Chance Majority

Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the members to submit such matters to settlement. --United Nations Charter, Article 2(7)

Since it joined the U.N., South Africa has persistently invoked this Charter article to resist U.N. inquiries into the question of racial discrimination in the South African Union. Long before its present intolerant leadership got control of the country, Field Marshal Jan Smuts contended in 1946 that "the question of the U.N.'s right to intervene in the domestic affairs of a member state is vital to the whole concept of the U.N."

Last week South Africa fought a bitter and unsuccessful campaign against renewing the mandate of a three-man U.N. commission which has been investigating apartheid (racial segregation). When the U.N.'s Political Committee voted, 37 to 7 (with 13 abstentions), to prolong the commission's life, South Africa's U.N. Delegate W. C. du Plessis abruptly left the building and began a boycott which, he said, will last at least as long as the present U.N. session.

"Spurious Case Law." Before he walked out, Du Plessis spoke his piece: "The authority of chance majorities and the building up of spurious case law, not on legal grounds but mainly on the basis of political expediency and sentiment, cannot, in my delegation's opinion, emasculate the conditions under which member ship was originally accepted." There were many among his hearers who, while deeply disliking South Africa's racial policy, privately admitted that South Africa had the U.N. Charter on its side.

Six weeks ago France withdrew when the U.N. Assembly voted to take up the question of Algeria, which France insists is a part of metropolitan France and no business of the U.N. If anything, South Africa's legal case is stronger than France's.

The agitation against both South Africa and France comes chiefly from the 14-nation Arab-Asian bloc, which found a community of purpose at Bandung and has been throwing its weight around since. India in particular, said Du Plessis, has "pursued a vendetta" against South Africa almost since the beginning of the U.N.

The emergence of a coherent Arab-Asian bloc at a time when East-West hostility has been more subdued in U.N. debates has been the dominant fact of the U.N.'s tenth session. In their eagerness to declaim against colonialism and race discrimination, the Arab-Asians have not always bothered to be responsible, and Western delegates smolder at a nation like Yemen attempting to pass judgment on someone else's devotion to liberty and progress.

Rights & Freedoms. In waging its propaganda battles, the Arab-Asian bloc sets great legal store by Article 55 in the U.N. Charter, which provides that the U.N. "shall promote observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion," and on Article 56, in which "all members pledge themselves" to cooperate with the U.N. to achieve these purposes. But, said South Africa's Du Plessis, the very committee which drew up these provisions stipulated in the records that Article 55 gives the U.N. no right to interfere in domestic affairs.

The U.S., which would fiercely resist any U.N. foray into race relations in the South, abstained in last week's vote. Though some advisers acknowledge South Africa's legal case, the U.S. hesitates to side with South Africa even when it is technically right. Officially, the U.S. takes the stand that the Arab-Asian motion is not "the best way to achieve constructive results," on the ground that U.N. discussion of South Africa's restrictive policies would only harden white South Africa's support of apartheid.

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