A COMMENTARY ON THE CHARTER OF THE
UNITED NATIONS SIGNED AT SAN FRANCISCO ON THE 26TH JUNE, 1945
LIST OF APPENDICES
APPENDIX A-List of United Kingdom Delegates and Officials.
APPENDIX B:---List of States represented at the San Francisco Conference. APPENDIX C-Comparative Table of Dumbarton Oaks Proposals and Charter of
the United Nations.
APPENDIX D-Statute of the International Court of Justice.
3
A COMMENTARY ON THE CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS SIGNED AT SAN FRANCISCO ON THE 26TH JUNE, 1945.
I. THE PROCEDURE OF THE CONFERENCE.
1. The Charter was the result of discussions at San Francisco from April 25 to June 26, 1945, between the representatives of fifty states. Forty-six of these accepted invitations to San Francisco before the Conference began and four, the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Argentina and Denmark, were added at the invitation of the Con- ference itself. A list of the participating states is given in Appendix B. The representatives of all of them signed the Charter at San Francisco without reservations.
2. The Delegation of the United Kingdom which was appointed by the War Cabinet of the National Government was a representative one. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was its leader during the important preliminary discussions when the Sponsoring Powers came to agreement on a number of important amendments. The Lord President of the Council presided over the meetings of the Delegation when the Secretary of State was absent. When they had necessarily to leave San Francisco because of the imminence of a General Election, the Earl of Halifax, His Majesty's Ambassador at Washing- ton, became leader of the Delegation. Other Delegates had to leave before the close of the Conference but by that time the main lines of the Charter had been determined. Lord Halifax and Lord Cranborne were able to remain throughout the duration of the Conference and signed the Chanter on behalf of His Majesty's Government. A list of the members of the Delegation and their staff is given in Appendix A.
3. The basis of discussion was the Tentative Proposals for a General Inter- national Organisation drawn up at Dumbarton Oaks (see Cmd. 6560 and the Commentary on it in Cmd. 6571), together with the Voting Formula agreed upon by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom and the United States at Yalta, to which China subsequently adhered. These four states were known throughout the Conference as the Sponsoring Powers. Though the French Government was unable to accept the invitation to become one of the Sponsoring Powers, its representatives subsequently agreed to the Voting Formula and worked closely with the four Sponsoring Powers during the Conference.
4. A large number of amendments, some 1,200 in all, were tabled by the members of the Conference, including the Sponsoring Powers themselves, and there was a prolonged examination of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, the Yalta Voting Formula and these amendments. Four Commissions were set up corresponding to the several parts of the Proposals, namely General Pro- visions, General Assembly, Security Council, Judicial Organisation. These Commissions were subdivided into twelve Technical Committees, where a detailed examination of the various clauses took place. A Steering Committee, on which all Members of the Conference were represented, and an Executive Committee, composed of representatives of the Sponsoring Powers and France and nine other states, were set up to exercise general supervision over the work of the Conference. The texts drawn up by the Technical Committees were put into final form by a Co-ordinating Committee, consisting of repre- sentatives of the same states which composed the Executive Committee, and a Jurists' Committee, composed of experts representing the five languages in which the final text was signed, together with a United States Chairman.
44602
A 2