HC Deb 04 June 1962 vol 661 cc6-7
1. Mr. Longden

asked the Lord Privy Seal if he will make further efforts to negotiate the special agreements which, under Article 43 of the Charter of the United Nations, are a condition precedent to the establishment of the military sanctions envisaged in Chapter VII of the Charter.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Peter Thomas)

There is no evidence to suggest that the prospects for negotiating such argeements are any better today than when a deadlock was reached in 1948.

Mr. Longden

Is my hon. Friend aware that we have had that Answer before? At the spring meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Union the Political and Disarmament Committee, of which I have the honour to be the chairman, passed a resolution recommending that the provisions of Chapter VII of the Charter should be brought into immediate operation and that the special agreements referred to therein should be entered into forthwith ", and only the delegates from the Warsaw Pact countries voted against that resolution. Would not a further push in New York help to make the Charter operate as its framers intended?

Mr. Thomas

I think the very fact that the delegations from the Warsaw Pact countries voted against the Resolution indicates the extreme difficulty that there is. In our view, there would be no object in pressing for agreement when there is no hope of success.

Mr. Longden

Those countries are in a minority of ten.

Mr. Zilliacus

Is not the real difficulty the fact that no decisions can be taken under Chapter VII of the Charter unless the permanent members are unanimous, and therefore so long as they are divided into rival alliances treating each other as potential enemies this Chapter cannot function? Would not a partial step to a solution be to include a provision in a disarmament convention by which the contracting parties agreed to set up an international force of this sort? Is not it part of the intention of both sides, to include something like that in a disarmament convention?

Mr. Thomas

I agree that one of the difficulties is that there must be unanimity. I suggest that the other part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question raises a different point.