23

A.—2

The Declaration was introduced in a speech indicating the assistance given by General Franco to the Axis Powers. Received with much applause and supported by several speakers, including Mr. James C. Dunn, Assistant Secretary of State, the Declaration was admitted unanimously into the Record of the Conference. Suspension and Expulsion Though Chapter 111 of the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals contained no reference to expulsion from the Organization, or suspension of the rights of membership, the following passage from Chapter V was considered to be within the competence of Committee 1/2 so far as concerns the grounds upon which expulsion or suspension could take place:— " The General Assembly should, upon recommendation of the Security Council, be empowered to suspend from the exercise of any rights or privileges of membership any member of the Organization against which preventive or enforcement action shall have been taken by the Security Council. The exercise of the rights and privileges thus suspended may be restored by decision of the Security Council. The General Assembly should be empowered, upon recommendation of the Security Council, to expel from the Organization any member which persistently violates the principles contained in the Charter." The New Zealand delegation, believing that it would be wise to enlarge the grounds on which the suspension of the rights of a member could be effected, moved an amendment to insert, after the word " Council " at the end of the first sentence in the above text, the words " or which in any way shall have violated the obligations of membership." This amendment, which had been moved and rejected in the Committee dealing with the procedures of the Assembly (Committee 31/1) was considered along with other amendments bearing on suspension and expulsion by a sub-committee of 1/2. On the Report of the sub-committee, the Committee adopted the following text which agreed in principle with the New Zealand amendment: — " The Organization may at any time suspend from the exercise of the rights or privileges of membership any member of the Organization against which preventive or enforcement action shall have been taken by the Security Council, or which shall have violated the principles of the Charter in a grave or persistent fashion. The exercise of these rights and privileges may be restored in accordance with the procedure laid down in Chapter , para. In bringing forward this improved text the sub-committee also proposed that the power of the Organization to expel a member should be removed from the Charter. As is noted below, the Committee finally decided to maintain provision for expulsion in the Charter. At the same time it returned to a more restricted text on suspension, as follows:— " A member of the United Nations against which preventive or enforcement action has been taken by the Security Council may be suspended from the exercise of the rights and privileges of membership by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. The exercise of these rights and privileges may be restored by the Security Council." (Article 5 of Charter.) In the view of the New Zealand delegation it would have been preferable to endow the Organization with wide powers of suspension, irrespective of the powers which it might possess in regard to expulsion. The recommendation of the sub-committee, referred to above, that no power to expel a member should appear in the Charter was the subject of keen debate. Those who supported the recommendation argued that the proposed wider powers of suspension would provide the Organization with full liberty of action against a