UN General Assembly
1971

103. Every year, references are made to the need for a stronger support for the United Nations. Yet this same Organization has been permitted to reach the brink of financial bankruptcy. One major Power concerned has announced that it will contribute an "important" sum to help cover past United Nations financial deficiencies; other Powers equally concerned, however, have remained silent. 104. The present international trade and monetary crisis has simply dramatized the central dilemma that has afflicted the United Nations since its inception. The Member States, particularly the great Powers with the special responsibilities inherent in their status as permanent members of the Security Council, have never quite accepted the requirement, implicit in the Charter, to subordinate narrow national interests to the general well-being of mankind, or-as last year's Conference on Human Survival so aptly put it-to recognize that "human sovereignty transcends national sovereignty".