II. The Yalta Voting Formula

Francis O. Wilcox

American Political Science Review, 1945, vol. 39, issue 5, 943-956

Abstract: Toward the close of the San Francisco Conference, Czechoslovakia's Jan Masaryk remarked that his feeling toward the new Charter “was much like that of the father fondly awaiting the birth of a son. The baby finally arrives and it turns out to be a girl. At first the father is somewhat disappointed, but he soon learns to like her just the same.” While the delegates as a whole believed that their work would go down in history as one of the great documents of all times, many no doubt shared Masaryk's view. For when a document as comprehensive as the Charter is framed, no one gets exactly what he wants.The article of the Charter that raised the most controversy at San Francisco and the article that epitomizes the nature of the Organization, perhaps more than any other, is the Yalta formula for voting in the Security Council. So heated did the debate on this issue become that Room 223 in the Veterans Building, where the meetings of Committee III/l were held, was dubbed the “Madison Square Garden” of San Francisco. The frankness and candor with which the delegates exchanged views constitutes, in many respects, a good example of international democracy in action.It is the purpose of this paper to review the action taken at San Francisco with respect to the Yalta voting formula and to point out the relationship of that formula to the special position of the great powers in the new Organization.

Date: 1945
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