77

the dispute " out of Court " before the Council itself took action. They also proposed amendments to the rules of procedure of the General Assembly which would give the President of the Assembly the function of superintending " the process of agreement and conciliation/' in furtherance of which he might appoint a rapporteur-conciliator accepted by the parties. The third proposal taken up by the Committee was submitted jointly by China and the United States. It provided for the establishment of a " panel for inquiry and mediation " composed of highly qualified persons designated by member States, from which members of commissions of inquiry and conciliation might be selected. The work done by the Interim Committee was well spoken of by the majority of delegations. It was attacked, however, by the Soviet Union representative (Mr Tsarapkin), who said the Committee had presented a series of subtle methods of settling international disputes in circumvention of the unanimity rule. The General Act of 1928 was a " useless document," as was proved by the fact that only two of the permanent members of the Security Council one Latin American country, and one country from the Near, Middle, and Far East had adhered to it. It would be impossible to find genuinely impartial persons to serve on the proposed court of arbitration, which would serve as a political tool for States in a position to command a majority of votes on it. The other proposals likewise had the common aim of weakening the Security Council, on which the Charter conferred the primary responsibility for examining and settling disputes. The representative of New Zealand, while paying tribute to the work already accomplished by the Interim Committee and desiring its continuation, doubted the wisdom of adopting forthwith the draft resolutions submitted in the Committee's report. This was not one of the class of questions requiring urgent decision, and opportunity should be given to Governments to consider it more fully than had so far been possible. The experience of the League contained an element of useful warning ; there was sometimes at Geneva too great an eagerness to elaborate extra-Covenant procedures, the effect of which was to divert attention from the paramount necessity of fulfilling the Covenant itself. The Assembly should therefore ensure that every resolution it adopted corresponded to a real need and reinforced the Charter. The draft resolution concerning the General Act, for instance, did raise the question, to use its own words, what was the " original efficacy " of the Act. The proposed amendments to the rules of procedure were apparently unexceptionable, but were they really necessary ? The Assembly had already shown that it was capable, without any amendment of its rules, of charging its President with important conciliatory tasks. Lastly, the proposal to establish a panel of conciliators deserved further examination in the light of experience. Lists of conciliators