30031951  Text of the Speech made by Sir Gladwyn Jebb (United Kingdom) in the Security Council Meeting No. 539 held on 30 March, 1951

Text of the Speech made by Sir Gladwyn Jebb (United Kingdom) in the Security Council Meeting No. 539 held on 30 March, 1951

I think that I should follow the United States representative in dealing, very briefly, with one or two points which have arisen during the course of the debate on the revised draft resolution submitted on 21 March by the delegations of the United States and the United Kingdom. I certainly hope that that draft resolution will very soon come to the vote.

In the first place, I must say how glad the sponsors of the draft resolution have been-how glad I think we have all been to note the general agreement among members of the Security Council that in our approach to this problem we should concentrate on one all-important principle, namely, that the future accession of the State of the Jammu and Kashmir should be settled by a United Nations plebiscite, held in conditions which will enable the inhabitants of the State to express their preference, free from improper influence by any of the authorities interested in the result. I am sure that members of the Security Council have been encouraged by one thing, at any rate the reaffirmation by the representatives of the Governments of India and Pakistan of their own adherence to this principle.

As I believe the representative of the United States has already said, the President himself expressed this principle very clearly in the statement which he made in the Council yesterday. I should like, if I may, actually quote his words, since they impressed me so much. He said [538th meeting]:

"But once the right to self-determination for the people of the State of Jammu and Kashmir is-as it has been recognized, once it is clearly accepted by the parties in dispute-as it has been that they have no right to impose anything upon these people against their wishes, and that therefore these wishes must prevail over the wishes and claims of the bordering States, it must be possible to find a procedure which will create the most favourable. conditions for a fair expression of the will of the people, who want to make their choice free from any kind of fear or intimidation.". The President's eloquent words do, I think, contain the whole key to the problem, and our conviction of this fact has guided the representative of the United States and me in formulating our proposals.

In his statement to the Council yesterday, Sir Benegal Rau mentioned two aspects of these proposals which, in the view of his government, were not in accord either with the facts or with the agreements which the Commission embodied in its two resolutions of 13 August 1948 and 5 January 1949. If I may, I would like to comment briefly on these two aspects.

The first concerns the validity of the accession of the Maharaja of Kashmir. On this point I must say at once that I do not purpose to indulge in a sort of logomachy in which there is some risk that my learned friend with his great forensic ability might appear to emerge triumphant on points. I would hesitate to do that. But I doubt in any case that it will help to bring a solution of this dispute nearer if the Council were to retrace its steps behind the agreed principles and to take up legal issues concerning the validity of the Maharaja's accession. The Council has heard the arguments of both parties on this particular point. I think it is only too clear that any detailed consideration of the issues involved in this would only lead the Council into an examination of all the events leading up to the Maharaja's letter requesting accession. If this took charge, how could the Council escape from going on to consider parallel cases in which the question of accession may will at first sight appear to have been decided in accordance with entirely different principles ? My argument, from the outset of the Council's deliberation on this question, thought that we would do well to concentrate our attention on the plebiscite and on means whereby it should be fairly conducted.

Remarks which I made in my statement of 21 March [537th meeting] on the question of the legality of the accession of the Maharaja of Kashmir, though it is not in any way go back on them, where therefore, in that view, subsidiary to the main argument. If they will not deal detail with the merits of the claims of merits of the two parties in this question, I can assure the representative of India that it was not due to any ignorance of or inattention to these claims on my part, or rather because of my impression that a consideration of their merits would not advance the Council any way to a solution of the dispute.

The second aspect of our proposals to which Sir Benegal Rau took exception in his statement yesterday was connected with arbitration. He quoted an exchange of letters between his government and the Commission in the endeavour to show that certain questions were regarded as settled. He suggested that arbitration would reopen these questions to the prejudice of India and, furthermore, would give the Pakistan Government a right to be consulted in matters which the Commission had already agreed were outside the competence of the Government of Pakistan to discuss.

I would only remind members of the Council that the whole of part II of the resolution of 13 August 1948 is prefaced by the statement that:" both governments accept the following principles as the basis for the formulation of a truce agreement, the details of which shall be worked out in consultation between their representatives and the Commission".

Since the truce agreement has still to be formulated, I would suggest that in no sense is consultation with both parties excluded by that resolution. But my government would not wish to prejudge the findings of any arbitrators on this point The extent to which the matters dealt with in the two agreed resolutions are already decided and the extent to which Pakistan has a right to be consulted are, we believe, in themselves two points eminently suitable for determination by arbitration. Indeed, since there is disagreement by the parties. on them, arbitration provides the only suitable and perhaps the only possible means of determination. Of course, it is not my government's intention that any matter which has been clearly decided in favour of the Government of India should Now be decided otherwise Of course not. The exchange of letters quoted by Sir Benegal Rau will be taken into account by the arbitrators and, in so far as they decided certain points in India's favour, arbitration could only, of course, confirm these decisions.

There remains one further point arising out of the statement by the representative of India yesterday which I think I ought to mention. He suggested I was inconsistent in appealing to his government to ensure that the proposed Kashmir constituent assembly did not in any way prejudice the work of the Council while, at the same time, emphasising the view of my government that the accession could not be regarded as a matter which has already been settled. I do not really think that there is any incompatibility between these two views. This dispute is one between India and Pakistan. It is obvious that, if there is one of these two parties to whom the Council must appeal in order to prevent prejudicial action by the Kashmir constituent assembly, it is to the Government of India. Though I hesitate to cross swords with such an authority on constitutional law, I believe this is a matter which the Council must regard solely from the standpoint of how the two governments can help to give effect to the agreement embodied in the two resolutions of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan.

The proposl is really very simple. All we ask is that both parties to the dispute should give their full assistance to the Council so that-and here I quote the paragraph 1 of the United Nations Commission's resolution of 5 January 1949 : "The question of the accesston of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India and Pakistan will be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite."

It is in the conviction that the revised draft resolution that the representative of the United States and myself have placed before the Council provided the best method of achieving this that I express the hope that the Council will adopt it.