ment has submitted a draft for an international convention
prohibiting the manufacture and use of atomic weapons,
and has proposed that by this convention atomic weapons
be declared outlawed. The Soviet draft provides that the
governments undertake to refrain from the use of atomic
weapons under an\r circumstances, to prohibit their pro-
duction, and to destroy all stocks of atomic bombs.
Further, the Soviet Government has submitted to the
Atomic Energy Commission a plan for the work of the
Commission in the initial period, which provides for the
elaboration of this convention and, likewise, for the con-
sideration of measures towards the prohibition of the
manufacture and use of atomic weapons and of all other
weapons adaptable to mass destruction. The plan also
proposes that measures be worked out to secure control
over the use of atomic energy and over the observance of
the conditions of the international convention outlawing
atomic weapons, and that a system of sanctions l>e worked
out against the unlawful use of atomic energy*-*
These proposals of the Soviet Government lia>ve not as
yet found support in the Atomic Energy Commission. Yet
it is perfectly obvious that they accord with the interests
of all peace-loving peoples, that they will serve to strength-
en confidence among the peoples, not to speak of the fact
that they follow directly from decisions already adopted
by the General Assembly.
After all, it is two decades now since an international
agreement was signed prohibiting the military use of
asphyxiating and poisonous gases and liquids, and also
bacteriological warfare. To this day, it has never occurred
to anyone to doubt the correctness of that step. We can
easily imagine how greatly the calamities and sacrifices of
the last war would have been increased, had it not been
for this prohibition of the use oif poison gases and IkjuicK
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