UN General Assembly
1953

80. I believe that this Assembly should take a more realistic attitude in regard to questions claimed to lie within the domestic jurisdiction of any State. I am far from denying that in particular cases it is extremely difficult to determine just where domestic jurisdiction ends and the Assembly’s competence begins. It is hard to reconcile several articles of the Charter. For that reason we should have welcomed greater readiness on the part of Members to consult the International Court of Justice on these disputed points. I feel that the Court might well have been able to devise a formula that would enable us to give a workable interpretation to these conflicting, or apparently conflicting, provisions of the Charter. I feel, too, that no one who has candidly studied the record of the United Nations over these eight years can justifiably deny that its tendency has been to give too little weight to the plea of domestic jurisdiction. I am afraid that many of us have been too ready to see the mote in the other man’s eye when we might have been better occupied in taking the beam out of our own. I think it must be conceded that in several of these matters the competence of the United Nations is at the best doubtful, and I have a crowing feeling that if we attempt too much there is a risk that this Organization will lose in authority and effectiveness.