Canada and the United Nations

~36 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY CANADA AND TtHE UNITED NATIONS w. A. RIDDELL • , I In the pages of The United Nations, 1946,* we find an unusually informing report on the present structure of the United Nations and the work and results of the last General Assembly. Canadians will. find it a most valuable source of information for an understanding both of the United Nations organization in action and of the part our country is taking in it. This is the third report issued by the Department of External Affairs describing the U~ited Nations and Canada's participation in it. The first was the report on the San Francisco conference, April 25 to June 26, 1945, published the same year. The second was the report of the first session of the General Assembly held in London from January 10 to February 14, 1946, published later in that year. The first report was concerned with the·drafting of the charter of the· United Nations and the second with the setting-up of its machinery and the bringing of it into operation. The present report describes the progress of the second part of the first session of the General Assembly during the closing months of last year, and is concerned, as might ,be expected, more especially with Canada's contribution to that progress. The ·Report is divided into three· parts: (1) a general. introductiondescribing the structure of the United Nations, together with a general survey of the ·problems before the General Assembly and the attitude of the member nations to them; (2) a detailed discussion of the more important items on the agenda including eight under the heading "Political Questions," twelve under "Economic and Social Questions," four under "Trusteeship Questions and Non-self-governing Territory," six under "Administrative and Budgetary Questions," eight under "Legal Questions," and three under "Other Questions," i.e. headquarters of the United Nations, the election of officers of committees, and measures to economize the time of the Assembly; (3) Appendices, which comprise 125 of the 290 pages of the Report and·summarize the main proposals and amendments introduced by the members in the preparation of some twenty-four of the resolutions of the General Assembly. They also include certain statements, proposals, and memoranda submitted by individual delegations of which the Canadian delegation was responsible for more than a score. . The General Assembly, according to the Report, accomplished more · .than could reasonably have been anticipated when it opened. It lists among these accomplishments the setting-up ~f the Trusteeship Council; the approval after a long debate of the constitution of the International Re~ief Organization; and the creation of a new subsidiary organ, the International Children's Emergency Fund. It points out that the General "'The United Nations, 1916: Report on the Second Part of tlte First Session of t!te General Assembly of the United Nations, held in New York, October 23-Dec. 5, 1916. Issued by the Department of External Affnirs, Ottawa, as Conference Series, 1946, no. 3. Ottawa: King's Printer. Pp. 290. (50 cents) REVIEWS 437 Assembly uinc~eased notably" what may be called its ''quasi-legislative" function by affirming the principles of internationa! law, recognized in ,the charter of the Nuremburg Tribunal in the declaration that genocide is a crime under international law; and by adopting regulations for carrying out article 102 of the charter·on the registration and publication of international agreeq1ents. vVhile doubtful if the resoh1.tions expressing views on contemporary international law have absolute juridical force, it does affirm that they would carry great weight. The most important accomplishment ot the Assembly, however, th~ Report considers, was the unanimous adoption; on December 14, of a resolution on the principles covering the general regulations and reduction of armaments. It points out that athe unanimous adoption of this reso- . lution was made possible only by joint and sustained effort of many delegations to reconcile the separate proposals that each had advanced. These efforts were based on a common recognition of the fact that, if an As·sembly resolution on disarmament was to have practical results, it had to be concurred in by all the heavily armed powers and by the great majority...