Secretariat

1950 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-474

Activities of the Secretary-General: On March 21, 1950, the Secretary-General (Lie), in an address delivered at the triennial dinner of B'nai B'rith in Washington, D.C., called for a twenty-year program of peace within the framework of the United Nations. After referring to the difficulties arising from the non-participation of the Soviet Union in United Nations organs because of the presence of the representative of the Nationalist government of China, Mr. Lie suggested that negotiation between the major powers was possible if the Security Council would hold the “periodic meetings” referred to in Article 28(2) of the Charter, in which the various Members would be represented by either the heads of states or the foreign ministers.

1953 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-130

In a letter dated November 10, 1952, the Secretary-General (Lie) requested that the President of the General Assembly (Pearson) include on the agenda the item “Appointment of the Secretary-General of the United Nations”. Mr. Lie stated that it had been his intention to submit his resignation as Secretary-General and he had delayed until the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the Security Council were present in New York. The General Committee on November 12 recommended the inclusion of this additional item upon the agenda. The subject was not discussed prior to the adjournment of the first part of the seventh session.


1969 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amos Shapira

More than a year has passed since the Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 242 on November 22, 1967, concerning the “grave situation in the Middle East”. On the basis of this resolution, the Secretary-General of the United Nations designated Ambassador Gunnar Jarring as a Special Representative “to proceed to the Middle East to establish and maintain contacts with the States concerned in order to promote agreement and assist efforts to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement…” It is not proposed here to analyze all the political and diplomatic aspects of the Resolution or its practical prospects to bring about peace in the Middle East. Nor is it proposed to advance any particular interpretation of its substantive contents or to assess its merits and shortcomings. The sole purpose of this article is to examine the legal nature and implications of the Resolution within the framework of the United Nations Charter.Intellectual curiosity and academic research are not the only motivations for this legal inquiry. Sceptics of the political relevance of such “theoretical” inquiry need only obtain the November 24, 1968 issue of Pravda, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.


1945 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 970-981 ◽  
Author(s):  
William T. R. Fox

The Security Council of the United Nations will, from the first day of its existence, include in its membership all of the great powers. The Council, backed by the united will of the five powers with permanent seats in that body, will act, if it acts at all, with an authority which no organ of the League of Nations ever possessed. In the League Council, there was no time during which all of the great powers participated. Only two of them, France and the United Kingdom, were League members throughout its period of activity. Some may believe that too high a price, or a higher price than was necessary, was paid to insure the participation of the Five Powers, and especially the United States and the Soviet Union, in the United Nations Organization. The price was paid largely in provisions of its Charter relative to the maintenance or restoration of international peace and security which circumscribe carefully the situations in which the Security Council can take action.


1966 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 430-431

Amendments to Articles 23, 27, and 61 of the Charter of the United Nations, adopted by the General Assembly on December 17, 1963, came into force on August 31, 1965. The amendment to Article 23 enlarges the membership of the Security Council from eleven to fifteen. The amended Article 27 provides that decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters be made by an affirmative vote of nine members (formerly seven) and on all other matters by an affirmative vote of nine members (formerly seven), including the concurring votes of the five permanent members of the Security Council (China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States). The amendment to Article 61 enlarges the membership of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) from eighteen to 27.


1967 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 737-752 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constantin A. Stavropoulos

A question which was much discussed in legal literature in the early years of the United Nations, and which has been cited as a classic example of the effect of subsequent practice upon a provision in a multilateral treaty, has recently been raised again. This concerns the interpretation of Article 27, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United Nations, which deals with voting in the Security Council on non-procedural matters. Both Portugal and South Africa last year reserved the position of their governments regarding the validity of Security Council Eesolution 221 of April 9, 1966, in the vote on which both France and the Soviet Union abstained. This is the resolution by which the Council, acting under Chapter VII of the Charter, called for certain measures to enforce an embargo on oil and petroleum products from reaching Southern Ehodesia through the port of Beira in Mozambique, and authorized the United Kingdom to prevent by the use of force, if necessary, the arrival at Beira of vessels reasonably believed to be carrying oil destined for Rhodesia.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Oleksandr L. Kovalkov

In December, 1979 sub-units of the Soviet Army invaded the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, eliminated Hafizullah Amin from power, established the government of Babrak Karmal and occupied the country. These events caused the condemnation of the international community, that were reflected by the statement on the Afghan question in the agenda of the Security Council and the UN General Assembly in January, 1980. The minute-books of SC of the UNO, as well as the UN General Assembly resolutions are the main sources of research of this problem. The discussion of the Afghan question in the UN Security Council lasted from 5 to 7 January, 1980, involving 42 countries. The USSR Representative to the United Nations O. Troyanovskyi and Foreign Minister of DRA Sh. M. Dost tried to persuade all those present that Soviet troops had been brought to Afghanistan at the invitation of a legitimate Afghan government to repulse allegedly externally-aggressive aggression. Herewith they referred to Article 51 of the UN Charter and Article 4 of the Treaty of Friendship, Neighborhood and Cooperation between the USSR and the DPA. Most of the delegations (primarily the US delegation, Pakistan, the Chinese People’s Republic, Great Britain) rejected the arguments of the Soviet and Afghan sides and condemned Soviet aggression and called for the withdrawal of troops from the territory of Afghanistan immediately. The Soviet Union and the DRA were supported only by a few delegations of Soviet satellites (Poland, the GDR, Hungary, the Mongolian People’s Republic, Laos and Vietnam). But during the vote on the anti-Soviet resolution on January 7, 1980, the USSR expected vetoed it. After that, the consideration of the «Afghan question» was postponed to the General Assembly, where 108 countries condemned the Soviet aggression on January, 14 (18 countries abstained, the same number supported the USSR). The discussion of the «Afghan question» at the United Nations Organization in January, 1980 assured that the Soviet Union had suffered a loud defeat in the international arena, its authority was severely undermined. This was also confirmed by the end of the policy of "discharging" and the subsequent eruption of the Cold War in international relations. In addition, the consideration of the Afghan question at the UNO has shown the lack of a mechanism for influencing an aggressor country that has a veto power in the UN Security Council. The USSR was expected to veto the Security Council resolution, and the decisions of the General Assembly were recommendatory. This is particularly relevant in terms of the current UN crisis in deterring the aggressive actions of the Russian Federation, the DPRK, Syria and others like that.


Author(s):  
Ellen Jenny Ravndal

This chapter explores all aspects of Trygve Lie’s interaction with the Security Council, beginning with his appointment process and the negotiation of the relative domains of the Council and the Secretary-General. This was a time when the working methods of the UN system were rapidly evolving through political negotiation and responses to external crises. It examines Lie’s personality and character, how he viewed his own responsibilities in the maintenance of international peace and security as crises arose, the legal and political tools he developed and exercised, and his changing relationship with individual permanent members and the six elected members. In the emerging Cold War, Lie’s position in the Security Council would be determined in particular by his relationships with the United States and the Soviet Union. Taking initiative in response to external crises in Iran, Palestine, Berlin, and Korea, Lie succeeded in laying foundations for an expanded political role for the Secretary-General.


The United Nations Secretary-General and the United Nations Security Council spend significant amounts of time on their relationship with each other. They rely on each other for such important activities as peacekeeping, international mediation, and the formulation and application of normative standards in defense of international peace and security—in other words, the executive aspects of the UN’s work. The edited book The UN Secretary-General and the Security Council: A Dynamic Relationship aims to fill an important lacuna in the scholarship on the UN system. Although there exists an impressive body of literature on the development and significance of the Secretariat and the Security Council as separate organs, an important gap remains in our understanding of the interactions between them. Bringing together some of the most prominent authorities on the subject, this volume is the first book-length treatment of this topic. It studies the UN from an innovative angle, creating new insights on the (autonomous) policy-making of international organizations and adding to our understanding of the dynamics of intra-organizational relationships. Within the book, the contributors examine how each Secretary-General interacted with the Security Council, touching upon such issues as the role of personality, the formal and informal infrastructure of the relationship, the selection and appointment processes, as well as the Secretary-General’s threefold role as a crisis manager, administrative manager, and manager of ideas.


2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 399-413
Author(s):  
Rizal Abdul Kadir

After twenty-two years of negotiations, in Aktau on August 12, 2018, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia, and Turkmenistan signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea. The preamble of the Convention stipulates, among other things, that the Convention, made up of twenty-four articles, was agreed on by the five states based on principles and norms of the Charter of the United Nations and International Law. The enclosed Caspian Sea is bordered by Iran, Russia, and three states that were established following dissolution of the Soviet Union, namely Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan.


1960 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 563-575

The fourth emergency special session of the General Assembly, summoned by the Secretary-General in accordance with a resolution adopted by the Security Council at its 906th meeting on September 16, 1960, was held from September 17 through 19, 1960. During consideration of the provisional agenda, Mr. Wadsworth (United States) suggested that the admission of new members, scheduled for the regular fifteenth session of the General Assembly, be added to the agenda of the emergency session as item No. 1. After objections to this addition were voiced by the Soviet Union, several African states, and others, on the ground that the necessary documents were not yet in the hands of the Assembly, a proposal by the representative of Guinea for postponement of the matter was adopted by 43 votes to none, with 26 abstentions.


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