JURISTS COMMITTEE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 65, Issue 144, 31 March 1945, Page 2

JURISTS COMMITTEE.

UNITED NATIONS’ PROPOSALS SIR MICHAEL MYERS GOING. (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Mar. 30. In a statement to-day, the ActingMinister of External Affairs (the Hon. W. Nash) said that an invitation had been received from the Government of the United States, on behalf of itself and the Governments of the United Kingdom, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the Republic of China, to send a New Zealand representative to serve on the United Nations’ Committee of Jurists, for the purpose of preparing a draft of the Statute of the International Court of Justice. This invitation has been accepted, and the Government of New Zealand would be represented by the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers), who would be assisted by Mr C. C. Aikman, of the Department of External Affairs, as adviser. Meetings of the comsaitt.ee, said Mr Nash, would commence in Washington on April 3, and if its work was not completed by the time the United Nations’ Conference on World Organisation began, its sessions would he continued at San Francisco. It was announced earlier that the San Francisco conference would commence on April 25. No attempt was made during the Dumbarton Oaks conversations to prepare the statute for the International Court of Justice envisaged in chapter seven of the proposals on the establishment of a general international organisation. The Dumbarton Oaks proposals contemplated that the statute should be either the present statue of the permanent court continued in force, with such modifications as might be desirable, or a new statute, in the preparation of which the present statute should be used as a basis.