Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Africa and South Asia, Volume XI, Part 1

IO files

Statement by the United States Alternate Representative (Johnson) in the Fourth Committee of the General Assembly on November 9, 1954¹

November 9, 1954

Mr. Chairman: The action taken yesterday by this Committee in voting not to act favorably on the recommendation of the Sub-Committee on South West Africa has reestablished our position as it existed on October 19.² In accord with our stated position on that date, we did not participate yesterday in the voting on resolutions contained in the South West Africa report. We have stated several times that we deemed it unwise not to refer the matter of procedure to the International Court of Justice. No one can say now that members of the Committee have not had an opportunity to weigh carefully the course which has been adopted. We said yesterday that we considered the report of the Sub-Committee to be something we could support in its entirety. However, the action of the Committee in refusing to accept Paragraph 14 has rendered the report meaningless. We consider that Members of the Sub-Committee have now been relieved of any obligation to support it, and in like manner we no longer feel an obligation to serve on the South West Africa Committee should it be continued.³

The action of this Committee has convinced us that it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to make any effective contribution to the work of the South West Africa Committee at this time. Mr. Chairman, I quite naturally reserve the position of my Government to follow any future course of action it may deem appropriate.

1. Issued as press release no. 2015 of the U.S. Delegation to the Ninth Session of the General Assembly. A summation can be found in UN document A/C.4/SR.426.
2. See editorial note, p. 1048.
3. At the same meeting, the Representatives of Iraq and Sweden also announced that, as a consequence of the Fourth Committee’s refusal to accept the Subcommittee’s recommendation, their delegations would be unable to serve on the Committee on South West Africa. The Representatives of Brazil, Mexico, Pakistan, Syria, and Thailand reserved the positions of their governments with respect to their future participation in the Committee on South West Africa (Report of the Fourth Committee (Part II), UN document A/2747/Add. 1)