As long as the United Nations remains so weak that it cannot preserve world peace, we will continue to spend billions and billions and billions of our tax dollars to try to obtain some kind of security through armaments. But there is no real security in the arms race, Whatever we build, other countries build; whatever they build, we build; and sooner or later someone will light the match that will send the world up to the fires of nuclear devastation. This will happen either by madman design, by accident, or by eyeball to eyeball confrontation when neither side backs down.

Bertrand Russell once wrote an epitaph for mankind. It went like this: "Ever since Adam and Eve ate the apple, man has never refrained from any folly of which he was capable. The end." The question of whether the human race will commit the ultimate folly of nuclear self-destruction is an issue, I believe, which our generation will decide.

In a law day message in 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower said almost the same thing: "The world no longer has a choice between force and law; if civilization is to survive, it must choose the rule of law." The function of law throughout history has been to try to bring human conduct up closer to the ideal of the natural law. In the days of the old west, when people had an argument, they drew pistols and shot it out. But at a certain point in history, people recognized that it made sense to turn their guns over to the sheriff and live under the rule of law.

Today we have at least the structure of law and order within our towns and our states and our nation. But on an international level, we really have anarchy; for any nation can do whatever it pleases so long as it has the force to do so. There is no enforceable world law to apprehend the international criminals who would make war.

The threat of nuclear self-destruction and the costly armaments race are but two reasons for imaginative U.S. initiatives to strengthen the authority of the United Nations. Other global problems cry out for global solutions.

The United Nations conferences in Stockholm, Bucharest, Caracas, and Rome evidence a growing concern for the world's environment and the support systems capable of sustaining mankind's environmental needs. Pollution of the oceans and of the airways of the world knows no national boundaries. Pollution originating in one country comes down on another. International guidelines are but a step toward the eventual enforcement of anti-pollution standards by a United Nations Agency. The fundamental right of every human being to a decent environment will be recognized sooner or later and will be protected. The world-wide strike by airline pilots demanding action by the United Nations against skyjacking is still another indication that people recognize the necessity for some kind of world law. Only a Reformed United Nations can give the world the legal authority to act against the international air pirates who endanger so many lives.

The continuing world monetary crisis with the fluctuations in the exchange rates is another example of a global program which demands global management. The growing economic interdependence of the world is obvious to all. So are the problems raised by increasing polorization of wealth and poverty.

The Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs testified several years ago before the Fraser Subcommittee on International Organizations of the House of Representatives. He testified that “a full-scale Charter Review conference at this time would not prove useful." He also testified: "In our judgment, an attempt to make a general review of the Charter, in the face of diversified membership and divergent outlooks of the present organization and without any indication of substantial agreement on specific proposals, or even on the general direction review should take, is not likely to prove constructive."

If the founding fathers of our country were to have embraced the same view, we would never have established the United States of America. One holds a conference in order to explore areas of agreement and to reach compromises that result in a consensus. One does not wait for agreement first before calling a conference.

During the present UN Reform discussions, the United States could initiate any number of positive proposals. Since the World Association of World Federalists Proposals for United Nations Reform (Revised Text, July 1, 1974) are already included in the record of these hearings, I only refer to them as a set of specific suggestions which include both procedural and substantive changes both

"useful" and "productive". These proposals cover such areas as: Membership, Peaceful Settlement of Disputes, The International Court of Justice, Human Rights, Strengthening of ECOSOC, Peacekeeping, Security Council Membership and Voting, United Nations Finance, A World Environment Agency, and An International Disarmament Agency. To clarify my assertion that the United States has not been fulfilling the positive leadership role that it should, I submit the World Association of World Federalists World Voting Survey to show that from a "World Interest" point of view, the U.S. has a dismal record in the United Nations. The way to change this is for the U.S. to begin filling the leadership gap now so apparent in the UN. In spite of the poison created by Viet Nam and the CIA, I think countries around the world would welcome a positive and strong role by the U.S. Offering and supporting the types of reforms which the World Association of World Federalists Proposals outline should be the beginning of a new U.S. leadership role.

If two thirds of the General Assembly and the Security Council agree to these proposals, we may well be embarking upon a period of world history similar to the year 1787 in American history when a call went out from Philadelphia to thirteen separate quarrelling states to send delegates to a conference to amend the Articles of Confederation. And they came to Philadelphia and hammered out a document which became the constitution of the United States of America.

If we are to achieve the rule of law in world affairs, we must build the institutions necessary to make, interpret and enforce law with justice on a world level. This means the substantial strengthening and reform of the structure of the United Nations.

Our own great American Federalist, Alexander Hamilton, once said: "He who wills not the means, wills not the end." If we do not give the United Nations the means to preserve world peace and to solve global problems, we will never attain the goals of world peace and a healthy environment.

In a speech at American University in June of 1963, President John F. Kennedy said: "We seek to strengthen the United Nations, to help solve its financial problems, to make a more effective instrument for peace, to develop it into a genuine world security system capable of resolving disputes on the basis of law, of insuring the security of the large and the small, and of creating conditions under which arms can finally be abolished. This will require a new effort to achieve world law."

According to a number of polls, the American people continue to want to see the United Nations strengthened. In order to strengthen the United Nations, however, we have to convince ourselves and the rest of the world that there are global problems which demand global solutions, that there is no real security in the arms race, and that the only real security lies in some form of a substantially strengthened United Nations. If we are to prevent the United Nations from going the way of the old League of Nations, the effort must be made now to strengthen the U.N. There is no rational alternative solution on the horizon.

Everett Dirksen, the late Senator from Illinois, once said with regard to the Civil Rights Bill of 1964: "Every great idea has its time in history." I firmly believe that the time for the great idea of world federation is coming.

In 1965, Carlos Romulo, one of the leaders in the struggle for U.N. reform, said: "Charter revision is not a utopia for the future. We cannot wait for the next generation to achieve it-there may never be a next generation. The need is essential. The time is now. Do not tell me it is a great idea, but it cannot be done. I have heard all of the reasons and I am not impressed. It must be done. This is the only way I know for enforceable world law to replace international anarchy. Without such law, there can be not peace. It must be done; it shall be done. We will do it."

Walter Hoffmann, a practicing lawyer in Wayne, New Jersey, is a member of the UN Charter Review Subcommittee of the World Peace Through Law Center vice-president of the World Federalists-USA and Council Chairman of the New Jersey World Federalists. He attended the World Peace Through Law Conference in Geneva, Belgrade and Abidjian and the World Federalist Congresses in Ottawa, Brussels and New Delhi. He has testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Democratic National Platform Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee (on the International Court of Justice).

THE 29TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE UNITED NATIONS

(Report by Donald F. Keys and George Mannello, World Federalist Education

Summary

Fund)

UNITED NATIONS VOTING BOX SCORE-20 VITAL ISSUES

Top Score: 98%. New Zealand (Also top last year).

Bottom of the List: 38%-Bahamas (absences hurt).

High Scores:

95%-Australia, Japan, Mexico.

90%-Colombia, Costa Rica, Equador, Finland, Peru.

88%-Iran, Nigeria, Philippines, Spain.

85%-Ireland, Ivory Coast, Niger, Singapore, Sweden, Trinidad, and

Tobago.

Low Scores:

40%-Gabon.

43%-Bulgaria, Byelorussia, Czechoslovakia, Equatorial Guinea, East Germany, Hungary, Mongolia, Poland, Ukraine, USSR.

45%-U.S. (up from the cellar last year-15% 1973).
49%-Cuba, Saudi Arabia, France.

No Shows: Maldives.

Notes:

China: 58% this year, 57% last year, continuing a decline.

USSR and colleagues voted uniformly as usual (at 43% compared with 55% last year).

Portugal: under new regime. 73%, up from 25% last year.

Greece: also under new regime. 83% up from 45% last year.

Romania again broke with the herd for a far better score: 68%.

West Germany only turned up 65%, but far better than East Germany at 43%.

Procedure in Scoring: Resolutions are evaluated on their contributions to world problems. The voting record on these resolutions is then tabulated.

Prepared by: Donald F. Keys, U.N. Representative, World Association of World Federalists, 777 UN Plaza, New York 10017.

More information: Telephone: 490-2766.

U.S. VOTING RECORD

Percentage score: 45 percent-[Percentage score 1973: 20 percent; 1972: 15 percent]

14. U.N. charter improvement.

15. Individual human rights petition to U.N. (motion to strike from resolution).

16. Rhodesia

Urges speedy withdrawal of all foreign armed forces and the cessation of all foreign interference in its affairs. Calls for the return of all refugees to their homes in safety, provides for negotiations, and for strengthening of UN peacekeeping force. Unusually strong resolution and vote on an issue many had been avoiding.

2. Cambodia: Yes-no score; No-no score; Abstain-right.

Vote is on priority for the Western resolution on who represents Cambodia at the UN the incumbent Lon Nol government or Prince Sihanouk. On the one hand the UN cannot afford to get into the business of deciding between incumbent and exile governments. On the other hand, anger and frustration at the US for involving Cambodia in war, and at the long effort of the US to upset Sihanouk were surely justified. Therefore, no score either way.

Vote: 58 in favor, 56 against, 20 abstentions.

3. Palestine: Invitation to the Palestine Liberation Front to address UN Assembly. Yes-right; No-wrong; Abstain-no score.

Customarily groups of individuals who are necessary to the discussion of an issue are invited to appear. Representatives of Palestine have appeared in the past. Their presence cannot be considered a judgment on the substance. Therefore, the invitation in itself was appropriate.

Vote: 105 in favor, 4 against (Bolivia, Dominican Republic, US, Israel) 20 abstentions.

4. Palestine: Resolution on the future of the Palestinians. Yes-no score; Nono score; Abstain-right. While the rights of the Palestinians is a proper matter and a badly neglected one, the resolution was out of the context of previous resolutions on the Middle East, contained some dangerously ambiguous elements. Vote: 89 in favor, 8 against, 37 abstentions.

5. Palestine: Observer status for the PLO. Yes-no score; No-right; Abstainright.

Elevating the PLO to the status of an observer nation such as Switzerland was inappropriate.

Vote: 95 in favor, 17 against, 19 abstentions.

6. Suspension of South Africa: Yes-no score; No-right; Abstain-right. Vote was in support of a ruling of the Assembly President, calling for the suspension of South Africa from the proceedings of the Assembly. While frustration has run high for years because of the unwillingness of the big powers to in any way exert themselves on behalf of the end of Apartheid, the ruling was essentially illegal under the Charter. The impact on South Africa was probably useful; the impact on the UN was damaging.

Vote: 91 in favor. 22 against, and 19 abstentions.

7. Napalm and Weapons Causing Unnecessary Suffering: Yes-right; Nowrong; Abstain-wrong.

Urges further progress by the Geneva Diplomatic Conference on International Law in Armed Conflicts updating the laws of war, toward banning napalm and other cruel and indiscriminate weapons.