The Assembly's Role
Lash, Joseph P.
The Assembly's Role The General Assembly, by Sydney D. Bailey. Praeger. 337 pp. $5. Reviewed by Joseph P. Lash The importance of the General Assembly of the United Nations is usually either...
...its talk of sanctions against Israel gave way to a negotiated solution regarding Gaza and Aqaba when the United States shied away from coercive measures...
...Even so, the writing is unnecessarily pedantic and labored...
...But it is an even greater mistake to conclude that the Assembly does not have influence on policy...
...Its debates have had an obvious impact on the rate of decolonization and on the decision, first to begin, and later to go on with, the nuclear test ban negotiations...
...The bipolar world is in the process of breaking up, and the dispersion shows up with dramatic clarity in the General Assembly...
...and its resolutions calling on Soviet Russia to cease and desist in Hungary were ignored because no one was prepared to go further than resolutions...
...And we can expect this book by Sydney Bailey, a writer on international affairs and former director of the Quaker program at the United Nations, to be the forerunner of many others...
...but with ninety-nine nations now sitting as members, and with mounting Niagaras of oratory, it is unlikely ever again to finish its business in so short a time...
...There are complaints that the "one nation, one vote" formula of the Assembly does not mirror the realities of international relations...
...The Assembly affords governments an invaluable gauge by which to measure the acceptability of their policies...
...This is not a book for the general reader but students of the United Nations will find it of help and interest...
...Bailey's book is a manual of procedures and practices rather than an evaluation and pointing up of Assembly trends...
...authority and prestige in Asia and Africa registered in the votes of the first part of the Fifteenth Session was an important factor in spurring the Kennedy Administration to review its policies on colonial issues...
...Reviewed by Joseph P. Lash The importance of the General Assembly of the United Nations is usually either exaggerated or underestimated...
...The Assembly meets annually, presumably from mid-September to mid-December...
...But Lester Pearson has pointed out that the nuclear stalemate gives the smaller and middle powers more leverage in international affairs, in actuality...
...The decline in U.S...
...Because of this dispersion the Assembly is unlikely to become less important in the United Nations system...
...In the twin crises of Suez and Hungary its demand that Britain and France withdraw "forthwith" was effective only because of behind-the-scenes pressure from the United States...
...Some liken the Assembly to a national legislature, although it has only the power to recommend and finds such difficulty in arriving at a consensus that it can adopt only the most general resolutions...
Vol. 25 • July 1961 • No. 7
