Requirements For U.N. To Be Effective

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31366, 11 May 1967, Page 7

Requirements For U.N. To Be Effective

There must be broad agreement on the principles of peace and a code of behaviour, the organisational machinery must give effect to these principles, and there must be a general will to use this machinery if the United Nations is to be an effective body in world affairs, according to Mr J. Belich, vice-president of the United Nations Association of New Zealand and chairman of the National U.N.I.C.E.F. Committee of New Zealand. Mr Belich was addressing a United Nations Association seminar on “Human Rights” in Christchurch. “I can imagine the torrent of words frustrating the hopes and senses of many representatives at the United Nations,” he said. “Yet the

- problem of giving all 122 a f fair go should not be insuper- , able. r “Clearly, the machinery of - the United Nations, particui larly in the General Assem- - bly, can be cumbersome, ini decisive and perhaps misused” i said Mr Belich. “But the • United Nations did not genes rate these problems and pres- ' sures. It simply mirrors 1 them. “They would not disappear if the United Nations did not ; exist; on the contrary they i would find much more ex- ’ plosive expression than mere resolutions of the General As- : sembly. “In this sense, the machin- ■ ery of the United Nations exI ercises a restraining and i stabilising influence," he said.