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  4. Document 40

500.C114/1939

The Department of State to the British Embassy

The Department of State refers to the memorandum of the British Embassy dated October 21, 1942 regarding the suggestion of the Foreign Office that there be created an informal inter-allied committee to make recommendations relating to the future of the Permanent Court of International Justice.

The Department of State agrees with the views of the Foreign Office that steps should be taken to examine problems connected with the Court; that the question is one which it will be necessary to consider in connection with any peace settlement; and that there would be advantage in reaching in advance an understanding among the associated governments on desired objectives.

The Department is now making a study of the situation but it feels, as previously stated, that since the Court should be so patterned as to conform to the international post-war organization, any consideration of the subject in advance of a formulation of views as to the nature of that organization must necessarily be highly speculative.

While the Department offers no objection to the desire of the Foreign Office to create an informal committee to examine the matter, it feels that it would not be prepared at this stage of its study of the question to participate to advantage in its deliberations. When the Department shall have further explored the subject, it will be glad to inform the British Government and to exchange views with that and other interested governments.

Washington , May 20, 1943.

[An informal Inter-Allied Committee, in which the United States did not participate, was created early in 1943 and held the first of its 19 meetings on May 20, 1943. The report of this Committee is printed as British Cmd. 6531, Misc. No. 2 (1944): Report of the Informal Inter-Allied Committee on the Future of the Permanent Court of International Justice, 10th February, 1944.

For an account of the drafting by the Department of State of proposals for an international court, see Department of State, Postwar Foreign Policy Preparation, 1939–1945 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1949), pages 423 ff. and appendices Nos. 15 and 58.]