COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Grey River Argus, 26 August 1946, Page 5

COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

PROTECTION IN CEDED AREAS LONDON, August 21. Dr. H. V. Evatt (Australia) intends to propose to the Paris Conference the establishment of a special Court of Human Rights which would act as a court of appeal from .the decisions of national courts. It would be a final resort for justice for individuals, as well as groups of states and would have jurisdiction not only over individuals, but also over groups, special agencies and states. Explaining the purpose of the court, Dr. Evatt said that it would: (1) carry out the declarations of the Atlantic and United Nations Charters relating to basic human rights: (2) provide machinery to carry out the declarations' affecting human rights which were written” into the Deace treaties. Dr. Evatt fears that unless such machinery is provided the declarations may become dead letters. He will also ask theconference to see that the United States proposals for the protection of the rights of individuals in territories ceded by Italy should be included in all treaties. He suggests that the status of the new Court of Human Rights should be defined in, and become an ntegral part of the treaties, so that the. act of ratification would constitute the court and bind the signatories to accept its jurisdiction. The court could have special relations with the Committee on Human Rights of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Dr. Evatt will appeal to the conference to take this step to mitigate the sufferings of individuals' as a result of the war.

Committees Start Work The Hungarian Committee at the Paris conference adjourned till tomorrow after defeating by six votes to four M. Novikov’s (Russia) proposal for an immediate discussl ° n \ A woman’s voice was heard foi the first time at the conference when Dr Gertruda Sekaninove (Czechoslovakia) intervened in the Finnish Committee and supported an unsuccessful Russian proposal for the immediate discussion of the draft treaty. The Economic Committee for the Balkan countries and Finland decided to proceed with the treaty by beginning with the economic clauses of the Rumanian treaty. The committee agreed to seek the written views and hear representatives of four ex-enemy States. M. Taterescu in a statement rejected the Hungarian proposal for the ratification of the Transylvanian frontier. M. Taterescu affirmed that Rumania was against all blocs of nations and the only bloc in which she was interested was universal U.N.O. The Italian Committee adjourned till August 22 after a two-hour discussion on procedure. Finally it was decided that each article be taken up in the preliminary discussion and in the event of disagreement the committee would not try to solve it immediately but refer the problem to a sub-committee while the committee proceeded with the next article. The committee, after the conclusion of the preliminary examination would then return to the disputed articles.