The United Nations Security Council and War:The Evolution of Thought and Practice since 1945 (142 page)
Authors: Adam Roberts,Vaughan Lowe,Jennifer Welsh,Dominik Zaum
4
For an elaboration of this thesis, see Edward C. Luck,
The UN Security Council: Practice and Promise
(London: Routledge, 2006).
5
US Department of State,
Postwar Foreign Policy Preparations, 1939–1945
(Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1949), 600–1.
6
Ruth B. Russell,
A History of the United Nations Charter: The Role of the United States 1940–1945
(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1958), 104.
7
Gladwyn Jebb,
The Memoirs of Lord Gladwyn
(New York: Weybright and Talley, 1972), 122.
8
Forrest Davis, ‘Roosevelt’s World Blueprint’,
The Saturday Evening Post
, 10 Apr. 1943, 21.
9
Ibid., 110.
10
Ibid.
11
For accounts of British post-war planning during the Second World War, see Adam Roberts, ‘Britain and the Creation of the United Nations’, in Roger Louis (ed.),
Still More Adventures With Britannia: Personalities, Politics and Culture in Britain
(London: I. B. Tauris, 2003), 229–47; E. J. Hughes, ‘Winston Churchill and the Formation of the United Nations Organization’,
Journal of Contemporary History
9, no. 4 (Oct. 1974), 177–94; Geoffrey L. Goodwin,
Britain and the United Nations
(New York: Manhattan Publishing Company, 1957), 3–48; Anthony Eden,
The Reckoning
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965); and Gladwyn Jebb,
Memoirs.
12
Eden,
The Reckoning
, 517.
13
For Soviet interest in preventing a re-emergence of a German threat, see C. Dale Fuller, ‘Soviet Policy in the United Nations’,
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
, 263 (May 1949), 141–4 and Robert C. Hilderbrand,
Dumbarton Oaks: The Origins of the United Nations and the Search for Postwar Security
(Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), 45. Hilderbrand argues that Stalin took the creation of post-war organization quite seriously (see pp. 44–7), while Fuller contends that ‘Marshal Stalin during World War II evidenced little ardor for the proposed United Nations organization’ (p. 142). Though Rupert Emerson and Inis L. Claude, Jr ascribe rather narrow motivations to Soviet participation in the UN, they point out that, because of the amount of ‘international business’ transacted there, ‘as a great power, as an expanding power, and as a threatened power, the USSR could not afford to be absent from it’: ‘The Soviet Union and the United Nations: An Essay in Interpretation’,
International Organization
6, no. 1 (Feb. 1952), 25. Adam B. Ulam and Alexander Dallin, two prominent Sovietologists, provided decidedly cynical readings of Soviet attitudes toward the world body: see
Expansion and Coexistence: The History of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–67
(New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1968), 372–4 and 380–81, and
The Soviet Union at the United Nations: An Inquiry into Soviet Motives and Objectives
(New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1962), 22–5, respectively. To add to the confusion, two high-level American officials at Yalta, Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr, and his successor, James F. Byrnes, had dramatically opposed interpretations of the degree of Stalin’s preparations for discussing Security Council voting formulas at Yalta. Byrnes is dismissive
(Speaking Frankly
(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1947), 37–8), while Stettinius gives Stalin the benefit of the doubt
(Roosevelt and the Russians
, 148–9).
14
While Churchill and Roosevelt consistently advocated a place for France among the Council’s Permanent Members, Stalin had his doubts. As late as the Yalta Conference in February 1945, Stalin reportedly told Roosevelt that ‘it was unrealistic … for De Gaulle to insist upon full rights with the Big Three, in view of the fact that France had not done much fighting in the war’: Stettinius,
Roosevelt and the Russians
, 100.
15
Memorandum of the French Government on International Organization and Text of Proposed French Amendments to the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals
(1945), 3. For a forceful exposition of a similar argument from a leading American commentator, see Walter Lippmann,
U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic
(Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1943).
16
For Churchill’s doubts about China, see Evan Luard,
A History of the United Nations
, vol. 1:
The Years of Western Domination, 1945–1955
(London: Macmillan Press, 1982), 19; and for Eden’s, see
Reckoning
, 424. Then US Secretary of State Cordell Hull provides an account of the extent of American efforts to persuade the Soviets to accept a Chinese signature on the Four-Nation Declaration, agreed at the Moscow conference, that committed them to the establishment of a post-war organization. This step, in essence, allowed China to be one of the four sponsoring powers for the San Francisco conference.
The Memoirs of Cordell Hull
, vol. II (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1948), 1256–7, 1265, 1281–3, 1299, 1301, and 1306–7.
17
Hilderbrand,
Dumbarton Oaks
, 231.
18
China Institute of International Affairs,
China and the United Nations
(New York: The Manhattan Publishing Company, 1959), 32.
19
Hilderbrand,
Dumbarton Oaks
, 238–9 and China Institute of International Affairs,
China and the United Nations
, 31.
20
Herbert Vere Evatt,
The United Nations
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1948), 36; and New Zealand Delegation to the United Nations Conference on International Organization, San Francisco,
Report on the Conference
(Wellington: Department of External Affairs, 1945).
21
New Zealand Delegation,
Report
, ibid., 28. In their view, the ultimate language on Article 2(7) left sufficient leeway for the Council to act when necessary to respond to such atrocities with
Chapter VII
enforcement measures.
22
Documents of the United Nations Conference on International Organization
, vol. XI (New York: United Nations, 1945), 474.
23
Ibid., 475–6.
24
Ibid., 458.
25
Documents of the United Nations Conference on International Organization
, vol. XI (New York: United Nations, 1945), 459.
26
Webster, ‘Making of the Charter’, 35.
27
Roberts, ‘Britain and the Creation of the United Nations’, 235.
28
Grayson Kirk, ‘The Enforcement of Security’,
Yale Law Journal
55, no. 5 (Aug. 1946), 1088.
29
Not every delegation at San Francisco, of course, was satisfied with the Council deciding what was a political or legal matter. Some felt that such questions would be better left to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). See, for example, statements by Peru and Uruguay:
Documents of the United Nations Conference on International Organization
, vol. XII (New York: United Nations, 1945), 75 and 82–4, respectively. Belgium suggested that in some cases it would be ‘desirable to strengthen the juridical basis of the decisions of the Security Council’ by first seeking an advisory opinion of the ICJ: ibid., 48–50. This proposal was soundly rebuffed, however, by the argument of the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Byelorussia, among others, that such a procedure would cause delays and play into the hands of the aggressor: ibid., 65–6.
30
Kirk, ‘The Enforcement of Security’, 1089.
31
US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,
The Charter of the United
Nations, Hearings, July 9–13, 1945, 79th Cong., 1st Sess. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1945), 642–3.
32
See, for example, statements by Ethiopia, Australia, Iran, Bolivia, and the Philippines,
Documents of the United Nations Conference on International Organization
, vol. XII, 31–3, 66–7, 341, and 348.
33
Ibid., 450.
34
Ibid., 342. The Bolivian motion was defeated 22 to 12 (349).
35
Ibid., 342.
36
For example, the US was quick to remind the delegates at San Francisco that a Council finding of a threat to the peace would not necessarily compel any enforcement action by the Council:
Documents of the United Nations Conference on International Organization
, vol. XII, 66. For a more detailed discussion of this point, see Edward C. Luck, ‘Article 2(4) on the Non-Use of Force: What Were We Thinking?’, in David Forsythe, Patrice C. McMahon, and Andrew Wedeman (eds.),
American Foreign Policy in a Globalized World
(London: Routledge, 2006), 74–5.
37
Edward R. Stettinius, Jr,
Report to the President on the Results of the San Francisco Conference
(Washington, DC: Department of State, June 26, 1945), 90–91.
38
Documents of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, vol.
XII, 447, 449, and 504–5.
39
Documents of the United Nations Conference on International Organization
, vol. XII, 448 and 505.
40
Ibid., 117.
41
Webster, ‘Making of the Charter’, 35.
42
China Institute of International Affairs,
China and the United Nations
, 50–1.
43
Webster, ‘Making of the Charter’, 38.
44
Leland M. Goodrich and Edvard Hambro,
Charter of the United Nations: Commentary and Documents
, 2nd edn. (Boston, MA: World Peace Foundation, 1949), 107.
45
Pasvolsky, ‘Dumbarton Oaks Proposals’, Address to the United Nations Institute on Post-War Security (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1944), 8–9.
46
US Department of State,
Postwar Foreign Policy Preparations
, 600–1.
47
Leo Pasvolsky, ‘Dumbarton Oaks Proposals’, 11.
48
Ibid., 9.
49
Kirk, ‘The Enforcement of Security’, 1089.
50
Lawrence E. Davies, ‘Commission Votes Enforcement Plan’,
New York Times
, 13 June 1945.
51
Documents of the United Nations Conference on International Organization
, vol. XII, 505.
52
Memorandum of the French Government on International Organization
, 3.
53
Documents of the United Nations Conference on International Organization
, vol. XII, 361–2.
54
Documents of the United Nations Conference on International Organization
, vol. XII, 74.
55
Ibid.
56
Ibid. The Secretary was another political scientist from Columbia University, William T. R. Fox.
57
Kirk, ‘The Enforcement of Security’, 1089.
58
See, for example, ‘Secretary-General Proposes Strategy for UN Reform to General Assembly’, UN doc. SG/SM/9770 of 21 Mar. 2005 and High-level Panel,
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility – Report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
, UN doc. A/59/565 of 2 Dec. 2004, para. 207(c).
59
Kirk, ‘The Enforcement of Security’, 1088.
60
Ibid.
61
Stettinius,
Report to the President on the Results of the San Francisco Conference
, 93.
62
Ibid., 67.
63
Ibid., 93.
64
Ibid.
65
US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,
The Charter of the United Nations
, Hearings, 281.
66
Ibid., 282.
67
Davies, ‘Commission Votes Enforcement Plan’.
68
Ibid.
69
Ibid.
70
US Department of State,
Postwar Foreign Policy Preparations
, 533. Rather than the unit veto system that the Council was to observe under the League’s Covenant, under the Charter there was to be ‘less than complete unanimity’: ibid.
71
Ibid., 527.
72
US Department of State,
Foreign Relations of the United States, Diplomatic Papers, 1944
, vol. 1 (General), (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1966), 615.
73
Forrest Davis, ‘Roosevelt’s World Blueprint’,
Saturday Evening Post
, 10 Apr. 1943, 110.
74
President’s Address Dealing with Conferences Abroad,
New York Times
, 25 Dec. 1943. See also John H. Crider, ‘To Keep It By Arms’,
New York Times
, 25 Dec. 1943.
75
See Hilderbrand,
Dumbarton Oaks
, 15–16; Russell,
A History of the United Nations Charter
, 43 and 96; and Townsend Hoopes and Douglas Brinkley,
FDR and the Creation of the U.N.
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 46 and 50.
76
See, for example, an account of his Jan. 1943 meeting with the President in Hoopes and Brinkley,
FDR and the Creation of the U.N.
, 68–9.
77
Sumner Welles,
The Time for Decision
(New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1944), 372.
78
Ibid., 377.
