UN General Assembly
1968

Nations Development Programme. 81. To such sources of debility we must add procedural weaknesses, such as the excessively long and repetitive agenda of the General Assembly and the tendency to hold massive conferences of which the fruits are not always easily visible. And yet with all this there was never a greater objective need for a unitary framework of international relations than in this age of global history. The United Nations, with all its imperfections, is still the only incarnation of a planetary spirit. It alone involves all States in the adventure of world community. But the gap between the dream and the reality is inordinately wide. The time is ripe for a review conference at which the United Nations will not celebrate its past, but plan its future. The Organization should look at itself, classify its experience, and reform or rationalize its procedures within the text of the present Charter. The twenty-fifth anniversary of its foundation might be due occasion for this exercise in frank and creative self-criticism.