Votes and Vetoes

Bibliographic Data

ID4453091
AuthorsJames B Reston, James Reston (0000-0003-4997-3754, corresponding author)
Year1946
Volume25
Issue1
Pages13
Publication date1946-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueForeign Affairs (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0015-7120 • E-ISSN: 2327-7793
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/20030016
OpenAlexW2584683193
LanguageEN
Citations received7

THE first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York is a good time to review some of the theories on which the United Nations was founded at San Fran cisco, to test those theories against the developments in the United Nations since the first General Assembly meeting in London, and to analyze the record and speculate on the future. United Nations was founded on the basic theory that there must not be a world war every generation; that the death of some 40 million human beings through war during the past thirty years was enough; and that it was imperative, if the nations were to justify the notion that they were civilized, to combine together to prevent, and if necessary to repel, future aggression. Nobody denies the validity of this basic premise. It is still good. Mr. Byrnes, Mr. Molotov and Mr. Bevin may argue about every thing else but they agree on this. There is very little evidence that the nations have learned as much as they have suffered or that they are willing to do without the things that lead to war; but peace, they unanimously proclaim, is a good thing. So the first theory stands. second theory on which the United Nations was founded was that peace depended on the unanimity not of all the states, as the Wilsonian doctrine held, but on the unanimity of those states which had the power to wage modern war. There was a corollary to this theory which is not clearly under stood, at least in the United States. This was that there was never any intention that the United Nations should have power to coerce one of the great states. These states promised each other and the world to abandon war as an instrument of policy, and on the basis of this promise, which they insisted was sufficient, agreed that the United Nations did not need to have, and should not have, sufficient force to coerce one of The Five. Many delegates and observers at San Francisco thought the security organization should have such power, and apparently many more persons think so today, but in this argument, as in many others, it was conceded by the vast majority at San Fran cisco that the approval of the great states was essential; and these states insisted ? with the eventual approval of the rest

Development economics · Economics · Law and economics · Political economy · Political science · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · International Relations and Foreign Policy

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