike in its structure, its spirit and its personnel, was without doubt one of the most important events in the history of international politics – important not only in itself, but as the indisputable proof of possibilities which had hitherto been confidently denied.” The role of the Secretariat in the United Nations as the avant-garde of the international outlook and structure has surpassed in significance that which it played in the League, for the Secretary-General of the United Nations is endowed with political powers which were withheld from his League predecessors. Yet the setting in which the Secretariat operates still emphasizes its unique international quality; fundamentally, the progress of international machinery since 1919 has not been great.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Justice in International LawSelected Writings, pp. 297 - 307Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994