The United Nations General Assembly
Martin Wight
Abstract
Abstract In September 1947 the US proposed revisions in the veto power of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. The Soviet Union rejected these suggested revisions. Washington also proposed that the General Assembly establish an Interim Committee on Peace and Security. (The General Assembly founded such a committee on a temporary basis in November 1947 and then on an indefinite basis in 1949, but it has not met since March 1951.) There is a single crevice in the mausoleum of the Charter through which the UN might grow towards light and sanity. That is Article 51 of the Charter, which allows collective security in anticipation of action by the UNSC. But the veto is not the only question. It is arguable that the UN would be more dangerous if it worked than it is impotent. It is a quinquevirate which, given unanimity, possesses despotic and irresponsible powers. If the five can agree about the exercise of the “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security,” there are no legal limits to their power, and the rest of the United Nations are compelled to carry out their directions. The UN has in no case consented to a definition of its own jurisdiction; it has tended to encroach upon domestic jurisdiction and to override treaties. The September 1947 U.S. proposals try to rectify the veto, but they do not touch the decision of Dumbarton Oaks, where the Western Powers agreed to an organisation built on a quasi-totalitarian principle.