The essential point is the willingness of the parties to reach a settlement, and the proper contribution of the UN is to promote that willingness in every way possible. The good offices of the Secretary-General and his representatives have been of great value in this way more often than is generally known.

We point out once again the deplorable neglect of the International Court of Justice. Judicial settlement is one major means, specified in the UN Charter, for peaceful resolution of disputes among nations. But the intended role of the World Court as judge among nations has been frustrated from the start by the refusal of member states to accept its jurisdiction where their interests were involved. Unfortunately, one of the worst examples in this respect was set long ago by the United States when the Senate enacted the Connally Reservation. We appeal once again to the US Senate to show world leadership by repealing that unfortunate clause, so enfeebling to the world order of which our country has been a leading advocate.

A particularly grievous challenge to the peacemakers is the new upsurge of international terrorism against innocent third parties. It is an evil which responsible authorities in conflict situations are often either unable or unwlling to control. We are deeply disappointed at the unreadiness of many member states to deal firmly with such outrages against human beings. We urge our government to persist in pressing this essentially humanitarian issue in season and out, until a solution is achieved.

5. SOUTHERN AFRICA

The transformation of Portugal's African empire in 1974 dramatically heightened international pressure on the remaining areas of the "white redoubt" in Southern Africa. In the United Nations, a long-expected move to expel South Africa from the United Nations was stopped only by a triple Western veto in the Security Council. Thereupon the General Assembly voted over Western objection to exclude the South African delegation from the rest of the 29th session-an unprecedented step which raises questions of the utmost gravity for the future of the organization.

These steps put a new and sudden strain on the already fragile relations between the United States and the Third World majority in the UN. Discord over Southern Africa is now a main factor in the crisis of conference that threatens the organization, even while some signs begin to emerge of a more moderate South African position on both Rhodesia and Namibia.

The damage was not done overnight. The US delegation, explaining its votes on these issues, stressed the principles of universality, due process and fair play-and once more reiterated its much-reiterated detestation of apartheid. But such verbal expressions had long since been drained of their credibility in Third World eyes by Washington's failure to exert effective economic or diplomatic persuasion on South Africa or the leaders in Rhodesia to mend their policies. For over three years the best-advertised American policy toward Southern Africa has been the lamentable Byrd Amendment, by which Congress opened US commercial market to imports of Rhodesian chrome the alleged strategic need for which proved non-existent. Thus we placed ourselves and still remain, in contempt of our Charter obligation to comply with Security Council orders against trade with that outlaw country.

No single aspect of United States foreign policy has been more needlessly damaging to our country's posture in the United Nations than the long-standing habit of condemning apartheid in our statements while condoning it in our actions. If we seriously wish to build a partnership with the Third World majority in the UN, we must lose no time in bringing our policies on this issue into line with our pronouncements. To that end:

1. Congress and the Administration should give top legislative priority to repeal of the Byrd Amendment permitting chrome imports from Rhodesia-thereby restoring full US compliance with the Security Council's mandatory economic sanctions against the Smith regime in Rhodesia.

2. We should lend vigorous diplomatic support to the Security Council's unanimous resolution of December 17 calling on South Africa to prepare promptly to withdraw from Namibia, to recognize that country's unity and territorial integrity, and to cooperate with the UN in transferring political power to the Namibian people.

3. As a corollary to these steps, we should consult actively with leading statesmen of Africa on steps to assure that majority rule in Southern Africa will be achieved as much as humanly possible in conditions of interracial harmony and peaceful progress.

In advocating these steps we do not ignore the tragic prevalence of racial, tribal or ethnic discrimination as well as interferences with the expression of popular will, practiced by governments of many nations in every quarter of the globe, with little or no protest from the UN. We believe the US should be impartial in condemning and opposing actively these evils wherever they exist.

6. ARMS CONTROL, ZONES OF PEACE, AND DISBARMENT

In the past year the world has drifted into a period of accelerating danger from the increase of nuclear weapons. "Vertical" proliferation, especially the United States and the Soviet Union, continues at a very high level due to the meager results of the SALT negotiations to date. "Horizontal" proliferation may become more tempting to a score or more countries with the necessary technical and financial base-and even to terrorist groups. India's nuclear explosion in May 1974 was an alarming signal that this long-foreseen danger has now materialized. Man's remaining chance to limit the universal spread of nuclear weaponry may soon be irrevocably lost.

Key negotiations this year bearing on this immense problem include the review conference on the future of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, meeting during May in Geneva, and the next round of SALT negotiations for lower limits on strategic delivery systems. We urge our government to pursue both these avenues with determination-and to bear in mind that non-nuclear nations cannot be expected to forgo nuclear weapons permanently unless the superpowers reduce their own nuclear arsenals. For the same reasons we urge strong international controls against clandestine diversion of nuclear material for weapons purposes. We urge the highest priority for the conclusion of the long-sought comprehensive ban on all nuclear tests. No step could do more to dampen the threat of further proliferation, both vertical and horizonal. Twelve years ago, in the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963, the United States joined in pledging to pursue "the discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time." Ever since, a principal obstacle to a ban on underground tests has been US insistence on a system of on-site inspection which advances in seismic detection have now rendered unnecessary. The bilaterial ban on weapons tests above 150 kilotons— even if this threshold were substantially lowered-cannot be a full substitute for a comprehensive multilateral test ban.

US inflexibility on this technical issue has caused many to question the reality of this country's commitment to a complete test ban. A new affirmative US policy on this subject is now more than ever essential if the nuclear arms race is to be brought under control while there is still time.

Exceeding even the nuclear weapons issue in sheer magnitude is the stillescalating expenditure of the world's governments on "conventional"-i.e., nonnuclear-armaments. An aspect of this problem that may lend itself to international management is the unconscionable export of weapons, chiefly by the major powers, to less-developed countries. In recent years international arms sales to such countries have grown alarmingly in both quantity and quality, with the US sometimes even arming both sides in the same conflict.

Many customers in this arms trade can ill afford such a diversion of national treasure from economic development. Even where financing is easy-as it is now for the oil-exporting counties-there is a danger of new tensions if competitive arms imports were to destabilize political relations in sensitive regions like the Persian Gulf. We believe this issue is overdue for international debate in the UN. We urge our government to consider in all seriousness whether its policy of arms exports contributes to international security or the reverse.

We support further exploration of a fully audited and verified reduction of military budgets, pursuant to the recommendations of the General Assembly. We also urge that the US take the lead in obtaining a negotiated international reduction of armaments, so that the resources thus saved can be dedicated to the elimination of the world food crisis and the solution of other grave economic and social problems, including those of the US.

We further suggest the major powers should take far more seriously the spreading interest of smaller powers in region "zones of peace." The oldest of these, the Latin American Nuclear-Free Zone, is well advanced (although the Soviet Union still refuses its cooperation and that of the US and France is incomplete). We see much to be gained by a similar evolution in the Indian Ocean Zone of Peace recently proclaimed by the General Assembly. All the nuclear powers except China have unwisely in our view-hung back from

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this imaginative project. We see no possible net strategic benefit, but only new burdens and dangers, in the superpower naval arms race that now looms in the Indian Ocean. We urge our government to take a more positive attitude toward the Indian Ocean Zone of Peace in concert with the other nuclear powers, and as part of this process to reconsider development of a major US base on the island of Diego Garcia.

We urge our government to participate in the preparatory discussions for a World Disarmament Conference which may prove valuable at the proper time as a way to include China in disarmament negotiations. We believe the US should be present this year at the meetings of the Ad Hoc Committee on a World Disarmament Conference.

Finally, we urge the US government to keep in mind that it has joined with other governments in the United Nations in designating the 1970s as the Decade of Disarmament.

7. ECONOMIC PROBLEMS

Never have international economic problems been more central to United Nations debate, or a greater source of tension among the members. This tension is not in itself a sign of weakness or wrong headedness; it is rather a sign that the world community, with the inadequate institutions available to it, is wrestling with social and economic changes of extraordinary scope and complexity. Among those changes are:

Uncontrolled inflation, with consequent trade and currency dislocations, resulting from a generation of rapid (and often prodigally wasteful) economic growth in industrial and industrializing areas.

Unprecedented world population growth, most rapid in poor countries, reaching doubling periods as short as 21 years in some cases.

Rising pressure on a finite world resource base of fuels, minerals, arable land and fisheries-increasing human vulnerability to famine and economic or environmental disasters.

Finally, a growing capability of resource-rich developing countries to control the production, volume and export prices of their resources, especially oil—and to use the resulting international leverage for their own advantage.

From these changes have flowed sudden-and, without a doubt, lasting— changes in the world economic and political landscape. The spectacular flow of money to the oil-exporting countries since 1973 has multiplied overnight their influence on world events. It has correspondingly multiplied their responsibility. They will increasingly feel pressure not only to accommodate their interests with those of the major oil-consuming countries, but also to respond to appeals from resource-poor developing countries for relief from skyrocketing oil prices, hunger and economic stagnation. We of the United States and other industrial powers, ourselves now hard-pressed to fulfill past commitments to international development, should urge these newly affluent states to accept their full responsibility in the emerging global partnership. They should be encouraged to accept their due share of both the privileges and the burdens of international economic leadership, including support for the development and humanitarian programs of the United Nations system. These programs should become an important channel for recycling petrodollars to developing countries most in need.

For our part, we of the United States, despite our current domestic troubles, must continue to carry major global economic responsibilities. This means, among other things, continuing support for the tested institutions of the UN system that serve the needs of developing countries: the World Bank and Fund, the regional development banks, the UN Development Program, and the family of UN Specialized Agencies which collaborate in development projects. It also means supporting new institutional arrangements, such as the special $6 billion lending facility set up by the International Monetary Fund to channel assistance from both the developed and the newly-rich states to the developing countries hardest hit by the economic crisis.

US development assistance in 1974 was at its lowest level since World War II-approximately one quarter of one percent of our gross national product, including bilateral programs most of which support specific US political or strategic objectives. We urge that these trends be reversed, and that a greater share of US development aid be channeled through the multilateral agencies of the UN system. We deplore the action of Congress in rejecting the President's request for a $29 million increase in appropriations to international organizations in 1975. We also deplore the severe cuts made by Congress in appropriations

for specific UN programs, including the UN Development Program. Where UN delivery systems are felt to be insufficiently effective, US policy should be to increase their effectiveness-not to point to their defects as an excuse for diminished support.

In addition, this country has an important stake in resolving a wide range of new and old economic issues affecting the developing nations. Some slow but solid progress has been achieved, especially toward monetary and trade accords with developing countries. But much more remains to be decided: on emergency food aid and aid to developing countries hit by the oil crisis; and, in the longer-term development context, on capital flows, prices of commodities and manufacturers in world trade, nonreciprocal tariff preferences for developing countries without crippling exceptions, technology transfer, and the role of private capital.

The United Nations has yet to produce a viable consensus among nations on this huge problem area. Neither in the International Development Strategy of 1970 nor in the New Economic Order resolutions of May 1, 1974-despite the formal consensus on both-did the General Assembly really bridge the gulf of divergent interests and priorities between the industrial nations and the aspiring Third World.

A new attempt to narrow that gulf will be made at the Assembly's brief special session on economic questions scheduled to convene next September 1. The United States cannot afford to hang back again from serious negotiation, as we did before and during the special session last spring. The longer we do so, the more likely it is that anti-Western influences will predominate in the resource, trade, and investment policies of Third World countries. We urge our Government to carry its proper share of leadership in preparing for the coming special session—a major opportunity to begin serious negotiation for a new economic system acceptable to all concerned, and adequate for the world we live in. As part of this process, we endorse current UN efforts to deal constructively with relations between multinational enterprises and developing countries, and urge that a code of conduct be written applicable to both.

The new partnership which we envisage at the UN will not be built in a day or a year. It may involve the creation of new UN institutions strong enough to achieve more rational and less contentious management of scarce world resources. Until it begins to take shape, economic discord will continue to hamper and distract all attempts to frame solutions for the fundamental long-term world problems of international order, arms control, and human environment, overpopulation, resources, and the future quality of human life.

8. FOOD, POPULATION AND ENVIRONMENT

Among recent United Nations actions which are likely to live in history are three pioneering world conferences of governments on the emergent human problems of the environment (1972), population, and food (1974). Global cooperation in these three overlapping areas is troubled by much the same north-south tensions and frustrations that afflict the entire movement for international economic development. Yet despite these troubles some important steps have been taken, and new steps are urgently necessary.

Food

Hunger is among the most pressing problems in the world today. The U.S., as a principal food producer and world leader, must accept a major responsibility for its solution. We applaud our government's initiative in proposing the World Food Conference, held last November in Rome. The World Food Council, whose creation the conference recommended, has now been established as a new organ of the United Nations. It is a first step toward systematic global cooperation on long-term food problems which, if further neglected or mishandled, will threaten development and even survival in large parts of the world.

Since the hundreds of millions of people now threatened with starvation and crippling nutritional diseases cannot wait for a coordinated long-term solution, we are pleased to note also that the U.S. has announced a food aid program for this fiscal year of $1.6 billion, at least 70 percent of which must go to nations designated by the UN as most in need.

It is vitally important that our government continue to contribute its share of resources and leadership in this cause. The next steps to which Washington should urgently address itself are these :

US development assistance policies and programs, both bilateral and multilateral, and especially through UN self-help technical assistance programs, should give major new emphasis, in line with the recommendations of the Rome Conference, to building up the capacity of developing countries to produce their own food.

The US should play its full part in the effort, also emphasized by the Rome Conference, to achieve world food security, especially by the creation of adequate national and international food reserves.

Since vast quantities of agricultural acreage and basic protein crops are used for the production of meat, alcohol and tobacco, we urge that the US Government provide economic incentives to farmers to reduce such usage and increase poultry and basic protein production.

Population

The World Population Conference in Bucharest in August 1974 gave important new impetus to efforts for more rational population policies and programs throughout the world. The "World Population Plan of Action," despite inevitable compromises, is a major advance toward a world consensus on key points: the interdependence between family planning and development; the right of parents to decide the number of their children; the active role of women in development; the value of numerical targets for reduction of population growth rates; and the need for increased international aid to countries seeking to improve their population programs. The General Assembly last fall substantially endorsed the Bucharest recommendations and called for their implementation, including further expansion of the UN Fund for Population Activities. In addition, the World Food Conference stressed the need for a balance between food resources and population.

We commend our government for its constructive role in this work and urge that it give continued high priority to implementing steps. Environment

The 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment, and the subsequent creation of the UN Environment Program and Fund, were landmark achievements of the world community in enabling technological man to collaborate more wisely with his natural environment. Particularly important were the launching of the "Earthwatch" program of global research and monitoring of pollutants, and the increased commitment by developing countries to development policies that give adequate weight to environmental protection.

From the outset, these achievements were flawed by a suspicion among developing countries that the environment movement, originating in the industrial West, was "anti-development." To help allay this suspicion, the mandate given to UNEP struck a careful balance between global environmental concerns and those of special concern to developing countries. Ever since, pressure from the developing country majority has tended to upset this balance and to focus the great bulk of UNEP's still very limited program on development-related projects. Such an unbalanced program, though by no means valueless, carries an inherent risk that the US and other developed countries may lose interest in UNEP and seek auspices outside the UN for global environmental management programs such as Earthwatch. We urge our government to resist this temptation and persist in seeking common ground with the majority.

That this uniquely important venture in world cooperation should be thus endangered in its infancy is a measure of how far the West and the Third World still are from reconciling their widely differing priorities. This situation again illustrates the fundamental need, discussed early in these pages, for a new dialogue in the UN leading to a better working relationship between the West and the Third World. We further note that global efforts to slow the degradation of the earth's life support resources-air, water and land-cannot be fully effective until major industrial powers, including the U.S., act to diminish pollution within their own borders. We urge that the U.S. reduce pollution from fossil fuel and nuclear energy sources and speed conversion to non-polluting energy sources, such as solar, geothermal, wind and tidal.

9. LAW OF THE SEA

Eight years ago the General Assembly addressed itself to the need for modernizing international law governing man's activity on and beneath the oceansmore than two-thirds of the earth's surface whose fish, petroleum and mineral