Recognition of States

On September 10, 1974, President Ford sent a letter to Luis de Almeida Cabral, President of the Council of State of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, extending recognition to the Republic. The following is the text of President Ford's letter:

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: I am pleased to inform you that the United States Government extends recognition to the Republic of GuineaBissau. It is our hope, with your agreement, that diplomatic relations can be established between our countries.

We congratulate your leaders and their Portuguese colleagues on the wise statesmanship, patience and depth of vision they have demonstrated in their negotiations.

In extending the congratulations of my country, I speak for a people who share with the people of Guinea-Bissau the knowledge that hard-won individual liberty and independence can be preserved only by unremitting labor and great sacrifice.

In the coming days we wish to strengthen and multiply our bonds of friendship with the Government and people of Guinea-Bissau. I am confident of a future in which our two peoples shall work together in the cause of freedom, peace and the welfare of mankind. Dept. of State Bulletin, Vol. LXXI, No. 1843, Oct. 21, 1974, p. 533.

84

A.

General Role

International Organizations

GENERAL: PERSONALITY AND CAPACITY

United Nations

On December 6, 1974, Ambassador John A. Scali, U.S. Representative to the United Nations, gave an address to the U.N. General Assembly on the role of the United Nations. He spoke of the "growing tendency" of the Organization to adopt "one-sided, unrealistic resolutions that cannot be implemented" and of the Assembly's actions in seeking "to represent the views of the numerical majority of the day" rather than acting as a "spokesman of a more general global opinion.” The following are excerpts from Ambassador Scali's address:

Last year the United States Delegation sought to call attention to a trend which we believed threatened the United Nations' potential as an instrument for international cooperation. We were deeply concerned then over the growing tendency of this Organization to adopt one-sided, unrealistic resolutions that cannot be implemented.

Today, more than a year later, my Delegation feels that we must return to this subject because this trend has not only continued, but accelerated. Added to this, there is now a new threat-an arbitrary disregard of United Nations rules, even of its Charter. What my Delegation spoke of 12 months ago as a potential threat to this

Organization, unhappily has become today a clear and present danger.

I wish to take this opportunity to discuss the more general question of how self-centered actions endanger the future of this Organization.

The United Nations, and this Assembly in particular, can walk one of two paths. The Assembly can seek to represent the views of the numerical majority of the day, or it can try to act as a spokesman of a more general global opinion. To do the first is easy. To do the second is infinitely more difficult. But, if we look ahead, it is infinitely more useful.

There is certainly nothing wrong with like-minded groups of nations giving voice to the views they hold in common. However, organizations other than the United Nations exist for that purpose. Thus, there are organizations of African states, of Asian states, of Arab states, of European states, and of American States. There are groups of industrialized nations, of developing nations, of Western and Eastern nations, and of non-aligned nations. Each of these organizations exists to promote the views of its membership.

The United Nations, however, exists not to serve one or more of these special interest groups while remaining insensitive to the others. The challenge of the United Nations is to meld and reflect the views of all of them. The only victories with meaning are those which are victories for us all.

The General Assembly fulfills its true function when it reconciles opposing views and seeks to bridge the differences among its Member States. The most meaningful test of whether the Assembly has succeeded in this task is not whether a majority can be mobilized behind any single draft resolution, but whether those states whose cooperation is vital to implement a decision will support it in fact. A better world can only be constructed on negotiation and compromise, not on confrontation which inevitably sows the seeds of new conflicts. In the words of our Charter, the United Nations is "to be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment. of these common ends."

No observer should be misled by the coincidental similarities between the General Assembly and a legislature. A legislature passes laws. The General Assembly passes resolutions, which are in most cases advisory in nature. These resolutions are sometimes adopted by Assembly majorities which represent only a small fraction of the people of the world, its wealth, or its territory. Sometimes they brutally disregard the sensitivity of the minority.

Because the General Assembly is an advisory body on matters of world policy, the pursuit of mathematical majorities can be a particularly sterile form of international activity. Sovereign nations, and the other international organs which the Assembly advises through its resolutions, sometimes accept and sometimes reject that advice. Often they do not ask how many nations voted for a resolution, but who those nations were, what they represented, and what they advocated.

Members of the United Nations are endowed with sovereign equality. That is, they are equally entitled to their independence, to their rights under the Charter. They are not equal in size, in population, or in wealth. They have different capabilities, and, therefore, different responsibilities, as the Charter makes clear.

Similarly, because the majority can directly affect only the internal administration of this Organization, it is the United Nations itself which suffers most when a majority, in pursuit of an objective it believes overriding, forgets that responsibility must bear a reasonable relationship to capability and to authority.

Each time this Assembly adopts a resolution which it knows will not be implemented, it damages the credibility of the United Nations. Each time that this Assembly makes a decision which a significant minority of members regard as unfair or one-sided, it further erodes vital support for the United Nations among that minority. But the minority which is so offended may in fact be a practical majority, in terms of its capacity to support this Organization and implement its decisions.

Unenforceable, one-sided resolutions destroy the authority of the United Nations. Far more serious, however, they encourage disrespect for the Charter, and for the traditions of our Organization.

No organization can function without an agreed-upon framework of rules and regulations. The framework for this Organization was built in the light of painful lessons learned from the disastrous failure of its predecessor, the League of Nations. Thus, the United Nations Charter was designed to insure that the important decisions of this Organization reflected real power relationships, and that decisions, once adopted, could be enforced.

One of the principal aims of the United Nations, expressed in the Preamble of its Charter, is "to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors." The promise the American people and the peoples of the other founding nations made to each other-not as a matter of law, but as a matter of solemn moral and political obligation-was to live up to the Charter and the duly-made rules unless or until they were modified in an orderly, constitutional manner.

The function of all parliaments is to provide expression to the majority will. Yet, when the rule of the majority becomes the tyranny of the majority, the minority will cease to respect or obey it, and the parliament will cease to function. Every majority must recognize that its authority does not extend beyond the point where the minority becomes so outraged that it is no longer willing to maintain the covenant which binds them.

My countrymen have made a great investment in this World Organization over the years-as host country, as the leading financial contributor, and as a conscientious participant in its debates and negotiations and operational programs. Americans have loyally continued these efforts in a spirit of good faith and tolerance, knowing that there would be words spoken which we did not always like and resolutions adopted which we could not always support.

As the 29th General Assembly draws to a close, however, many Americans are questioning their belief in the United Nations. They are deeply disturbed.

During this 29th General Assembly resolutions have been passed which uncritically endorse the most far-reaching claims of one side in dangerous international disputes. With this has come a sharply increased tendency in this Assembly to disregard its normal procedures to benefit the side which enjoys the favor of the majority, and to silence, and even exclude, the representatives of Member States whose policies the majority condemns. In the wake of some of the examples of this Assembly, the General Conference of UNESCO has strayed down the same path with the predictable consequences of adverse reaction against the United Nations. Innocent bystanders such as UNICEF already have been affected.

We are all aware that true compromise is difficult and timeconsuming, while bloc voting is fast and easy. But real progress on contentious issues must be earned. Paper triumphs are, in the end, expensive even for the victors. The cost is borne, first of all, by the United Nations as an institution, and, in the end, by all of us. Our achievements cannot be measured in paper.

Press Release USUN-191 (74), Dec. 6, 1974; U.N. Doc. A/PV. 2307, Dec. 6, 1974, pp. 47-56. For the U.S. viewpoint as expressed at the 1973 General Assembly, see the 1973 Digest, Ch. 2, § 4F, pp. 53-54.

Charter Review

On December 5, 1974, Robert Rosenstock, U.S. representative to the Sixth Committee of the U.N. General Assembly, made a statement to the Committee on the need to consider suggestions regarding the review of the U.N. Charter. The following are excerpts from Mr. Rosenstock's statement:

The Charter, as any fundamental governing document, must have the capacity to allow those who adhere to it to deal efficiently and effectively with the questions they face. Because of the broad spectrum of interests, the full range of political diversity, and the considerable discrepancy in the types of contributions which can be made by the various members of the United Nations, the Charter must truly be an extraordinary document in order to provide the basic ground rules within which we all can agree to attempt to solve our common problems.

The Charter has generally proven to be such an extraordinary document for the past twenty-nine years. For this we all owe a profound appreciation to those who developed its text during those complex and difficult negotiations in San Francisco. Neither then nor now have sensible persons believed all the Charter language was perfect and immutable for all time. We know of no significant

governing document with a long life which is or could be perfect or immutable.

We are surprised by the comments of some that the Charter has been unchanged since 1945. Quite apart from the several amendments which have been made to the text and to which I shall refer later, the Charter has, by the normal process of interpretation and evolution, gone through very significant modifications as times and circumstances have changed, as new members with new views have joined the United Nations, and as we have been able through years of experience to understand better the needs of this central multinational organization. The fact that the present Charter has allowed such flexibility is clear evidence of the fundamental value and wisdom of its text. As general political needs have changed, so in many cases have our collective interpretations of Charter provisions. These changes have taken place gradually, and effectively; a constructive evolution in which all members have participated. Such an evolution is, in our view, an invaluable way in which the Charter is maintained as a living, current document an avenue of change vastly preferable to sudden, radical shifts which, by virtue of the extreme diversity among the Member States, almost inevitably would result in loss of the fundamental consensus which is the foundation of the Charter. The loss or weakening of that consensus can only result in diminution of the effectiveness of the organization and thus the meaningfulness of any changes which some might urge.

Evolution has taken place in some of the most important provisions of the Charter. For example, if in 1945 or 1950 we had asserted that the Charter granted peoples the right to self-determination, most members would have disagreed. If in 1960 we had made the same assertion, many would have pointed out that all that existed as a matter of law was a principle, not a right. Today if anyone questions the interpretation that there exists a Charter right to selfdetermination, his views would be considered preposterous, or at the least anachronistic and wrong.

In 1964 some states asserted that there was no Charter prohibition on intervention by states in the domestic affairs of other states. If anyone asserted that view today we would think him mad or worse.

Can anyone deny that Article 2, paragraph 7 means something different from what it meant before various decisions by the Security Council, before the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and before the numerous subsequent resolutions which deal with human rights and various forms of denial of those rights such as apartheid?

In 1950 certain delegations attacked Resolution 366 (V) as illegal and contrary to the Charter. In 1967 the state which led the earlier attack against that Resolution relied upon it in moving to convene an emergency session of the Assembly.

The Friendly Relations Declaration with its interpretations of key concepts of the Charter, including the prohibition of the threat or use of force, non-intervention, equal rights and self-determination, and peaceful settlement, is merely one of the more obvious examples of the process of evolution. The Friendly Relations Declara