Foreword The Draft Charter for a proposed International Trade Organization of the United Nations, contained in this document, was approved on August 22, 1947, at Geneva, Switzerland, by the Preparatory Committee of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment, consisting of representatives of 17 nations. This Committee was constituted by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations by resolution of February 18, 1946, on which date the Council resolved to call the United Nations Conference. The Draft Charter is embodied in the Report of the Second Session of the Preparatory Committee to the Economic and Social Council, presented herewith, which gives an account of the various steps which have been taken by the Preparatory Committee. In 1945 the United States Government published its Proposals for Expansion of World Trade and Employment (Department of State publication 2411, Commercial Policy Series 79). The principles set forth in the Proposals were elaborated in the form of a Suggested Charter for an International Trade Organization of the United Nations published by this Government in September 1946 (Department of State publication 2598, Commercial Policy Series 93). The Preparatory Committee used the Suggested Charter as a basic document in its discussions at its first meeting in London in October and November 1946. In December 1946 the Department of State published a document, Preliminary Draft Charter for the International Trade Organization of the United Nations (Department of State publication 2728, Commercial Policy Series 98) which has come to be known as the "London Draft". This document included articles drafted by the Preparatory Committee at its first session in London as well as certain articles from the original United States Suggested Charter on which the Preparatory Committee had taken no action. A drafting committee of representatives of the members of the Preparatory Committee met in New York in January and February 1947 and made further revisions in the Preliminary Draft. The "New York Draft" was the working document of the Preparatory Committee at its Second Session which opened in Geneva on April 10, 1947. The Department of State is publishing the Preparatory Committee's report for the purpose of facilitating public discussion of the Draft Charter in advance of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment which the Economic and Social Council has called to meet at Habana, Cuba, on November 21, 1947. 761239 0-47 Enclosure I. Extracts from the Interim Report of the Second Session of the Preparatory Committee to the Fifth Session of the Economic and Social Enclosure 2. -Resolutions adopted at the Fifth Session of the Economic and Social Council relating to the Interim Report of the Second Session REPORT OF THE SECOND SESSION OF THE PREPARATORY COMMITTEE OF THE UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON TRADE AND EMPLOYMENT (adopted by the Preparatory Committee 22 August 1947) Part I. I. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PREPARATORY COMMITTEE INTRODUCTION The Economic and Social Council at its First Session resolved on 18 February 1946 to call an International Conference on Trade and Employment for the purpose of promoting the expansion of production, exchange and consumption of goods. At the same time the Council constituted a Preparatory Committee to elaborate for the Conference an annotated draft agenda, including a draft convention, taking into account suggestions which might be submitted by the Council itself or by any member of the United Nations. The Council also charged the Preparatory Committee with presenting recommendations regarding the date and place of the Conference on Trade and Employment and which States, if any, non-members of the United Nations, should be invited to the Conference. 2. STAGES IN THE WORK OF THE PREPARATORY COMMITTEE The First Session of the Preparatory Committee was held in London from 15 October to 26 November 1946. In the course of this Session, a draft Charter for an International Trade Organization was prepared and embodied in a report which was distributed as document E/PC/T/33 and published. The First Session appointed a Drafting Committee to meet as soon as possible after the First Session for the purpose of editing the draft Charter produced in London. The Drafting Committee met in New York from 20 January to 25 February 1947 and recorded the results of its work in a report which was distributed as document E/PC/T/34 and later published. The Second Session of the Preparatory Committee was convened at the European Office of the United Nations in Geneva on 10 April 1947. During the course of this Session, the Preparatory Committee transmitted to the Fifth Session of the Economic and Social Council an interim report indicating the proposed outlines of the annotated draft agenda and convention which were being prepared for the full Conference and presenting recommendations concerning the date and place of the Conference and the non-members of the United Nations which might be invited to the Conference. The relevant sections of this interim report are reproduced in Enclosure I to the present Report. The resolutions adopted by the Economic and Social Council relating to the recommendations in the interim report are reproduced in Enclosure 2. In accordance with those resolutions, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment is to be convened on 21 November 1947 at Havana, Cuba. The Secon Session of the Preparatory Committee continued the preparation of the draft Charter or convention. The draft adopted by Session as a basis for discussion at the World the Preparatory Committee at the Second Conference appears as Part II of the present Report. Although the Preparatory Committee has reached a large measure of agreement on the text to be recommended to the full Conference, it will be noted that the text is accompanied by a number of notes indicating the reservations which have been made and the interpretations of the text which are thought necessary in order to make the exact intention clear. Some of these latter notes enabled reservations to be withdrawn. In view of the fact that changes have been made in the text of the draft Charter as it has progressed through the Preparatory Committee, and particularly in view of the fact that the order of the articles has been rearranged, the present report contains as Enclosure 4 tables setting forth in parallel columns the identifying numbers of comparable provisions in the versions of the draft Charter issued by the New York Drafting Committee and by the Second Session of the Preparatory Committee in order to facilitate a determination of the relationship between the present text and the earlier version. In its present Report, the Preparatory Committee has refrained from enunciating in detail the principles underlying the draft Charter. It was felt by the Preparatory Committee that the observations presented in Part II of the Report of the First Session represented a general statement of the guiding principles which have been followed and developed in the work of the First Session, the Drafting Committee and the Second Session. Although the Report of the Second Session will constitute the agenda and basic "working paper" at the |