78

There will be five authoritative texts in the official languages of the United Nations —that is to say, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. The English and French texts were prepared and authenticated at Havana. The text in the other three languages will be prepared by the Interim Commission and approved and authenticated by the first Conference of the Organization (see paragraph 2 of the Final Act). In various parts of the Charter reference is made to the date of the Charter which is by this Article declared to be the date of signature of the Final Kct—i.e., 24th March, 1948. ANNEXES TO THE CHARTER Annexes A to J relate to preferential systems, and have been commented upon in connection with appropriate articles. Annex K has been discussed in the section on Article 23. Annex L This annex sets out rules for the implementation of Article 78, which shall apply at first election in lieu of the rules to be established by the Conference under the provisions of that Article. Paragraph 1 provides that six seats on the Executive Board shall be reserved for countries in the Western Hemisphere. As a later paragraph of this annex provides in effect for the automatic election of the United States and Canada on the grounds of economic importance, four of these six seats are reserved for Central and South American countries. If, however, five of these latter countries do not become members of the Organization, only three of these four seats shall be filled at the first election, while if ten countries or more of the LatinAmerican geographic group do not join the Organization, only two seats shall be filled, at the first election, from this area. Any seats reserved by paragraph 1 and not filled under that paragraph shall remain unoccupied until the Conference decides by a two-thirds majority vote that they should be filled. Paragraph 2 in effect provides for the election of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and the Customs Union of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg, on the grounds of the size of their external trade, to seats on the Executive Board. The three countries with the largest population who will qualify for seats under this paragraph are China, India, and the Soviet. If any of the countries who would qualify for a seat are not Members of the Organization at the time of the election, the seats reserved for them by this paragraph will remain unoccupied until the Conference decides by a two-thirds majority vote that they should be filled.