Revision of the United Nations Charter

REVISION OF THE UNITED NATIONS CHARTER DOUGLAS G. ANGLIN UNDER Article 109 (3) of the United Nations Charter, a proposal to call a General Conference to review the Charter will automatically be placed on the agenda of the tenth session of the General Assembly in 1955. This fact raises two important questions. First, is the convocation of a review conference desirable and, secondly, what revisions are required in the present Charter? Each of these points will be dealt with in turn. I The desirability of calling a conference to overcome the obvious defects of the Charter may appear self-evident. Yet the real question is not the need for refonn-which is indisputable- but the advisability of attempting refonn at a General Conference called specifically for this purpose. Before coming to a final decision on this point, it is first necessary to assess the prospects of actually achieving refonn at such a conference and, also, the possibilities of securing the required changes in other ways. It must be admitted that the amendment procedure under the Charter is a formidable obstacle to its revision. Proposals must first be adopted by a two-thirds vote in either the General Assembly or a General Conference, and then be ratified by two-thirds of the Member States including all the permanent members of the Security Council. This means that the Western Big Three, the Soviet Union, and the island of Formosa all have a veto. In view of this, it is improbable that any amendments can be adopted in the near future. Whether or not it is impossible depends on the scope of the refonns contemplated. Four possibilities exist. First, a "punctuation" conference' might be held for the limited purpose of securing minor drafting changes. Such a conference might succeed, though the task would still not be easy. Even the most innocent proposals for technical drafting changes are frequently found on examination to involve substantive issues. It is doubtful, however, whether the convening of a full-scale international conference solely for the purpose of dealing with such trivialities could be justified. It would seem more appropriate to ask the General Assembly to deal with such problems. lErnest A. Gross, "Revising the Charter," Foreign Affairs, XXXII (Jan., 1954) ,205. 162 Vol. XXIV, no. 2, Jan., 1955 REVISION OF THE UN CHARTER 163 A second possibility is a conference called with the intention of radically reforming the present Charter in the direction of world government, or something like it. It can be said with absolute certainty that sucb a conference would be doomed to failure. Even if Soviet hostility were circumvented, for example, by driving Russia out of the United Nations, there is no indication that the Western nations would be prepared to take any real steps in the direction of world government in the immediate future. Thirdly, the conference could seek important but not fundamental changes. At the moment, even to hope for this is wishful thinking, but next year, or several years from now, the world situation might be different. Finally, a conference could be held for the purpose of reviewing the Charter, but not necessarily revising it. The United States is advocating this alternative. It should be realized that if a General Conference is held, it will not begin where the San Francisco Conference left off. It will not be simply a case of gaining what we failed to secure in 1945. This is impossible because of changes in the world political situation in the intervening years--particularly the breakdown of great-power unity and the extension of the "franchise" in the UN to a large number of newly independent, militarily weak, and economically underdeveloped countries. New states have been created at the rate of one a year since the end of the war, and many more countries are on the threshold of nationhood. It should not be assumed that a revised Charter will necessarily be better, at least from a Canadian point of view. Indeed, the cbanges which are most likely to be brought about are precisely those whicb will have least appeal to us. The plain fact is that the Soviet Union may find it easier than the Western nations to...