2. Power to control, inspect, and license all other atomic activities.
3. The duty of fostering the beneficial uses of atomic energy.
4. Research and development responsibilities of an affirmative character intended to put the Authority in the forefront of atomic knowledge and thus to enable it to comprehend, and therefore to detect—misuse of atomic energy. To be effective, the Authority must itself be the world’s leader in the field of atomic knowledge and development and thus supplement its legal authority with the great power inherent in possession of leadership in knowledge.
These proposals represented a broadening—rather than essential modification—of the Acheson-Lilienthal recommendations. The additional features concerned (1) condign punishment, and (2) the so-called power of veto of the United Nations Charter.
Whereas the Acheson-Lilienthal report had not dealt with the subject of sanctions, Mr. Baruch held that a realistic agreement must provide for penalties “of as severe a nature as the nations may wish and as immediate and certain in their execution as possible....” Such “condign punishment” would be meted out if previously stipulated violations of a control plan occurred.
This problem, Mr. Baruch stated, was intimately related with the veto provisions of the United Nations Charter. Under the Charter, sanctions can be invoked only with the concurrence of the five permanent members of the Security Council, i.e., China, France, United Kingdom, United States, and the Soviet Union. Mr. Baruch maintained, however, that “there must be no veto to protect those who violate their solemn agreements not to develop or use atomic energy for destructive purposes.... The bomb does not wait on debate.” He pointed out that the United States was “concerned here with the veto power only as it affects this particular problem.”
A United States memorandum of July 12, 1946, stressed that “Voluntary relinquishment of the veto on questions relating to a specific weapon previously outlawed by unanimous agreement because of its uniquely destructive character, in no wise involves any compromise of the principle of unanimity of action as applied to general problems or to particular situations not foreseeable and therefore not susceptible of advance unanimous agreement.”
The first Soviet proposals—Gromyko’s statement of June 19, 1946
A week after the American plans were put forward, the Soviet Union announced its own proposals. They were marked chiefly by Soviet insistence that the United States agree to stop the production of atomic weapons and destroy existing bombs before international control arrangements were negotiated.
Although they called for “an international convention for outlawing weapons based on the use of atomic energy,” the Soviet proposals did not provide “effective safeguards by way of inspection and other means to protect complying states against the hazards of violations and evasions.” They proposed that the “rule of unanimity” in the Security Council apply to atomic-energy matters. Hence if one of the permanent members of the Security Council or a friend violated a control scheme, the other members of the United Nations would have no legal means, under the Charter, of invoking sanctions against it.