A United Nations Deadlock
As was feared, the United Nations Security Council has failed to agree on its recommendation to the Assembly of a candidate for the office of Secretary-General, from which Mr. Trygve Lie is anxious to resign. That was not for the lack of suitable nominees. One eminently suitable in the eyes of everyone outside the Soviet bloc was available, in the person of Mr. Lester Pearson, Canadian Secretary for External Affairs and President of the present Assembly. Out of eleven members of the Security Council nine voted for him and one, Lebanon, abstained. Russia, one of the five Permanent Mem- bers of the Council, voted against, and since it is assumed that in such a case a veto by any one Permanent Member is fatal the nomination has not gone forward. Two questions arise : Is Russia's decision irrevocable, and is the assumption that unanimity on the part of the Permanent Members is necessary well founded ? On the former point it has been suggested that the regular Soviet member of the Security Council had not had time to get full instructions from Moscow, where Mr. Molotov was just taking over the Foreign Office, and therefore followed the normal Russian practice of saying No; It would not be wise to build very much on this. There is much more to be said on the other question. The United Nations Charter lays it down that " Decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of seven members," and on all other matters " by an affirmative vote of seven members, including the concurring votes of the Permanent Members." Is the recommendation to the Assembly of a nominee for the Secretary-Generalship a procedural matter or not ? It has. been argued in this journal that, as common sense would suggest, it is, and therefore does not require unanimity among the permanent members, and in an article in the Manchester Guardian last week Mr. Philip Noel-Baker develops this thesis at length and most convincingly. The Foreign Office ought to consider as a matter of urgency whether this is not the correct interpretation of the Charter, and if it thinks so should press it strongly in New York.
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