CO-OPERATION among the Fenno-Scandic countries' has had an enviably long history. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland have long had affinity for one another.2 Perhaps there is no other international region which has persevered in working out common attacks upon mutual problems as have these five small lands of the North. Much Scandinavian co-operation has been of the informal type. In 1953, acting under statutes approved by Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland, the joint efforts of these nations were placed upon a more formal basis. In that year the Nordic Council was established. The idea of a common council for the northern states had long been in the minds of many of the Nordic statesmen. In the early 1920's members of the Scandinavian parliaments found opportunity for exchange of information through the Northern Inter-Parliamentary Union. This organization held annual conferences. It was at the 28th session of the Northern InterParliamentary Conference that a proposal was made for the creation of a permanent grouping of representatives from the several Scandinavian legislatures. The conference appointed a committee to explore the possibilities for founding a permanent northern council. In December, 1951, this committee reported favorably and suggested the basis for such a council. In the following year the Inter-Parliamentary Union submitted this report as a proposal to the legislatures of the several countries in the form of a Statute. Later that year the parliaments of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland adopted the Statute, and the first meeting of the Nordic Council was held in Copenhagen in February, 1953. Finland, which had received an invitation to join, was prevented from doing so at that time because of pressure from Soviet Russia, which viewed the Council as a satellite of NATO. Russia's