General Assembly was unable, for lack of time, to complete its consideration of these proposals during the First Part of the Third Regular Session, and they were deferred to the Second Part of the Session to be held in the spring of 1949. However, the following two of the proposals were approved by the Ad Hoc Political Committee of the General Assembly:

(1) A Belgian proposal to confer upon appropriate organs of the United Nations, including the International Court of Justice, certain functions previously entrusted to organs of the League of Nations under the 1928 General Act for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes. The proposal involves the preparation of a revised text of the General Act containing amendments specified in the draft resolution and the opening of the revised text to accession. Since accession remains voluntary with individual states, the approval of this resolution does not imply any approval or disapproval of the substantive provisions of the General Act.

(2) A proposal by the United Kingdom that the General Assembly recommend to the Security Council the adoption of a practice under which conciliation would be attempted by a member of the Council agreed upon for this purpose by the parties to a dispute, prior to its full discussion in the Council itself.

The following two proposals of the Interim Committee were deferred to the Second Part of the Third Session of the General Assembly:

(1) The joint United States-Chinese proposal for the creation of a panel for inquiry and conciliation. Under this proposal, each Member of the United Nations would designate from one to five persons specially qualified to serve in such capacity. The panel thus established would be available to the parties to any disputes to undertake such procedures in the nature of inquiry and conciliation as might be agreed upon.

(2) A United Kingdom proposal that the President of the General Assembly should undertake conciliation efforts prior to full debate on any dispute submitted to that organ.

A number of other interesting proposals were submitted to the Interim Committee by the Representatives of Lebanon, Belgium, Canada, and Ecuador. While these were not submitted to the Assembly, some of them will probably receive further consideration in the course of the future work of the Interim Committee.

In the revised terms of reference approved by the Third Regular Session of the General Assembly for the continued work of the In

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terim Committee, the restriction of the Committee's study to "methods" of implementation is deleted and the Committee is authorized instead "To consider systematically the further implementation" of those parts of articles 11 and 13 of the Charter dealing with the general principles of cooperation and the promotion of international cooperation in the political field.

ADMISSION OF NEW MEMBERS

Burma was the only new Member admitted to the United Nations in 1948. Its application, submitted on February 17, 1948, received a favorable recommendation by the Security Council on April 10, 1948, and the Second Special Session of the General Assembly on April 19, 1948, admitted it as the 58th Member of the United Nations. -Eleven applications, submitted in 1946 and 1947, were still before the organization at the beginning of 1948. Among these were sixthose of Portugal, Transjordan, Ireland, Italy, Austria, and Finlandwhich had been rejected solely through Soviet vetoes in the Security Council and which the General Assembly had in 1947 strongly requested the Security Council to reconsider. Other 1947 resolutions on the question of membership had recommended consultation among the permanent members of the Security Council on the subject and had requested an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the conditions of admission to membership.1

On April 3, 1948, the Representatives of France, the United Kingdom, and the United States requested reconsideration of the applications of Italy and Transjordan, noting that the 1947 Assembly resolutions had requested especially urgent action on these applications. The Ukraine requested reconsideration of Albania, the Mongolian Feople's Republic, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Finland. At the suggestion of the United States, representatives of the Big Five consulted on the problem on April 7, 1948. At this meeting the United States stated that, in view of the Ukraine proposal, the application of Portugal, Ireland, and Austria should also be reconsidered. The Soviet Representative, Andrei Gromyko, offered to support Transjordan if other members would support Albania and the Mongolian People's Republic. The other representatives would not agree to such an arrangement. In the Security Council on April 10, the Soviet Union once more vetoed approval of Italy's application. On a question by the President, it was then made clear that no member of the Council had changed its position toward the admission of any of

For a discussion of this opinion, rendered May 28, 1948, see post, p. 165.

the other applicants. Thus, in effect, Transjordan, Portugal, Ireland, Finland, and Austria were once more excluded solely because of the opposition of the Soviet Union; Albania, the Mongolian People's Republic, Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria were not favored by a majority.

An application submitted by Ceylon, dated May 25, 1948, was considered by the Security Council's Committee on the Admission of New Members on June 29, 1948. No objection was raised to the application, the Soviet and Ukrainian Representatives reserving their position until the matter was considered in the Council itself, and the Committee rendered a report to this effect to the Security Council. On July 1 the Ukrainian Representative, then chairman of the Committee, called another meeting of the Committee, at which the Soviet Representative stated that available information indicated that Ceylon was not independent and asked for additional data to prove its ability to carry out the Charter obligations. The Committee refused to alter its previous report. In the Council on August 18 the application of Ceylon received nine favorable votes. Since the U.S.S.R. voted adversely, the application was not approved. The General Assembly referred the items on its agenda relating to membership to the Ad Hoc Political Committee. These items were (a) the report of the Security Council on the reconsideration of rejected applications; (b) the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice; (c) an Argentine proposal to admit Italy and all applicants whose applications had received seven or more favorable votes in the Council; and (d) the report of the Security Council on Ceylon.

The Committee debated the membership problem as a whole, and a number of new proposals and amendments were submitted.

The Australian Delegation proposed a resolution recommending that Members comply with the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, together with six separate resolutions affirming that the Assembly considered Ireland, Portugal, Transjordan, Italy, Finland, and Ceylon qualified for membership and requesting the Security Council to reconsider their applications. The resolutions on the old applications-the first five mentioned-were drawn up in terms similar to those submitted by Australia and adopted by the Assembly in the preceding year. Each resolution noted that nine members of the Security Council had supported the applicant but that no recommendation by the Council was possible because of the opposition of one permanent member, recalled the relevant resolution of 1947, and noted that no member of the Council had changed its decision with regard to the application. Accordingly, each resolution reaffirmed the view

of the Assembly that the opposition to the application concerned had been based on grounds not included in article 4 of the Charter, determined once more that the applicant was, in the judgment of the Assembly, qualified for admission under that article and should, therefore, be admitted, and requested the Security Council to reconsider the application in the light of this determination of the Assembly and of the advisory opinion of the Court. The United States submitted a generally similar resolution in support of Austria. Belgium proposed a resolution requesting that the Security Council reconsider the applications of Italy and Finland in the light of the advisory opinion of the Court.

A more drastic proposal by the Argentine Delegation, along the lines of its 1947 proposal, provided that each application for admission should be referred to the Assembly when the Council had reached a decision concerning it; that the Council decision should be deemed to be a recommendation to admit the state if the application had received seven or more affirmative votes, even if one or more permanent members were opposed; and that the Assembly could by a twothirds majority accept or reject a favorable or an adverse recommendation by the Council.

Finally, the Swedish Delegation submitted a resolution which, like its proposal in 1947, sought to give application to what it termed the "principle of universality". This resolution represented an attempt to circumvent the issues raised in the Security Council and the General Assembly concerning the application of the criteria of article 4 and the use of the veto and laid emphasis upon the principle of universality. Unlike the Swedish proposal of 1947, however, it provided that each application should be dealt with on its own merits.

After general discussion of the various proposals, the Committee decided to vote first on that of Argentina. The Yugoslav Delegation offered a motion declaring that the General Assembly was not competent to adopt the proposal. The motion was defeated 28 to 10, with 11 abstentions, but the Argentine Representative withdrew his proposal before the vote on its merits. The Swedish resolution was amended so as to place less emphasis on the concept of universality and was adopted 33 to 3, with 8 abstentions. The United States voted negatively, since it appeared at the time that the proposal might be used to justify the elimination of the separate Belgian and AustralianUnited States resolutions on Ireland, Portugal, Transjordan, Italy, Austria, Finland, and Ceylon-states which, in the Assembly's opinion, were clearly qualified for membership. A Soviet proposal to drop these resolutions because the Swedish resolution had been passed was, however, defeated 7 to 35, with 2 abstentions. The Committee then

adopted, by large majorities, the other resolutions except that relating to Ceylon.

Voting on this resolution was postponed in order to enable representatives of Ceylon in Paris to supply the Soviet representatives with information on Ceylon's independence which the Soviet group had asserted was necessary. Since the Soviet representatives were apparently not influenced by the communications from the representative of Ceylon, the Committee proceeded with its consideration of the resolution. In the interest of securing complete agreement on a text, a subcommittee consisting of the chairman of the Committee, Carlos P. Romulo (Philippines), Col. W. R. Hodgson (Australia), and Julius Katz-Suchy (Poland) was appointed and agreed unanimously on a draft. However, when the U. S. S. R. opposed the modified resolution reported by this subcommittee, Poland withdrew its support. The Committee then adopted the original Australian resolution on Ceylon.

In the plenary session, Australia, Burma, India, Pakistan, and the Philippines reintroduced amendments to the resolution on Ceylon along the lines of the subcommittee draft in order to make the resolution more palatable to the Soviet group. Although this concession did not remove Soviet opposition, it was approved by the Assembly. The Assembly adopted all of the other resolutions except that proposed by Belgium.

Following the Assembly's action, the application of Ceylon was once more placed before the Security Council. On December 15, 1948, the Council decided, over Soviet objections, to reconsider the application. The U. S. S. R. and the Ukraine opposed a favorable recommendation on the stated ground that, under the Swedish resolution, all applications should be considered together. The Soviet veto prevented a favorable recommendation.

The Provisional Government of Israel submitted its application for membership on November 29, 1948. The Security Council on December 2 referred the application to its Committee on the Admission of New Members, which decided on the following day to adjourn the discussion without prejudice until the Assembly's First Committee had completed its report on the Palestine problem. The Committee on Admission on December 7 referred the application back to the Security Council with the statement that it was not in possession of sufficient data to take a decision. On December 17 the Council voted on the application. The Ukraine, the U. S. S. R., the United States, Argentina, and Colombia voted in favor, Syria voted against, and the other five members abstained.