^l Jessup, Phillip, “The U. N. Begins to Show Power Against Power”, New York Times Magazine, 10 23, 1949, p. 12Google Scholar.

1a The Security Council has added greatly to its prestige by the unprecedented action it took on June 25 and 27 in the Korean crisis. Reston, James reports, for example, that “…Messrs. Acheson and Truman, somewhat to their surprise, are apparently beginning to believe that there may be quite a little truth in all those polite statements they made about the United Nations after all“. (New York Times, 06 29, 1950, p. 12.)Google Scholar The Council' action was possible, of course, only because the Soviet Union continued its boycott of the Council. As Mr. Reston adds, Russia could have vetoed the resolutions, and in that case, “…days or perhaps weeks might have passed before the United States could have arranged for the United Nations General Assembly to pass a resolution calling for aid to the South Koreans”. (For text of the two resolutions adopted by the Security Council on the Korean situation, and text of statement by President Truman.) see this issue, documents section.

² Koo, Wellington Jr, Voting Procedures in International Political Organizations (New York, Columbia Univ. Press, 1947), p. 231–2Google Scholar.

³ For an interesting discussion of the legal status of Assembly resolutions, see Sloan, F. Blaine, “The Binding Force of a ‘Recommendation’ of the General Assembly of the United Nations”, in The British Year Book of International Law, 1948, p. 1–33Google Scholar.

⁴ In 1933 ProfessorRiches, C. A. could write of the League Assembly that, “As might be expected, the cases in which propositions having received the affirmative vote of a majority of the Assembly are declared defeated because of failure to achieve unanimity are not numerous”. (The Unanimity Rule and the League of Nations, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1933, p. 169.)Google Scholar Riches found that there had been only two such instances, but points out that a number of other resolutions had been seriously “watered down”— especially those which incurred great-power opposition. He concludes, however, that, “normally, when differences of opinion arise, small minorities give way to majorities”. (p. 186.) The same could scarcely be expected of the United Nations Asceived sembly under present conditions.

⁵ Spaak, P. -H.. “The Role of the General As- Assembly”, in International Conciliation, No. 445, November 1948, p. 602Google Scholar.

⁶ See Report of the Special Committee on Methods and Procedures, Document A/937, August 12, 1949, and especially “Statements of Views of Individual Delegates, ” p. 34.

⁷ See Rules of Procedure of the General Assembly, “Assembly. Document A/520. During the Fourth Session the Rules were considerably amended”. Only three rules in the section on “Voting”, how ever (nos. 80, 81 and 82), were affected. All amendments went into effect on January 1, 1950.

⁸ Official Records of the General Assembly, 52d Plenary Meeting, second part of the First Regular Session, December 8, 1946, p. 1060.

⁹ E. g., “If any proof were needed that the question before us is important, it would be furnished abundantly by the vehemence with which it has been defended, the length of the debates in the various committees and, I would add, the obvious fact that all those who have spoken here are greatly interested in it”. —Mr. Parodi (France) on a draft resolution concerning non-self-govnished concerning territories. (Official Records of the Geniteral Assembly, 64th Plenary Meeting, second part of the First Regular Session, December 14, 1946, p. 1345.)

¹⁰ In reply to the representative of Saudi-Arabia — who had argued that the India-South African question could not be subjected to the two-thirds imvote unless a new category were first created — Mr. Arce of Argentina declared: “I am going to satisfy the representative of Saudi-Arabia. Let us establish a category: whenever there is a question of the General Assembly of the United Nations wishing to intervene in matters which, it is suspected, may be within the domestic jurisdiction of a State — this being the most important question of all for protecting the life of this Organization — a two-thirds majority shall be required. I challenge all the small and medium-sized countries represented here to tell me whether the possibility of the General Assembly of the United Nations wishing to intervene by political action in the internal affairs of a small country is an important question or not”. President Spaak solemnfy pointed out that it was “ obviously impossible for us to follow his suggestion … as this would De expressly contrary to the terms of the Charter”, (Ibid., 52d Plenary Meeting, first part of the First Regular Session, December 8, 1946, p. 1054–1056.)

¹¹ The decision to hold a session outside of New York is obviously a procedural matter. It had been urged in the Second Session, however, that the proposal to convene the Assembly in Europe had major budgetary implications, and was therefore an “important” question. President Aranha settled this matter wisely by pointing out that the proposal itself was distinct from its budgetary implications. The proposal, he ruled, must mabe decided by simple majority, but when it came to the appropriations needed to finance the move, the two-thirds approval would be necessary in accordance with Article 18 (2). It is noteworthy, but not a typical, that the necessary funds were approved, although the proposal to meet in Eugetary rope was adopted by less than a two-thirds mabe jority. (Official Records of the General Assembly, 114th Plenary Meeting, Second Regular Session, Vol. II, 11 15, 1947, p. 939–941.)Google Scholar

¹² Official Records of the General Assembly, 28th Plenary Meeting, first part of the First Rogular Session, February 10, 1946, p. 396.

¹³ Ibid., 64th Plenary Meeting, second part of the First Regular Session, December 14, 1946, p. 1355.

¹⁴ Document A/PV. 219, 219th Plenary Meeting, second part of the Third Regular Session May 18, 1949, p. 38.

¹⁵ “The Role of the General Assembly”, op. cit., p. 603.

¹⁶ Ibid., p. 604.

¹⁷ For a brief discussion of the ”semi-abstention” in elections, see statement by Mr.Entezam, (Iran) in Official Records of the General Assembly, 109th Plenary Meeting, Second Regular Session, Vol. I, 11 13, 1947, p. 751–2Google Scholar. This phenomenon may be defined as a ballot on which the number of names marked is smaller than the number of places to be filled. It had been determined in the 4th Plenary Meeting that such Reguballots should not be held invalid. Since, however, it is impossible to avoid counting them in the calculation of the requisite majority, they may occasionally be the cause of inconclusive balloting.

¹⁸ In the 6th Plenary Meeting of the First Regular Session, a motion to have the President explain why certain ballots were invalid was debated and defeated by a vote of 24–13.

¹⁹ Official Records of the General Assembly, 6th Plenary Meeting, first part of the First Regularb Session, January 14, 1946, p. 97–8. As thelast sentence is slightly garbled in its English text of the verbatim record it is edited here in accordance with the French version. For a detailed but uncritical account of the Assembly' decision on this issue, see Koo, Wellington Jr, ., op. cit., p. 232–234Google Scholar.

²⁰ See Official Records of the General Assembly, 93d Plenary Meeting, Second Regular Session, Vol. I, 09 30, 1947, p. 322Google Scholar; Document A/PV. 130, 130th Plenary Meeting, Second Special Session, April 16, 1948, p. 21; Official Records of the General Assembly, 155th Plenary Meeting, first part of the Third Regular Session, November 3, 1948, p. 380; Document A/PV. 231, 231st Plenary Meeting, Fourth Regular Session, October 20, 1949, p. 41. The figures do not always reveal the method used in calculating the requisite majority, but it is clear that at least prior to the Third Regular Session neither practice wns followed consistently.

²¹ Report of the Sixth Committee, Document A/1026, October 19, 1949, p. 21. For the resolution adopted by the Assembly, see Document A/1048, October 25, 1949.

²² Official Records of the General Assembly, 64th Plenary Meeting, second part of the First Regular Session, December 14, 1946, p. 1355.

²³ Other precedents for majority approval of amendents can be found in the records of the 135th and 218th Plenary Meetings. Presidents Evatt and Spaak have both stated explicitly that amendments do not require two-thirds approval.

²⁴ See for example the records of the 52d, 100th, 102d, and 108th and 121st Plenary Meetings, and especially: remarks by President Spaak (Official Records of the General Assembly, 52d Plenary Meeting, second part of the First Regular Session, December 8, 1946, p. 1058); and observations by Acting-President Vishinsky (ibid., 108th Plenary Meeting, Second Regular Session, Vol. I, November 3, 1947, p. 732). See also, remarks by President Romulo. Document A/PV. 269, 269th Plenary Meeting, Fourth Regular Session, December 6, 1949, p. 157.

²⁵ The last sentence in this rule, incidentally, should settle definitively a procedural question which caused considerable debate in the Third Session. In the 195th, and again in the 215th Plenary Meetings, President Evatt had insisted that a vote on the whole was necessary even if Sesall parts had been individually rejected. He had argued that conceivably the Assembly might reject a part of a proposal but approve it when linked to the others. This is, of course, highly unlikely if all the other parts have also been rejected. In the 218th Meeting, however, Mr. Evatt had deliberately reversed himself, thereby restoring the axiom — over Soviet objections – that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts.

²⁶ See for example the records of the 118th, 160th and 218th Plenary Meetings. This procedure has encountered few if any objections at the times it was invoked. In the Fourth Regular Sesallsion, President Romulo ruled that one part of a proposal was “procedural” and would require only majority approval, and that the second part was “substantive” and would require two-thirds vote. (Document A/PV. 273, 273d Plenary Meeting, Fourth Regular Session, December 8, 1949, p. 11.)

²⁷ See the verbatim records of the 135th and 256th Plenary Meetings.

²⁸ The principle common to both rules is that an “inconclusive” ballot should be followed by voting on a slate restricted to a number of candidates twice as large as the number of vacancies to be filled—“provided that, after the third incon- alclusive ballot, votes may be cast for any eligible person or Member”. Experience has already shown that in some circumstances the identification of the “third inconclusive ballot” will be in doubt. The ambiguity could be eliminated, it may be suggested, by amending both rules to read “… after the third inconclusive ballot restricted to any one slate of candidates”, or alclusive ternatively, “after three restricted ballots on which no candidate is elected”.