500.C115 Paris/12–545
Memorandum by the Legal Adviser (Hackworth) to Mr. Edward Miller, Jr., Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State (Acheson)
Mr. Miller: I have examined your memorandum of December 5, 1945, with regard to the proposed amendment of the language in the Omnibus Bill so as to conform it with the obligations that will be imposed on the United States by reason of the recent amendment of the ILO constitution.
It is noted that Article 6 of the instrument for the amendment of the constitution of the ILO provides in Section 2 as follows:
“This instrument of amendment will come into force in accordance with the existing provisions of Article 36 of the Constitution of the International Labour Organisation. If the Council of the League of Nations should cease to exist before this instrument has come into force, it shall come into force on ratification or acceptance by three-quarters of the Members of the Organisation.”
Article 36 of the ILO constitution, to which reference is made, reads as follows:
“Amendments to this part of the present Treaty which are adopted by the Conference by a majority of two-thirds of the votes cast by [Page 1556] the Delegates present shall take effect when ratified by the States whose representatives compose the Council of the League of Nations and by three-fourths of the Members.”
So long as the United States, which, of course, is not a member of the Council of the League of Nations, intends to have the amendment of the constitution become effective as to it by reason of its ratification by three-fourths of the other States rather than by any action on its own part, formal ratification, of course, will not be necessary. Assuming from your memorandum that such is the plan, I see no objection whatever to the proposed amendment of the Omnibus Bill in the manner suggested by you.50
- Specific authorization of appropriations for the expenses of membership and participation by the United States in the International Labor Organization under the ILO constitution as amended by the Instrument for Amendment of the Paris Conference was requested in a general bill introduced by the Department and later embodied in H.R. 6602, introduced by Mr. Bloom and referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. The Congress adjourned before action was taken on this measure.↩