4
5. The principal Delegates of the Four Sponsoring Powers were elected Presidents of the Conference and presided in turn over the Plenary Sessions. Mr. E. Stettinius, Jr., the principal Delegate of the United States, was Chair- man of the Steering Committee and the Executive Committee, and was entrusted with the supervision of the Secretariat, of which Mr. Alger Hiss, a member of the State Department of the United States, was the Secretary- General.
6. Certain established international organisations were invited to send repre- sentatives for purposes of consultation, namely, the League of Nations, the International Labour Organisation, the Permanent Court of International Justice, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and the Food and Agriculture Organisation.
7. English and French were the working languages of the Conference. When other languages were used they were translated into these two by interpreters. The text of the Charter was drawn up in English, French, Russian, Chinese and Spanish. All five texts are equally authentic.
8. The Plenary Sessions and the Commissions were held in public. The minutes of the Technical Committees, which were not public, are to be published.
9. In the Commissions and Technical Committees a two-thirds majority of those present and voting was required both for any amendment to the Proposals and for the Proposals themselves. The text was voted upon by paragraphs, each of which was separately considered together with the relevant amendments. The Charter was finally adopted unanimously at the penulti- mate Plenary Session.
10. The Statute of the Court of International Justice was considered at a preliminary conference in Washington. The text there drawn up was examined in a Technical Committee and as there amended was adopted by the Plenary Conference. It is annexed to the Charter and has equal validity with it.
II. A preparatory Commission was set up by the Plenary Conference consisting of all the States represented at San Francisco. This Commission is to have an Executive Committee composed of the same States which composed the Executive Committee of the Conference. A Secretariat under an Executive Secretary will be appointed. The seat of the Commission has been established in London. Its principal duties will be to prepare the Agenda for the first meetings of the various organs of the United Nations, to make recommenda- tions regarding the transfer of certain functions, activities and assets of the League of Nations, to examine the relationship between the specialised inter- national organisations and agencies and the new Organisation, to make recommendations regarding the Secretariat and to make studies and recom- mendations as to the seat of the United Nations.
II. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.
12. It will be seen that the procedure of the San Francisco Conference was one never before adopted by states in the consideration of such vital problems. The Sponsoring Powers submitted their Proposals to the fullest discussion by forty-six other states. Each of these states had only one vote and every- thing in the Charter was passed in the Technical Committees by a two-thirds majority before the final text was adopted unanimously at the Plenary Session. At the Conference at Paris of 1919 the Covenant of the League of Nations was drawn up in a Committee in which the Principal Allied and Associated States had a majority of representatives, and even then it was
•
5
not admitted that disputed questions, could be decided by vote.
In the two Plenary Sessions in which the Covenant was approved no opportunity was given to those states not represented in the Committee to make alterations in the text. Finally the Covenant was made part of a general Treaty in which other vital interests of the states concerned were affected. In the League of Nations itself the rule of unanimity obtained.
13. It is a matter of great satisfaction, therefore, that after this meticulous examination and voting procedure had been completed, all the states repre- sented at San Francisco were able to sign the Charter without any reserva- tions. Considerable differences of opinion were manifested in the course of the discussions and were the occasion of prolonged and sometimes heated debate. The Sponsoring Powers and France, however, by discussion and negotiations amongst themselves and mutual accommodation to the points of view of each other maintained a common front in all essential matters. But they also by common agreement made many adjustments and alterations of their own Proposals as a result of the arguments presented by the representa- tives of other countries, and were finally able to convince these latter of the value, in present circumstances, of the Proposals thus amended. Complete agreement was obtained owing to the spirit of unity manifested by all representatives and to their readiness to subordinate individual opinions to the general good a fact which augurs well for the future of the United Nations Organisation.
14. If the Dumbarton Oaks proposals are compared with the eventual Charter (see comparative statement at Appendix C) it becomes evident that the former have not been substantially changed, and that they, together with the Yalta Voting Formula, form the basis of the documents signed at San Francisco. Nevertheless, many additions of great importance and value were made to the Dumbarton Oaks text and some of these additions affect its whole character. Further, such modifications as were made in the Dumbarton Oaks text itself removed obscurities and greatly improved the drafting. Moreover, apart from the Statute of the International Court of Justice, three entirely new Chapters (XI, XII, XIII) have been added dealing with a Declaration regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories and an International Trusteeship System. There is also a new Chapter (XVI) on Miscellaneous Provisions, and another (XVIII) concerning Ratification.
15. Thus, important additions have been made to the Purposes and Principles, which affect the whole working of the Organisation (Chapter I). The qualifications for Membership have been defined (Chapter II). The powers of the General Assembly have been re-defined in such a manner as to increase to some extent the scope of action of that body (Chapter IV). The methods for the Pacific Settlement of Disputes have been clarified and the powers of the Security Council to take action for that purpose increased and defined (Chapter VI). Important amendments have been made in the Articles dealing with Threats to and Breaches of the Peace (Chapter VII). The provisions concerning International Economic and Social Co-operation were strengthened and elaborated (Chapters IX and X). The relations of the Security Council and the General Assembly to the International Court of Justice were more exactly defined and some important provisions inserted regarding them (Chapter XIV). The character of the Secretariat has been determined (Chapter XV). The Provisions regarding both Regional Arrange- ments (Chapter VIII) and Transitional Security Arrangements (Chapter XVII) received the most attentive consideration and important redrafting. Provision was made for the summoning of a General Conference to reconsider the Charter in ten years' time (Chapter XVIII). The purport of these changes is considered in more detail in the next Section.
44602
A 3