UN General Assembly
1946

It is proper now to ask what can be done about this situation. I do not pretend to know. The great Powers are, obviously, not at present convinced of the inequity and the dangers of the veto provisions as they exist today. Indeed, they, or some of them, are convinced of the dangers of any other course. By a most remarkable provision in the Charter, it has been made quite impossible to amend the Charter without the consent of each of the five great Powers. Is it too much to say that by this extraordinary provision, combined with a veto, this infant organization has been brought into the world with its hands manacled and its feet fettered? But, there it is. At this stage, I think no person looking realistically upon the situation today can suggest that it is presently possible to alter the Charter in any material way in this respect, though we are not without hope that some gradual progress can be made, perhaps along the lines of the Australian proposal.