Summary Report of Meeting of Commission and Committee Officers, May 3

Doc. 76, May 4

The meeting was convened at 3:50 p.m. by the President of Commission III, Trygve Lie (Norway). At his request the Executive Officer for Commission III read the statement adopted at the plenary session which directed the officers of each commission and its committees to meet on May 3 for the purpose of initiating work.

The President introduced the officers of Commission III and its committees.

The President requested that chairmen and rapporteurs designate alternates from their delegations to act for them in case of their absence.

The Executive Officer reported that all rules of procedure, except those dealing with voting, had now been approved by the Steering Committee and would presumably soon be available in final form. In general, the rules of procedure adopted for the plenary sessions of the Conference are to apply to the Commission and committees. It was pointed out that under these rules the committees are empowered to make whatever supplementary rules of procedure may be found desirable.

The President asked the Executive Officer to make a statement on the documentation to be used as the basis for committee discussion. This documentation includes the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals, the additional Chinese proposals which the other sponsoring gov ernments have agreed shall be considered as part of the original Proposals, and the official comments and observations made by participating governments on the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals.

The President asked the Executive Officer to read the terms of reference for Commission III and its four committees as contained in the Memorandum on Organization (Doc. 31, April 27, 1945) approved by the Conference in plenary session. Each committee shall consider the sections of the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals indicated below, together with the relevant comments and observations dealing with the subject matter of these sections found in the official comments and suggestions of participating governments:

Committee 1: Chapter VI, Sections A, C, and D and the pertinent parts of Section B

Committee 2: Chapter VIII, Section A

Committee 3: Chapter VIII, Section B, and Chapter XII

Committee 4: Chapter VIII, Section C

The President then asked the Executive Officer to read a proposed schedule of the first metings of the four committees, as follows:

This suggestion was approved and it was announced that the place of meeting would appear in the Order of the Day for May 4 (also published in the Journal for that day).

The President made a statement in which he urged that the committees expedite their work and closed the meeting at 4:30 p. m.

Report of Rapporteur of Committee III/1 to
Commission III

Doc. 1050, June 17

SECTION A OF CHAPTER VI

Committee III/1 has been under the able direction of the Chairman, His Excellency John Sofianopoulos.

The Rapporteur has found his work extremely easy due to the valuable cooperation of the distinguished Chairman of the Committee and of all members of the Secretariat.

The Committee decided that in case the Chairman should find it necessary to be absent from some of the meetings, another Delegate from Greece, the Honorable Thanassis Aghnides, would act as Chairman pro tempore.

The first three sessions were devoted to a general discussion of Section A of Chapter VI of the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals, relative to composition of the Security Council.

Subcommittee III/1/A was organized for a twofold purpose: First, to determine which parts of Section B, Chapter VI, of the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals, should be in the program of work of Committee III/1; and second, to make a classified list of the amendments to Sections A, B, C, and D proposed by the various delegations. The members of Subcommittee III/1/A were the Delegates of China, El Salvador, France, Netherlands, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, United Kingdom, and United States of America. The Delegate of El Salvador was elected to be Chairman of the Subcommittee.

As the result of its work, Subcommittee III/1/A recommended: (a) that the terms of reference respecting Committee III/1 be amended to include the whole of Section B, Chapter VI; (b) that the title of the terms of reference respecting Committee III/1 be changed to read "Structure, Procedures, and Principal Functions and Powers";

(c) that steps be taken through proper channels to refer this recommendation to the Secretary-General and the President of the Conference for necessary action.

A classified list of amendments proposed by the various delegations to Sections A, B, C, and D of Chapter VI of the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals was prepared by the Secretariat and submitted to Committee III/1.

The report presented to Committee III/1 by the Subcommittee III/1/A was approved in the third meeting of the Committee.

The amendments proposed to Section A. Chapter VI, of the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals, referred to the various sentences of Section A and included the following questions:

(a) total number of members of the Security Council;

(b) whether or not the Security Council should have permanent members or semi-permanent members and, if so, what should be the criterion for their selection;

(c) total number of permanent members of the Council; (d) additional permanent seats for certain nations;

(e) deletion of the words "in due course", concerning France as a permanent member;

(f) increase of the number of non-permanent members; (g) basis or criteria upon which the selection of non-permanent members of the Security Council should be made several solutions were proposed, including full equality for all member nations, geographical distribution, rotation, contribution of the members of the Organization toward the maintenance of international peace and security and toward the other purposes of the Organization, guaranties concerning the active defense of international order and means to participate substantially in it, combinations of elements including population, industrial and economic capacity, future contributions in armed forces and assistance pledged by each member state, contributions rendered in the Second World War, and so on; also special assignment of nonpermanent seats to certain groups of nations;

(h) conditions governing the eligibility of non-permanent members of the Security Council and duration of their terms; (i) final determination by the General Assembly of the length of the terms for non-permanent members;

(j) "appointment" instead of "election" of non-permanent members;

(k) "reappointment" instead of "reelection".

Of all the modifications proposed to Section A of Chapter VI of the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals, only two were adopted, namely: First, pursuant to the proposal of the Canadian Delegation, to delete the words "in due course" in the second sentence of the section; and second, pursuant to the proposal of the four sponsoring powers, to add, at the end of the third sentence of the same Section A, the following text, preceded by a comma: "due regard being specially paid in the first instance to the contribution of members of the Organization towards the maintenance of international peace and security and towards the other purposes of the Organization, and also to equitable geographical distribution".

The text of Section A, Chapter VI, of the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals, was approved by Committee III/1 with the two modifications that have just been mentioned, and, therefore, the text adopted by the Committee is the following:

Chapter VI. The Security Council

Section A. Composition. The Security Council should consist of one representative of each of eleven members of the Organization. Representatives of the United States of America, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Republic of China and France should have permanent seats. The General Assembly should elect six states to fill the non-permanent seats, due regard being specially paid in the first instance to the contribution of members of the Organization towards the maintenance of international peace and security and towards the other purposes of the Organization, and also to equitable geographical distribution. These six states should be elected for a term of two years, three retiring each year. They should not be immediately eligible for reelection. In the first election of the non-permanent members three should be chosen by the General Assembly for one-year terms and three for two-year terms.

SECTION B OF CHAPTER VI

His Excellency John Sofianopoulos, Chairman of Committee III/1, announced that the Coordination Committee of the Conference had approved the proposition made by Committee III/1 recommending that all of Section B, Chapter VI, of the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals should be referred to this Committee. This was done at the thirteenth meeting of Committee III/1, and a general discussion of Section B followed. After the end of this discussion, every one of the proposed amendments to the different paragraphs of Section B was introduced by the respective delegates and the discussion was resumed in regard to each proposed amendment.

The title of Section B of Chapter VI of the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals is "Principal Functions and Powers". A single amendment was proposed to this title consisting of the suppression of the word "Principal". The proposed amendment was referred to the Coordination Committee as a matter of drafting.

Paragraph 1 of Section B reads as follows:

1. In order to insure prompt and effective action by the Organization, members of the Organization should by the Charter confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security and should agree that in carrying out these duties under this responsibility it should act on their behalf.

Numerous amendments were proposed to this paragraph. All of them referred to the powers of the Security Council as compared with, and in relation to, the powers of the General Assembly. The need of determining with greater precision the functions and powers of the Security Council was stressed in many proposed amendments. Some other propositions may be briefly stated as follows:

(a) that the Security Council should report on its activities to the General Assembly;

(b) that the General Assembly should have power to supervise the activities of the Security Council and to approve them and make recommendations tending to the observance of its duties;

(c) that the powers of the Security Council should be reduced; (d) that the Security Council should not establish or modify principles or rules of law;