sembly. In a field of interest which concerns the peoples of the world as directly as the field of social and cultural and economic improvement, the power to study, report and recommend—the power to call conferences, prepare draft conventions and require reports of progress-is a power which can be counted on to go a long way toward translating humanitarian aspirations into human gains.

The role of the International Court of Justice in the realization of the objectives of the Charter is obvious from the general nature of the Court. The purposes of the Charter include the adjustment or settlement of international disputes "in conformity with the principles of justice and international law". The International Court of Justice is the instrument of the United Nations to effect this purpose in the case of justiciable disputes referred to the Court by the parties. Where disputes are referred to the Court, or where member states accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court in certain categories of cases, its decisions are, of course, binding upon the parties. Moreover, under the Charter, all members of the United Nations undertake to comply with the decisions of the Court. Where a party to a case decided by the Court fails to comply with its decision, the matter may be brought to the attention of the Security Council for appropriate action.

These four overall instruments of international action constitute the principal means by which the Charter proposes to translate the world's hope for peace and security into the beginning of a world practice of peace and security. There are other instruments, adapted to other and more special ends. There is the Trusteeship Council, which will have the heavy responsibility of attaining in non-strategic areas the objectives of the trusteeship system established by the Charter. There is the Secretariat which, as an international civil service responsible to the Organization alone, will constitute its staff. The Security Council, the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council and the Court are, however, the principal tools through which, and by which, the general aims and purposes of the Charter would be carried out.

They are instruments admittedly of limited powers. The jurisdiction of the Court is not compulsory unless accepted as such by member states. The Assembly cannot legislate but merely discuss and recommend. The Security Council is obliged, when force is

used, to act through military contingents supplied by the member states. Measured against the magnitude of the task to which the United Nations have committed themselves and considered in the light of the long history of previous failures in this undertaking, such limited instruments may seem inadequate to the labor to be done. They have, nevertheless, characteristics which justify a greater hope for their success than the extent of the powers delegated to them would imply. They have behind them the history of humanity's long effort to suppress, in other areas of life, disorder and anarchy and the rule of violence. These four instruments are, in effect, the four principal agencies through which mankind has achieved the establishment of order and security as between individuals and families and communities.

On the frontiers of democratic society-not least upon the American frontiers-the instruments of order have always been, in one form or another, an agency to enforce respect for law with moral and physical power to prevent and to suppress breaches of the peace; a court in which the differences and disagreements of the citizens could be heard and tried; and a meeting place where the moral sense of the community could be expressed and its judgments formed, whether as declarations of law or as declarations of opinion. To these three fundamental and essential instruments of order, time and the necessities of advancing civilization have added a fourth institution through which technical knowledge and accumulated experience can be brought to bear upon the social and economic problems of society -problems with which learning and science and experience can effectively deal.

These four fundamental instruments-the enforcement officer, the Court, the public meeting, and the center of science and of knowledge are instruments to which free men are accustomed. They are instruments in the use of which self-governing men have become adept over many generations. They are instruments the efficacy of which has been demonstrated by the whole history of human civilization. Their establishment in the international world, though accompanied by limitations upon their scope, will not alter their quality nor diminish their prestige. To transplant vines and trees from familiar to unfamiliar environments, is necessarily to cut them back and prune them. To transplant social organisms from the world of individual

and group relations to the world of international relations, is necessarily also to limit them and cut them back. Nevertheless, instruments of proven social value taken over from the domestic to the international world carry with them qualities of vigor and of fruitfulness which the limitations placed upon them by their new condition cannot kill. They have behind them an historical momentum and a demonstrated usefulness which mean far more, in terms of ultimate effectiveness, than the precise legal terms by which they are established in their new environment.

Moreover, if the work of cutting back is done realistically, the chances of survival are increased. The four social instruments taken over by the United Nations have been adapted to the conditions of the actual world of international relationship with a realistic appreciation of the limiting factors to be faced. The Security Council is not the enforcement agency of a world state, since world opinion will not accept the surrender of sovereignty which the establishment of a world state would demand. The Security Council, therefore, depends upon the sovereign member states for the weapons both of persuasion and of force through which it will attempt to keep the peace. But its dependence upon the member states is realistically adapted to the situation of the member states. The Council is to use the power of the member states in accordance with the realities of the distribution of power. The voting procedure of the Security Council is expressive of the actualities of the possession and the exercise of power in the modern world. The five principal military powers of our time are made permanent members of the Council. Furthermore, in order that their possession of power and their use of power may be made to serve the purpose of peace, it is provided that they shall exercise their power only in agreement with each other and not in disagreement.

A similarly realistic acceptance of the facts of the actual world limits the General Assembly to discussion and deliberation without the power to legislate, since the power to legislate would necessarily encroach upon the sovereign independence of the member states. So too the Economic and Social Council has no power or right to interfere with the domestic affairs of the states composing the United Nations. And for the same reason the jurisdiction of the Court is limited. These adaptations to the realities of the existing

situation in the contemporary world do not decrease, but on the contrary increase, the likelihood that the instruments borrowed by the Charter of the United Nations from the history of the ancient struggle for peace and order among individual men will serve their purpose in the newer struggle for peace and order among nations.

Upon the belief that the Charter as Constitution will furnish effective means for the realization of the purposes fixed by the Charter as Declaration; and upon the belief that the Charter as Declaration will set noble and enduring goals for the work of the Charter as Constitution, I base my firm conviction that the adoption of the Charter is in the best interests of the United States and of the world.

If we are earnestly determined, as I believe we are, that the innumerable dead of two great holocausts shall not have died in vain, we must act in concert with the other nations of the world to bring about the peace for which these dead gave up their lives. The Charter of the United Nations is the product of such concerted action. Its purpose is the maintenance of peace. It offers means for the achievement of that purpose. If the means are inadequate to the task they must perform, time will reveal their inadequacy as time will provide, also, the opportunity to amend them. The proposals of the Sponsoring Powers on which the Charter is based were published to the world six months before the Conference to consider them convened. In these six months the opinion of the world was brought to bear upon their elements. Subsequently, at the Conference itself, every word, every sentence, every paragraph of the Charter's text was examined and reconsidered by the representatives of fifty nations and much of it reworked. For the first time in the history of the world, the world's peoples directly, and through their governments, collaborated in the drafting of an international constitution. What has resulted is a human document with human imperfections but with human hopes and human victory as well. But whatever its present imperfections, the Charter of the United Nations, as it was written by the Conference of San Francisco, offers the world an instrument by which a real beginning may be made upon the work of peace. I most respectfully submit that neither we nor any other people can or should refuse participation in the common task.

EDWARD R. STETTINIUS, JR.

INTRODUCTION

UNITED STATES PREPARATION FOR THE CONFERENCE With the outbreak of war in Europe it was clear that the United States would be confronted, after the war, with new and exceptionally difficult problems. Whether or not we became a belligerent, it was inevitable that we would be drawn into situations created by the war and its aftermath. Special facilities were obviously required to deal with the enlarged responsibilities of the Department of State. Accordingly, a Committee on Post-War Problems was set up before the end of 1939 to analyze developments which were likely to influence the post-war foreign relations of the United States. The Committee consisted of high officials of the Department of State. It was assisted by a research staff, which, in February, 1941, was organized into a Division of Special Research.

The work on post-war problems was greatly enlarged and intensified after the attack on Pearl Harbor. By direction of the President, the research facilities were rapidly expanded, and the Departmental Committee on Post-War Problems was reorganized into an Advisory Committee on Post-War Foreign Policies.

The new Committee was headed by Secretary Cordell Hull as Chairman. Under Secretary Sumner Welles was Vice Chairman. The membership of the Committee consisted of Assistant Secretaries of State Dean Acheson, Adolf A. Berle, Jr., and Breckinridge Long; of high officials of other Departments of the Government; of a number of members of Congress; and of a group of distinguished experts from outside the Government. The Congressional group included, from the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the Honorable Tom Connally of Texas, the Honorable Walter F. George of Georgia, the Honorable Elbert D. Thomas of Utah, the Honorable Warren R. Austin of Vermont, and the Honorable Wallace H. White, Jr. of Maine, and, from the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Honorable Sol Bloom of New York, the Honorable Luther A. Johnson of Texas and the Honorable Charles A. Eaton of New Jersey. The group from outside the Government included Mr. Hamilton Fish Armstrong, Mr. Isaiah Bowman, Mr. Norman