PURPOSES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE ORGANIZATION PURPOSES Article 1 gives the Purposes of the Organization; it defines the objectives. The Purposes, as the report of a Committee of the Conference says, "are the aggregation of the common ends" on which the minds of the delegates met. Hence, they are "the cause and object of the Charter to which member states collectively and severally subscribe". The Purposes are binding on the Organization, its organs and its agencies, indicating the direction their activities should take and the limitations within which their activities should proceed. The first purpose of the Organization is: "To maintain intertional peace and security". It was set out originally in the Moscow Declaration of October 30, 1943, and continuously asserted throughout the preparations that led up to the San Francisco Conference. That purpose, repeated in the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals, stands unchanged in the Charter that emerged from San Francisco. There are no conditions and no qualifications. The United States feels and has maintained that without international peace and security the peoples of the world could not be free from fear or free from want-that the fundamental freedoms could be enjoyed only if international peace and security were assured. The events of the past decade bear tragic testimony to the correctness of this point of view. In the maintenance of international peace and security the Organization is authorized to proceed along three broad lines. First, the Organization is authorized to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, the adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace. Second, it is empowered to take effective collective measures to prevent and to remove threats to the peace. The Organization is expected to inform itself of potentially dangerous situations in advance of the actual outbreak of violence and to employ appropriate measures to deal with them. Third, the Organization is empowered to take effective collective measures to suppress acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace. We in the United States have long held that unless an international organization has force available, to be used if necessary, the organization can never be effective. The attitude of the people of the United States on this subject was expressed in 1943, when, by overwhelming non-partisan majorities, the Fulbright Resolution passed the House of Representatives and the Connally Resolution was adopted by the Senate of the United States. These three procedures for maintaining international peace and security have been supported by the United States since the beginning of its studies in connection with the establishment of a general international organization. They were embodied in the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals and were incorporated in the Charter substantially as they were drafted in the Proposals. An exception is the addition of the phrase “in conformity with the principles of justice and international law", which was added at San Francisco to meet the wishes of those who felt that the reference to law and justice should be explicit rather than implicit as in the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals. The purpose to maintain international peace and security is not wholly expressed, however, in the procedures for pacific settlement, preventive action and enforcement measures. The Organization also has the purpose and is empowered to take positive and affirmative action to assist in bringing about the conditions essential for peace throughout the world and for its enjoyment. The Dumbarton Oaks Proposals included such a positive purpose for the Organization. Following the pattern set in those Proposals, there is stated in Article 1 the purpose of the Organization to achieve cooperation among nations in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character. At San Francisco a number of delegations favored even further enumeration of the types of problems with which the Organization would have inevitably to concern itself in its efforts to promote conditions conducive to peace. Following discussion, however, it was considered preferable to rely on the broad statement of purposes in general terms that would cover the appropriate problems. The Dumbarton Oaks Proposals contained a statement in the Chapter on Economic and Social Cooperation that the Organization should promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. Many people in this country and throughout the world expressed the hope that this purpose of the Organization could be given more emphasis and be spelled out more completely in the Charter. It was therefore proposed at San Francisco by the four Sponsoring Powers -the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and China—and it was agreed by the Conference, that the reference to human rights should be brought forward and stated prominently in the first Chapter among the purposes of the Organization. It was also agreed, on the suggestion of the Sponsoring Powers, that the statement with respect to human rights and fundamental freedoms in the Dumbarton Oaks text should be amplified to provide that the Organization would seek to achieve international cooperation in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion". As in the case of the economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian problems with which the Organization may deal, "human rights and fundamental freedoms" are not enumerated or spelled out. The United States Delegation has, however, made clear its understanding that the "fundamental freedoms" include freedom of speech and that freedom of speech involves, in international relationships, freedom of exchange of information. The Sponsoring Powers also proposed that it should be the purpose of the United Nations to develop friendly relations among nations on the basis of "respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples". This purpose has a prominent place in the Atlantic Charter. It corresponds also to the desire of people everywhere. Its inclusion in the Charter expressed the wishes not of the Sponsoring Powers alone but of other nations as well. A final purpose of the United Nations is "to be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends". This purpose was stated in substantially the same terms in the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals and was not the subject of controversy at San Francisco. Whether the term "center" be thought of in geographical or in spiritual terms, it symbolizes the thought that the common efforts of the member states are to be focused in the Organization. As finally drafted, the Charter thus expresses an overriding and unqualified purpose to maintain international peace and security, not only by taking appropriate measures to settle disputes and to prevent or suppress acts of aggression, but also by creating conditions favorable to the preservation of peace through the solution of economic, social, cultural and humanitarian problems and through the promotion of respect for human rights and freedoms including the equal rights and self-determination of peoples. PRINCIPLES Article 2 sets forth in one place in the Charter the chief obligations of a general nature assumed by Members of the United Nations and the basic principles on which the Organization is founded. The Principles stated in this Chapter are binding on the Members. The organs of the United Nations are equally bound to respect them in performance of their particular functions. The Charter speaks for itself: "The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles". The plan of having a body of fundamental principles brought together in one chapter at the opening of the Charter was conceived at Dumbarton Oaks, and, with some additions, Article 2 remains in large part as it was drafted in Chapter II of the Proposals. The first principle states that the Organization "is based on the sovereign equality of all its Members". The expression "sovereign equality" is taken from the Moscow Four-Nation Declaration of October 30, 1943. Mr. Cordell Hull, who signed this Declaration on behalf of the United States, explained in an address to the Congress that the principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving states, large and small, as partners in a future system of general security, would be the foundation stone upon which the proposed general international organization would be constructed. Mr. Hull explained further that the adoption of this principle was particularly welcome to the United States; that nowhere has the conception of sovereign equality been applied more widely than in the American family of nations. The expression "sovereign equality" was understood to mean that states are juridically equal and that they enjoy the rights in herent in their full sovereignty. It was further understood that this principle involves respect for the personality of a state and for its territorial integrity and political independence, an understanding which is strengthened by the fourth principle. The second principle provides that all Members of the United Nations shall fulfill "in good faith" the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the Charter in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership in the Organization. The wording adopted varies only slightly from that agreed to at Dumbarton Oaks. It was used to indicate as clearly as possible that the enjoyment of rights and benefits of membership depends upon the fulfillment of obligations. This principle, however, does not mean merely that if a Member fulfills its obligation, it may then exercise certain rights; it implies also that, unless all Members of the Organization carry out in good faith their obligations, none of the Members can receive the full benefits of membership in the Organization. The fulfillment of duties and obligations by all member states will alone assure the effectiveness of the Organization. It was thought necessary to include this principle among those on which the Organization is founded in view of past experience when nations have tended to emphasize their rights and to neglect their duties and have subscribed to obligations which, in time of international crisis, they ignored. The third principle provides that all Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace, security, and justice are not endangered. Except for the insertion of the words "international" and "justice", this principle is in the form in which it was written at Dumbarton Oaks. At San Francisco, on the initiative of the Sponsoring Powers, the word "international" was added to make it perfectly clear that the Organization would concern itself only with disputes among the nations, a conclusion stated more explicitly in the seventh principle. At the request of a number of nations who wished to make it clear 'that the settlement of international disputes should be consonant with the principles of justice, the Conference accepted the addition of the word "justice". It was understood that this principle does not obligate the Members to settle all their international disputes. Some disputes, if they do not endanger international peace and security, |