Text of the Speech made by Mr. Stevenson (United States of America) in the Security Council Meeting No. 1016 held on 22 June 1962

 Text of the Speech made by Mr. Stevenson (United States of America) in the Security Council Meeting No. 1016 held on 22 June 1962

I hope that the members of the Council will not object and will indulge me while I make a few remarks on this historic day in the Security Council. It is a day that should not pass without notice. A permanent member of the Security Council has just cast its one hundredth veto.

From the beginning of the United Nations one of its special characteristics has been the voting procedure in the Security Council. We all recall the serious deliberations which took place at San Francisco concerning the nature and the import for the future of the veto right for permanent members of the Security Council. The veto was given to the permanent members primarily because it would be their military and economic power which would have to be used to sustain and enforce Security Council decisions directly affecting vital world interests. The representatives of small and middle-sized States emphasised their anxiety that the veto might be used to hamstring the Security Council. In order to meet such fears, the four sponsoring members of the Conference set forth their conception at that time of the unanimity rule, with which the delegation of France also associated itself. The big Powers, including the Soviet Union, specifically stated that it is not to be assumed that the permanent members, any more than the non-permanent members, would use their veto wilfully to obstruct the operation of the Council". That was the way we started in San Francisco seventeen years ago this very week, I believe.

What has happened since ? Before the first year was out, the Soviet Union had cast nine vetoes. The Soviet member of the Council has today cast its hundredth veto. For fifteen years, the Soviet Union on occasion after occasion has sought to obstruct the operations of the Council, sometimes where Soviet plans and prestige were directly and clearly involved, and at other times when Soviet interests were not directly involved, save that the continuation of friction might contribute to Soviet objectives.

The Soviet Union has used the veto lavishly to prevent States from assuming their rightful place in the United Nations. In fact, fifty-one of these vetoes were cast on applications for membership of the United Nations. Ireland, a member of this Council, was denied membership for nine years. So were Jordan and Portugal, Austria, Finland and Italy were kept out for eight years. Ceylon was kept out for seven years, Nepal for six years. Mauritania was vetoed in 1960 and Kuwait in 1961. Korea is still not a member. The veto has been used to tie the admission of clearly qualified States, for which there was widespread support, to the admission of States and regimes about whose qualifications for membership there were grave doubts; this, despite the fact that the tying of the admission of one applicant to that of another has been specially held by the International Court of Justice to be contrary to the Charter.

The Soviet representative used the veto thirteen times to assist Soviet bloc activities against the territorial integrity and the political independence of other States. When the Soviets subverted Czechoslovakia in 1948 the Soviet representative vetoed Security Council moves to investigate the case. When communist-supported guerrillas tried to overturn the independence of Greece in 1946 and 1947, the Soviets again vetoed a Security Council investigation. When Thailand asked the Security Council to act again attempted infiltration from India China in 1954, the Soviets again vetoed.