CFM Files
United States Delegation Journal
USDel (PC) (Journal) 40
The Records of the 8th, 9th and 10th meetings were adopted. Mr. Harriman (U.S.) made a statement in support of the U.S.-U.K. proposal for article 36 of the draft treaty. He said that the U.S. supported the principle of referring to the International Court of Justice disputes on interpretation of the treaty as these were primarily legal questions and appropriate for a court of justice in the event that they could not be settled by direct negotiation or by the three heads of missions in Bucharest. The Court could be counted on to ascertain the facts and to reach just decisions, whereas if questions were left entirely to the heads of missions, as provided under Soviet proposal, delays would result and no provision was made in case of their failure to agree, M. Bogomolov (U.S.S.R.) defended the Soviet proposal for Article 36 on grounds that it would be more practical than the U.S.-U.K. proposal and more in the spirit of the Charter of the United Nations and of the Statute of the Court of International Justice. M. Petrovsky (Ukraine) supported the Soviet proposal giving the same reasons as M. Bogomolov. A vote was taken on Article 36 and the U.S.-U.K. proposal was accepted by 8 votes to 4. The following Delegations voted in favor of it: U.S.A., Australia, Canada, France, Great Britain, India, New Zealand, Union of South Africa. The following Delegations voted against it: Byelo-Russia, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, U.S.S.R.
Mr. Officer (Australia) then gave the view of his Delegation on the proposed Article 36A concerning the revision of the treaty in the future. He said that revision might be desirable or necessary at some time and that some delegations could more easily accept some of the articles in the treaty if they knew that there was a possibility of their revision in the future. He hoped that this Conference could learn a lesson from history and provide a practical method for revision of the treaty, since conditions in Europe were not static and provision for change was only sensible. However, since a similar amendment had been rejected by the Political Commission for Finland, which had the same membership as this Commission, the Australian Delegation did not insist on putting its amendment to a vote and would content itself with the incorporation in the Record of the present statement of its views.92
[Page 444]There were no amendments to Article 37, but M. Lisicky (Czechoslovakia) referred to the observations made thereon by the Rumanian Delegation (C.P. (Rou/P) Doc. 16).93 He considered the first point raised by the Rumanians to be valid. He was not clear as to what was intended by the second point and suggested that the Rumanian Delegation be invited to express its views orally on it. Lord Hood (U.K.) explained that Article 37 as drafted was hardly open to the interpretation suggested by the Roumanians and proposed the adoption of the text in its present form. The Commission then voted on the Czechoslovak proposal to hear the views of the Rumanian Delegation; the proposal was defeated by 8 votes to 4, Byelo-Russia, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine and the U.S.S.R. voting in the negative. Article 37 was then adopted by 11 votes to 1, only Czechoslovakia voting in the negative.
Article 38 concerning ratification was then adopted unanimously.
M. Lisicky, speaking as rapporteur, called attention to several points which he wished to clear up. The first was the Australian amendment on human rights in connection with the preamble [C.P. (Gen.) Doc. 1.B.18], which has been deferred but which he understood was now being dropped. The second was the Australian drafting amendment to the last sentence of the preamble, which he understood also had been dropped. Finally, he requested the delegations which had expressed the desire to have certain statements included in the Commission’s report to communicate to the rapporteur the texts of those statements.
The Chairman declared that the Commission had completed its consideration of the articles which had been referred to it by the Secretary General of the Conference, and that the Commission would meet again at a later date to consider its report to the plenary conference.