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  4. Document 259

512.4A1A1/10–444

The Director General of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (Lehman) to the Secretary of State

Washington, October 4, 1944.

Sir: Reference is made to my communications of 15 July and 4 September 1944 dealing with two draft sanitary agreements.

You will recall that the purpose of my previous communications was to obtain the views of your Government in respect to the form and substance of these drafts so that they might be taken into account when developing the final drafts for consideration by the Council at its Second Session in Montreal.

The Council had occasion to consider this matter at the Second Session just concluded, where drafts of the International Sanitary Convention, 1944, and the International Sanitary Convention for Aerial Navigation, 1944, were presented. The Council approved in principle these preliminary drafts33 and, while recognizing that the approval in principle in no way binds the member governments to signing them, has instructed me to submit copies of both the French and English texts of these drafts to each member government for its early consideration and to request that each government transmit to me its comments and observations not later than 1 November 1944.

I am further directed by the Council to convene a special meeting of the Standing Technical Committee on Health as soon as practicable after 1 November 1944, for the purpose of preparing final drafts of the conventions, taking into account the comments received from the [Page 347] member governments, these draft conventions then to be opened for signature by the member governments not later than 15 December 1944.

In view of the urgency of the matter and the limited time at our disposal and since copies of the English texts of the drafts are now available, I am transmitting the English texts to you herewith,34 in the hope that your Government will submit to me such comments as it may desire to make not later than 1 November. The French texts of the drafts will be communicated to you as soon as they are available.

Accept [etc.]

Herbert H. Lehman
  1. For text of UNRRA Resolution No. 52, as adopted by the Council at its Second Session held in Montreal, see A Compilation of the Resolutions on Policy, p. 69; for text of conventions as finally drafted by the Health Committee, see ibid., Appendices V and VI, pp. 107–128.↩
  2. Not printed.↩