14th Session of Economic and Social Council

2. Mr. Scott. The Canadian delegation to the 14th session of the Economic and Social Council which opens in New York on May 20th will be Mr. Jean Lesage, Parliamentary Assistant to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Alternate Representatives will be Mr. D.M. Johnson, Permanent Canadian Representative to the United Nations and Dr. F.G. Robertson, M.P., Mr. James Sinclair, Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Finance and Dr. G.F. Davidson, Deputy Minister of Welfare, will attend the session for short periods as Alternate Representatives. Advisers will be Mr. Summers and Mr. Warren from this Department and Mr. Pollock from the Department of Finance. Mr. Crépault of the Permanent Delegation to the U.N. in New York will be an Adviser and Secretary of the Delegation. Other Alternates and Advisers will attend the session as required from time to time. As the normal two sessions have been telescoped into one in 1952 because of the unusually long duration of the Sixth Session of the General Assembly, the forthcoming meeting of ECOSOC will be long. It is expected to last about twelve weeks. There are at present almost fifty items on the agenda. Among the economic items to be considered are the World Economic Situation, Full Employment and the Economic Development of Under-developed Countries. This last item is perhaps the most important on the Council's agenda. Under it will be considered Resolution 520 (VI) of the General Assembly which requests the Council to submit to the Assembly a detailed plan for establishing, as soon as circumstances permit, a special fund for grants-in-aid and for low-interest, long-term loans to under-developed countries. The plan is to include recommendations concerning the size, composition and administration of the special fund, the manner of collecting contributions to it and the character of such contributions. This item poses a great problem for Canada and other Western, developed countries. Arrayed against strong domestic and fiscal considerations is the necessity of maintaining and strengthening understanding and sympathy between the free countries of the world, developed and under-developed.⁹⁰ An issue such as this sets up a perplexing conflict of interests and great skill will be required from the Western delegations at the Council in order not to widen the gap between the poorer and richer free nations which was so apparent at the Sixth Session of the General Assembly. Of the social items before the Council the most important is that concerning Human Rights. The Commission on Human Rights has been asked to prepare for the Seventh Session of the General Assembly two Convenants on Human Rights, one dealing with traditional civil-political rights, the other with economic, social and cultural rights. The Council must consider the drafts of the covenants before transmitting them to the Assembly. Here, again, the free world is divided; the developed countries of Europe and North American take a different approach from that of the under-developed countries of Asia and Latin America, particularly with regard to economic and social rights. The discussions in the Human Rights Commission offer little hope that much common ground is likely to be found at the Council.

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