The Uses of the Uniting for Peace Resolution since 1950

The Uniting for Peace Resolution—or the Acheson Plan, as it was once popularly called—was adopted by the UN General Assembly on November 3, 1950. It is commonly conceded that its procedures were designed to help surmount an apparently major obstacle to the operation of the UN: the Soviet veto or its alleged abuse, and the concomitant stagnation of the Security Council. Its particulars were the product, at least in part, of both the accidents and the demands of the Korean War—for example, that the Security Council could and did adopt resolutions of substance pertaining to Korea up until the time (August 1, 1950) the Soviet delegate returned, after which it adopted no other; or that there was a UN commission already stationed in Korea which could and did report to the Security Council immediately upon the outbreak of hostilities in June of 1950. The resolution belonged to a longer evolutionary history, too: the general shift in emphasis away from the Security Council was manifested even before the Korean War by the creation in 1947 of an “Interim Committee” of the General Assembly. The Uniting for Peace Resolution was more or less a reflection of the immediate environment of the Korean crisis, but it was also part of the main stream of basic institutional change to which it at the same time contributed.