Security Council to take into consideration the procedures which have already been adopted by the states themselves. The second change makes it clear that, while legal disputes should normally be referred to the Court, it is only the parties to the dispute which can so refer them; the Security Council can only recommend that this be done.

Another, and important, stage is reached with Article 37, under which, as above stated, the Security Council may take up a dispute if the parties have failed to reach a settlement by their own means and if the Security Council "deems that the continuance of the dispute is in fact likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security". The Council may now recommend either procedures or actual terms of settlement, but it does not have the power to compel the parties to accept these terms. It has power to enforce its decisions only after it has determined under the provisions of Chapter VII that a threat to the peace, a breach of the peace or an act of aggression exists. These provisions are analyzed in the following chapter of this Report.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CHAPTER

Chapter VI is the core of the provisions found in the Charter for pacific settlement of disputes but, as has been noted, there are related provisions in many other parts of the document. Taken as a whole, it is a comprehensive system. Every assistance is provided to the nations themselves to settle their troubles peacefully. The right of the Security Council to intervene develops by carefully graduated stages only as it becomes necessary to do so for the maintenance of peace. The General Assembly has wide powers to watch over the conduct of the member states, and new avenues have been opened which can remove the causes of disputes even before they arise. The judicial settlement of legal questions is encouraged and the optional clause in the Statute of the Court makes possible, as regards those states which accept it, a wide degree of compulsory jurisdiction over such disputes. If member states fail in the end to settle their disputes peacefully, and this failure is regarded as a threat to the peace, the authority of the Security Council carries on, under Chapter VII of the Charter, to the use of force.

In comparison with the League of Nations system, the Charter provisions for peaceful settlement are both stronger and more flexible. Primary responsibility is centered in the Security Council, in distinction to the concurrent jurisdiction given to the Council and the Assembly under the League Covenant. As has been shown in Chapter V of this Report, much greater power is available to the Security Council under the Charter than to the League Council under the Covenant to act effectively when any dispute or situation becomes a threat to the peace.

It is clearly an advantage, from the viewpoint of decisive action, that the Security Council is not so restricted as the Council of the League, in determining what is a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression. Under the League system there had to be "resort to war, in disregard of... covenants under" certain designated articles of the Covenant. The Charter of the United Nations, on the other hand, leaves the Security Council free, within the purposes and principles of the Organization, to determine whether any situation is a threat to the peace.

Finally, the Security Council of the United Nations, when it has decided that a threat to the peace exists, has at its disposal much more effective economic and military powers than were available to the League. Since these powers are ready to be used if a threat to the peace results from the failure of member nations to live up to their obligation to settle disputes peacefully, the fact of their existence increases the chances that the Security Council can bring about a peaceful settlement which will make the use of force unnecessary. The obligations for peaceful settlement undertaken by the Members of the United Nations under the Charter are much the same as those under the League of Nations Covenant. But the means provided for fulfilling these obligations are better and the sanctions that will follow failure to fulfill them are far stronger. Nevertheless, as the experience of the League showed, the success or failure of the United Nations will in the last analysis depend not upon the terms of the Charter, but upon the willingness of members to meet their responsibilities. All the Charter can do is to increase the chances for success. That has been done. But only the member states, by their conduct, can assure success. If they do, the use of force will atrophy, and conflicts among nations will be settled by peaceful means.

ACTION WITH RESPECT TO THREATS TO THE PEACE, BREACHES OF THE PEACE, AND ACTS OF AGGRESSION

(Chapter VII)

INTRODUCTION

Chapter VII of the Charter provides the teeth of the United Nations. While the novel quality of the enforcement measures envisaged in that Chapter may attract undue public attention at the expense of other vital functions of the Organization, the fact remains that upon the confidence which member states repose in the efficacy of the measures designed to halt aggression-a confidence which may have to meet the test of successive crises the survival of the entire Organization and of world peace itself must ultimately depend. Certain other provisions of the Charter which have undergone the most intensive public scrutiny and debate, such as the so-called Yalta voting formula, derive much of their importance from the manner in which they may affect or be affected by the operation of Chapter VII.

In this Charter, governments have for the first time undertaken to conclude agreements to provide armed forces and attendant facilities to be used on the call of an international agency in enforcing international peace and security. The acceptance of these provisions by the United States will mark the formal assumption by it for the first time of responsibility for maintaining world security, and will constitute concrete evidence of the recognition by this country that its own security is founded upon its cooperation with other countries in the maintenance of world peace.

This will represent a notable change in our foreign policy and in our military policy. But if it means a far-reaching commitment, entailing expense and some limitation on our freedom of action, it must be weighed against what it is designed to prevent-the appalling cost in men and material wealth of another war. Nor can we overlook the fact that other states, not so powerful as we, will assume relatively heavy obligations without retaining the large measure of control which the United States will enjoy as one of the permanent members of the Security Council.

The thirteen articles of Chapter VII, which follows closely Chapter VIII, Section B, of the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals, fall into four groups. Articles 39-42 endow the Security Council with the powers necessary to deal effectively with threats to the peace and with breaches of the peace and acts of aggression. The next five articles contain all the provisions designed to enable the Council to employ military measures swiftly and effectively. Then follow in Articles 48, 49 and 50, the obligations of the Members in respect of enforcement action and a provision designed to assist Member states which encounter special economic problems in fulfilling these obligations. The last Article, 51, is the new "self-defense" provision which is discussed in detail in connection with regional arrangements (Chapter VIII of this Report).

There was little disposition on the part of the Conference to challenge the concept that the Organization must take enforcement action and have force at its disposal to do so; nor, even more significantly, was there much evidence of a desire to limit the obligations of members. However, the proposal to concentrate in the Security Council the responsibilities for the enforcement of peace was the subject of much debate, as were some of the important details of the chapter.

Four principal questions were dealt with in the consideration at San Francisco of Chapter VIII, Section B, of the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals: (1) Should the authority for the Council's decisions be altered, either through granting the Assembly the right of participation in those decisions or through enlarging the permanent membership of the Council? (2) Should the liberty of action of the Council be restricted, either by providing definitions of aggression which would be binding upon it, or by other means? (3) How could the measures for creating and using military forces for international security be perfected? (4) Should the Military Staff Committee be enlarged or otherwise altered from the pattern set down in Dumbarton Oaks? A good deal of attention was also devoted in a few instances to clarifying the language of the provisions on which general agreement already existed, but in general the provisions of this Chapter underwent very little change at San Francisco. On the issues involved in this Chapter the interests of the United States differed little from those of the other great powers, and the unanimity of

agreement among the so-called "Big Five" was especially prominent throughout the consideration of this Chapter.

CHALLENGES TO THE PEACE

At San Francisco there was as ready recognition as at Dumbarton Oaks of the need to grant the Organization authority to determine when a situation has become a threat to the peace and to decide when an act of aggression has occurred or a breach of the peace exists.

The Conference decided, however, that Paragraphs 1 and 2 of Chapter VIII, Section B, of the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals with reference to the making of such determinations contained some over-nice distinctions concerning the different phases of a dispute and the particular measures which might apply in each case. The old first paragraph provided that the Security Council should take measures to maintain peace and security if it should determine that the failure to settle a dispute under certain of the provisions of Chapter VIII, Section A constituted a threat to the peace. The old second paragraph gave the Security Council general authority to determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, and to make recommendations or decide upon measures to be taken upon such an eventuality. The discussion of these provisions by the Conference made it clear that the second paragraph contained all of the authority required to enable the Security Council to make the necessary determinations, and that as a consequence it was unnecessary to provide for any separate procedure with respect to a situation arising from the failure to settle a dispute under Chapter VIII, Section A (Chapter VI of the Charter). It was decided, therefore, to eliminate the old first paragraph as redundant and to incorporate the second with slight modifications into the Charter as Article 39, reading as follows:

"The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security."

If any single provision of the Charter has more substance than the others, it is surely this one sentence, in which are concentrated the