Office of the Historian

501.AC/12–347

The Legal Adviser of the Department of State (Gross) to the Director of the Legal Department, Secretariat of the United Nations (Feller)

Washington, December 3, 1947.

My Dear Mr. Feller: Reference is made to my letter of September 11, 1947 to Dr. Ivan Kerno,2 regarding the meaning of Article VII of the Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations.3

Before giving further consideration to this matter, the Department of State would appreciate receiving a statement from the United Nations indicating the specific circumstances under which United Nations, personnel may be required to travel on United Nations laissez-passers without having a national passport in their possession.

It would also be helpful in the consideration of the problem if the United Nations could indicate whether it could assume responsibility for seeing that a laissez-passer is not issued to an employee of the United Nations unless:

1.
The country of which he is said to be a national on the laissez-passer has assumed the obligation, prior to the issuance of the laissez-passer,
(a)
to recognize as true the statements in such document concerning identity and nationality, and
(b)
to permit the entry into that country of the person said to be a national thereof on the laissez-passer, in the event his status as a United Nations employee is terminated, or
2.
The United Nations has ascertained that a country other than the one of which such employee is said to be a national on the laissez-passer has agreed to receive him in the event his status as United Nations employee is terminated.

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This may be accomplished by amending Article VII of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations. Consideration may also be given to a supplementary agreement.

Sincerely yours,

Ernest A. Gross
  1. Ibid., p. 53 Dr. Ivan S. Kerno was United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Legal Affairs.↩
  2. For text of Article VII, see p. 42; for text of the General Convention (as it came to be known), see United Nations, Official Records of the General Assembly, First Session, Part I, Resolutions, p. 25.↩