Herbert Vere Evatt
Herbert Vere Evatt
Australia's Foreign Minister who led the small and medium powers' fight against the great-power veto at San Francisco
On the emergency subcommittee with Stettinius and Gromyko, Evatt displayed 'an attitude of conciliation' and proposed the draft that on 20 June broke the deadlock over the General Assembly's powers of discussion.
An Australian Labor politician and jurist, Evatt was appointed the youngest-ever High Court justice at 36 and later served as Attorney-General and Minister for External Affairs under the Curtin and Chifley governments. At the 1945 San Francisco Conference he led the small and medium powers' resistance to the Security Council veto, submitting 38 amendments, and sat on the emergency subcommittee with Stettinius and Gromyko that resolved the deadlock over the General Assembly's powers of discussion. As President of the UN General Assembly in 1948 he guided the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and chaired the Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine that paved the way for the partition plan. He became Labor leader in 1951 but the party split over communism and three successive election defeats drove him from politics in 1960.
Career timeline
- 1925–1930MLA for Balmain, New South Wales Legislative Assembly
- 1930–1940Justice of the High Court of Australia
- 1941–1949Attorney-General and Minister for External Affairs
- 1948–1949President of the UN General Assembly
- 1951–1960ALP Leader and Leader of the Opposition
- 1960–1962Chief Justice of New South Wales