I should like to refer to the compromise proposal for the "federation" of Eritrea with Ethiopia which was worked out among the members of the Interim Committee under the guidance of the chairman, Mr. Muniz.⁴⁸ The text of this proposal was contained in Mr. Riddell's telegram No. 604 of August 25th,† copy of which is attached. This proposal, as you know, was almost accepted by the Interim Committee and will almost certainly be reconsidered in its present, or in a slightly altered form in the General Assembly.

2. This proposal seems to be the most likely way of finding a solution for a difficult problem and merits our support. However, it is important, I think, that we realize what seems to me the revolutionary nature of the proposal. A proposal which apparently would settle only a minor problem of the United Nations could set an extremely important precedent. The significance of the programme arises in particular, I think, from paragraph 7 in which it is proposed that the United Nations prescribe a Bill of Rights for residents of Eritrea. In other parts of the proposal, constitutional features are prescribed not only for Eritrea but for Ethiopia as a whole. It is, perhaps, one thing for the United Nations, at the request of the victorious powers, to prescribe a constitution for a former Italian colony but it is going a good deal further to prescribe a constitution, in part at least, for an original member state. In order to understand the nature of what has been done, let us suppose that the opponents of confederation in Newfoundland had appealed to the United Nations and that the General Assembly, in order to achieve an amicable settlement, prescribed a union of Newfoundland with Canada which obliged the Canadian Government to recognize certain fundamental rights in the province of Newfoundland and to set up a particular kind of "federal council". There seems to me little doubt that we should say the action of the Assembly was contrary to Article 2(7) of the Charter.

3. I should not like to suggest that I am necessarily proposing opposition to this proposal because of its revolutionary nature. It seems. to me, however, that we should realize what we are doing. When I was sitting in the Interim Committee I endeavoured, on a number of occasions, to raise, with the United Kingdom and United States representatives, the question of the extent to which the General Assembly would be obliged to enforce its will in perpetuity on Ethiopia. They were so much interested in finding a solution that they did not want to pause in order to contemplate the long range implications of what they were doing. The only representative who seemed to share my anxiety was the Netherlands representative who had clearly in mind the way in which the Indonesian Government had, in a very short time, altered a constitution upon which agreement had been reached with an outside party.

4. It seems to me that we must either recognize that the Assembly is moving well in advance of what were the intentions of the founders at San Francisco, or else they are being hypocritical. When I raised the question with some of my colleagues in the Interim Committee as to whether the Assembly would be obliged to take action if, in future, the Ethiopian Government made constitutional changes contrary to this resolution or whether the Ethiopian Government could, in future, plead its right to take whatever action it wished under Article 2(7), there was a tendency to say that the Assembly could not interfere with a member's desire to alter its own laws. This seems like the commonsense interpretation but if we accept this interpretation then how can we say that we are providing the "federal" solution which firmly guarantees the rights of Eritrean minorities?

J.W. HOLMES

⁴⁸Voir le document 247./See Document 247. †