initiative of the United States, a Preparatory Committee for an International Conference on Trade and Employment. The SecretaryGeneral has announced that the first meeting of this Committee, on which the United States will be represented, will be held in London on October 15, 1946.

The Council at its First Session also called an International Health Conference in New York to effect establishment of a special agency to stimulate international cooperation in the field of health. Consequently a constitution has been drafted for a World Health Organization. This agency will not only promote the general improvement of health standards but will be able to tackle the immediate danger of widespread epidemics resulting from the dislocations and hardships of war.

Responding to requests from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Special Meeting on Urgent Food Problems, the Council has requested the Secretary-General to offer the full assistance and cooperation of the United Nations Secretariat in working on a survey and proposals for international machinery to cope with long-range food problems.

Organizing the Council

The Council has made important progress in organizing its work for the main objectives assigned to it by the United Nations Charter. Essentially, the Council constitutes a means of coordination, consultation, and recommendation. Operative functions generally are to be detailed to specialized inter-governmental agencies closely related to the United Nations organization. At the recent sessions, machinery for both the advisory and operative functions was set in motion.

The working teams of the Council will be its permanent commissions and the subcommissions. Reports prepared by the preliminary commissions, and approved by resolutions of the Council after consideration and amendment, provided for the establishment of commissions and subcommissions on a full operating basis.

At London the Economic and Employment Commission was organized to be the Council's chief adviser on international economic action for the achievement and maintenance of full employment with higher standards of living. At the Second Session in New York, the Council further strengthened the functions of this Commission.

The report of the Commission on Human Rights, as it was finally adopted by unanimous vote, included provisions particularly desired by the United States. One of these was a recommendation that human rights provisions be written into future treaties, including treaties of peace as far as practicable. A second important recommendation authorized the establishment of a permanent Subcommis

the United States. At the suggestion of the Soviet Union, the Council also voted to authorize establishment of a Subcommission on the Protection of Minorities and a Subcommission on the Prevention of Discrimination. A third important recommendation in the field of human rights, proposed and strongly supported by the United States Representative and adopted by the Council, was to create a full Commission on the Status of Women to replace the preliminary Subcommission.

A permanent Social Commission was established to advise the Council on coordination of international work in the social field, and particularly to concern itself with raising standards of living and welfare through social measures such as health services, recreational facilities, furtherance of general cultural relations, housing improvement, welfare of children and aged persons, crime prevention and rehabilitation of offenders.

The Council must have the facts and figures on which to base sound recommendations for international economic and social action. It, therefore, approved proposals of the preliminary Statistical Commission to develop an integrated system for collecting, maintaining, and disseminating reliable world statistics.

The Council decided to establish a permanent Transport and Communications Commission to replace the temporary body set up in London. In addition, the Council took action to endorse a world tele-communications conference. The United States has already taken the first steps toward calling this conference. Machinery was set in motion by the Council to bring the Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization and the Universal Postal Union into relationship with the United Nations and to examine the question of establishing an international shipping organization on technical matters. A general pattern has been worked out for cooperation in international transport and communications.

Specialized Agencies

Most of the operative functions of the United Nations in economic and social cooperation will be performed by public international agencies working in specialized fields and based on separate intergovernmental agreements. Through a special Committee which negotiated with similar groups appointed by the respective specialized agencies, the Council concluded agreements-as provided in the Charter of the United Nations-to establish relationships with the International Labor Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Similar action will be taken with respect to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and

Coordination of the vitally important work of these agencies within the framework of the United Nations represents a significant marshalling of existing forces to carry forward in orderly fashion a concerted campaign for human betterment.

Non-Governmental Organizations

The Economic and Social Council deals with matters that affect individual human beings. Its successes and its failures will have a bearing on the security a man has in his job, and his old age, on the kind of housing and food and clothing and medical care he can provide for his wife and children, on the educational opportunities that will be open to his children, and on the opportunities for advancement that will be open to himself. It is of great importance, therefore, that the Council keep in touch with the people of the world, not only through governments, but through the many non-governmental organizations through which people make their desires known and their opinions felt. After close examination and extended debate, the Council approved a plan by which this direct contact can be carried out on a democratic basis. Special arrangements were made to permit organizations of labor, of management and business, of farmers, and of consumers to join in the work of the Council and its Commissions. Provision also was made for seeking the advice and securing the help of other non-governmental organizations.

Conclusions

It is natural that the discussions of a deliberative body like the Economic and Social Council should bring out disagreements, and it had its share of them during the recent Sessions. But it is only by airing these differences of opinion that they can be compromised and settled. A disagreement developed over the membership of the commissions of the Council, but perhaps the most difficult of the disagreements concerned the problems of refugees and displaced persons. Nevertheless, the Council was able to go ahead toward the establishment of a new refugee organization because the areas of agreement were much larger than the areas of disagreement.

A compromise generally was worked out through patient and persistent negotiation. It has been the amount of agreement, rather than the points of disagreement, which is significant for the future of the Council's work. The experience of working together and finding solutions for specific problems constitutes the first step toward achieving the economic and social goals of the United Nations.

In closing the Second Session, Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar of India as President of the Economic and Social Council declared: "Throughout this work a common pattern has evolved. A common.

mined to do their best to see that the aims and objectives of the Charter are kept steadily in view and that progress is made in the direction of those aims and objectives. We may occasionally get what I venture to call a 'pisgah' sight of that land which will be free, which will be happy, which will be contented and where discrimination in any form will be a thing of the past. That is yet But I do think that in all these deliberations, and in the spirit which has characterized them, the sight of that land far, far off is yet visible."

Through patience and understanding, and by a willingness to negotiate, compromise, and work together, I believe the Council in these early sessions has brought that far land a little nearer.

The example of international cooperation recorded in this report was a joint product of eighteen national delegations to the Council, the United Nations Secretariat, and public and private organizations which participated. The contribution made by the United States to this work reflects the fine support and cooperation which our Delegation, both in London and New York, received from the Department of State and from other United States Government Departments and agencies which sent advisers. There were representatives of the Departments of the Treasury, Agriculture, Labor, Justice, and Commerce, as well as the Tariff Commission, Federal Security Agency, and the Bureau of the Budget.

I wish to express here my appreciation of their efficient and wholehearted assistance.

Sincerely,

JOHN GILBERT WINANT

I. Background: First Session of the Economic and Social Council

The first meeting of the Economic and Social Council was held in London on January 23, 1946, shortly after the General Assembly had elected the eighteen Members of the Council in accordance with the applicable provisions of the United Nations Charter. Members elected for a three-year term were Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, France and Peru; for a two-year term, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, India, Norway, U.S.S.R., and the United Kingdom; and for a one-year term, Colombia, Greece, Lebanon, Ukrainian S.S.R., United States of America and Yugoslavia. The Council elected Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar of India President of the Council; Dr. Andrija Stampar of Yugoslavia first Vice President; and Dr. Carlos Lleras Restrepo of Colombia second Vice President.

This First Session of the Council, which lasted from January 23 to February 18, was devoted almost entirely to organizational matters, as was expected.

COMMISSIONS OF THE COUNCIL

To assist in carrying out the tasks assigned to it by the Charter, the Council established five temporary or nuclear commissions and one full commission. The full commission, consisting of representatives of fifteen Members of the United Nations, was the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. The five temporary or nuclear commissions, each consisting of nine persons appointed in their individual capacities rather than as representatives of governments, were the following:

Commission on Human Rights,

with a Subcommission on the Status of Women

Economic and Employment Commission

Statistical Commission

Temporary Social Commission

Temporary Transport and Communications Commission

These nuclear commissions held meetings in New York in April and May and prepared reports for consideration by the Council at its Second Session which opened on May 25.