Special Message to the Senate on Amendments to the United Nations Charter

To the Senate of the United States:

I request the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification of two amendments to the Charter of the United Nations which are transmitted herewith along with a report to me from the Secretary of State. They are the first amendments adopted by the General Assembly since the founding of the United Nations.

These amendments will strengthen the ability of the United Nations to act as a force for peace and the progress of mankind.

They enlarge the membership of both the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council to bring those bodies into balance with the enlarged membership of the United Nations itself.

HISTORY OF THE AMENDMENTS Amendments to the Charter of the United Nations must first be adopted by a twothirds vote of the General Assembly, and then ratified by two-thirds of the Member States, including all the Permanent Members, according to their constitutional procedure.

In late 1963, the General Assembly considered resolutions proposing the two amendments in question. These resolutions focused on three points:

First, that the text of the United Nations Charter be changed to increase the size of the Security Council from eleven to fifteen, to increase the voting majority of the Security Council from seven to nine, and to increase the size of the Economic and Social Council from eighteen to twenty-seven. In the Security Council, neither the seats nor the right of veto of the Permanent Members would be affected.

Second, the resolutions provided that Members of the two Councils be elected on the basis of geographic distribution.

In the Security Council, the ten non-Permanent Members would include five from Africa and Asia, one from Eastern Europe, two from Latin America, and two from Western Europe and other areas; the five Permanent Members would remain the same. The present non-Permanent Membership of the Security Council includes two Members from Africa and Asia, two from Latin America, one from Western Europe, and one seat split between Asia and Eastern Europe.

In the Economic and Social Council, there would be the United States, twelve African and Asian states, five Latin American states, three Eastern European states (including the Soviet Union), and six states from Western Europe and other areas. The present composition of the Economic and Social Council, in addition to the United States, is five African and Asian states, four Latin American states, three Eastern European states (including the Soviet Union), and five states from Western Europe and other areas.

Third, the resolutions proposed that Member States ratify the amendments by September 1, 1965.

On December 17, 1963, the resolutions were adopted by the General Assembly. On the enlargement of the Security Council, the vote was ninety-seven to eleven, with four abstentions; on the enlargement of the Economic and Social Council, it was ninety-six to eleven, with five abstentions.

In those votes, the United States abstained, not because it doubted the principle of enlargement, but to maintain complete freedom of action while giving deliberate study to the effects of the specific proposals. The Soviet Union and France voted negatively. China voted for enlargement of the Security Council but abstained on enlargement of the Economic and Social Council. The United Kingdom abstained on both resolutions.

Since that time, sixty-three nations out of the required seventy-six have ratified the amendments. Other governments are now considering them. Of the Permanent Members of the Security Council, the Soviet Union has been the first to approve the amendments.

REASONS FOR RATIFICATION The United States should now move to ratify the Charter amendments to enlarge the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council.

First, the amendments are realistic.

The membership of the United Nations has grown from fifty-one in 1945 to one hundred and fourteen in 1965. Almost all of the newer Members are nations which have gained their independence from the peaceful dismantling of empires--a process which brought nationhood to one-third of all the peoples of the world and which is here to stay.

We welcome this growth.

The peoples of the world are more directly represented in the General Assembly of the United Nations today than they were twenty years ago.

We want to work together and cooperate with these new countries, within the United Nations.

If there are differences among us, we want them to be aired and examined within the United Nations.

This is the way to a peaceful and cooperative world.

But just as we welcome the growth of the United Nations, we must also recognize that the present Security Council and the present Economic and Social Council do not now realistically reflect it.

An increase in the representation on both Councils is now dearly necessary to restore the balance which existed between the Councils and the General Assembly when the Charter came into force. An expansion of fifty percent in the case of the Economic and Social Council and less in the Security Council is a reasonable way to adjust to a Membership which has more than doubled. At the same time, the expansion is not such as to make the Councils unwieldy.

Second, the amendments are equitable. When the Charter was signed in 1945, the Member States from Africa and Asia numbered thirteen out of a total of fifty-one-less than a third. Today, the Member States from these great continents number sixtyone out of a total of one hundred and fourteen--more than a half. The General Assembly resolutions, necessarily and rightly, take this new arithmetic into account.

Moreover, the explicit allocation of the new seats to geographic areas, as provided by Assembly Resolution, is wise. It is designed to eliminate the contentious problem of sharing an inadequate number of seats-which has led to pressures against existing seats, to disputes over the definition of geographic areas, and to split terms on the Security Council to meet competing claims for representation.

Third, the amendments fully protect the basic interests of the Permanent Members. While we have seen that the work of the Security Council can be hampered seriously by the abuse of the veto provision, it nevertheless remains a wise and realistic feature of the United Nations Charter. The veto provision is maintained.

Fourth, because the amendments are at once realistic and equitable, they will strengthen the United Nations.

They will increase the vitality of these Councils and of the United Nations itself by permitting more of the newer Members to take part in the consideration of major world problems.

The amendments, which will ensure that the Councils represent the whole Organization they are intended to serve, will thereby also ensure that the Councils continue to earn the confidence and support of the Membership at large. Without this confidence and support, the Councils cannot be fully effective.

The Organization as a whole will benefit from fuller participation in the work of the Councils by the new Members who have much to contribute--as they will benefit from the exercise of shared responsibility.

Fifth and finally, the amendments are a reflection and a demonstration of both the stability and the adaptability of the United Nations Charter.

We Americans have always had a healthy respect for the stability of our institutions and a wariness of change for the sake of change. Our American Constitution, which has been amended only fourteen times since the Bill of Rights of 1791, has clearly met the test of stability. The fact that the United Nations Charter has remained as it was written twenty years ago is ample evidence of its stability.

At the same time, we Americans have always recognized the forces of change, and have always known instinctively that the ability of an institution to adapt to changed conditions is a reliable measure of its capacity for survival and growth. Our American Constitution, as evidenced by its amendments, has clearly met this test of adaptability.

Now, with its twentieth birthday approaching, the United Nations is seeking the first two amendments to its basic Charter. And this is welcome evidence of the inherent flexibility of another great institution.

THE STATE OF THE UNITED NATIONS As we consider these first amendments to the United Nations Charter, it is fitting to review briefly the state of the United Nations itself.

The limitations of the United Nations are apparent. It has not been able to prevent aggression in Southeast Asia; it has not been able to rid the world of poverty.

Nor has the United Nations been able to solve all of its internal problems. At the present time a serious financial problem threatens the capacity of the General Assembly to perform its share of peacekeeping.

And if the limitations are clear, the basic reason is plain. The United Nations is not a world government; it is an organization of governments participating by consent. It can move only in the direction and at the pace that its Members want it to move.

And yet the United Nations has served well the cause of world peace and progress-and, therefore, the national interest and the personal interest of every American.

KEEPING THE PEACE Through the United Nations, the Members have acted to avert wars on at least a dozen occasions--local wars which could have spread.

In Kashmir, the United Nations obtained and still polices a cease-fire line running through a bitterly contested area.

In Suez, the United Nations deployed an Emergency Force which enabled the respective national military forces to withdraw.

In the Congo, the United Nations provided 20,000 troops, assisted a new nation to survive its birth, and forestalled an east-west confrontation in the heart of Africa.

In Cyprus, the United Nations has stationed a force of 6,000 to strengthen that nation's security.

The office of the Secretary-General has evolved into a sensitive listening post--an ever-ready channel of communication--a potential conciliation service open at all times to the international community of states.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT At the same time, the day-to-day work of the United Nations is directed overwhelmingly toward building conditions which make the peace worth keeping.

United Nations experts are now at work in one hundred and thirty countries or territories-bringing modern knowledge and technology to bear on the universal struggle to liberate man from the slavery of poverty.

The United Nations is in partnership with eighty-nine nations and territories in cooperative pre-investment projects--surveying resources or training men and women in modern skills.

The development lending institutions affiliated with the United Nations have been investing some $1 billion annually in world development.

All in all, the level of development assistance flowing through the United Nations system of agencies now has reached some $1.3 billion a year.

TECHNOLOGICAL COOPERATION Meanwhile, United Nations agencies are performing the vital task of establishing cooperative ground rules which are required in the age of rapid international transport and instant international communication.

Agencies affiliated with the United Nations have developed standards for international air traffic--and for the safety of life at sea.

They have arranged for orderly use of the airwaves by allocating available radio frequencies among nations and users.

They have promoted international weather forecasting and are pioneering in the development of a World Weather Watch of incalculable benefit to peoples of all nations.

They have developed and maintained uniform international quarantine regulations against the spread of communicable diseases--and liberated 800 million people from the threat of the greatest killer of all time: malaria.

In these and other ways--through peacekeeping, through nation-building, and through international technical services-the United Nations serves its Members. In doing so, the Organization serves the national interest of the United States. It helps us do things we could not do so well alone and encourages other nations to share the burdens.

CONCLUSION In one sense, the smallest Members are in greatest need of the United Nations.

In another sense, the United Nations is of greatest service to the largest nations--for without the United Nations, the nations with the greatest resources would have to shoulder most of these tasks alone.

And in a combined sense, the United Nations serves simultaneously the large and the small, the rich and the poor--for the peace of one area is but part of world peace, and the prosperity of one country is but an element of the world's well-being.

This is why consistent and effective support for the United Nations has been near the heart of the United States foreign policy for two decades.

This is why the Congress and the public, regardless of politics or party, have been ready to stick with the United Nations through thick and thin.

The Organization has reached a point where the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council need to be enlarged to take account of the great growth of the Organization in recent years.

The proposed amendments offer responsible and equitable plans for meeting this problem.

Because the United Nations will continue to be deeply needed by nations which seek peace--by all nations which seek to raise the levels of human welfare--by all nations which seek to cooperate in putting the achievements of modern technology to work for all mankind--it is in the national interest of the United States to ratify these steps toward making more effective the principal Councils of the Organization.

I therefore request the consent of the Senate to ratification by the United States of these amendments to the Charter of the United Nations.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

The White House

April 6, 1965