DRAFT CONVENTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27078, 12 May 1949, Page 7

DRAFT CONVENTION

INTERNATIONAL TRANS- ' MISSION OF NEWS Rec. 10 p.m. NEW YORK, May 10. The United Nations Qeneral Assembly’s Social Committee to-day approved by 27 votes to 4, with 12 abstentions, the draft convention on the international transmission of news and the right of correction. The convention now goes to the assembly’s plenary session where it must be approved, by a two-thirds majority in order to have the force of an international convention.

The draft convention is the first attempt on an international level to set down definite principles, rights, and obligations for those dealing with transmitting news across national borders. By a previous decision the committee shelved a proposed international convention on the freedom of information until the assembly’s September meeting. If the draft approved in the to-day is approved by tMffull assembly during this session*' tffißßMlannfe.'be- .open ior signature travel territories for foreign. cofi , dspQpseti:tS| Secondly, foreign correspondents, shall have equal access to news, qnd as far as possible, on the same basis as domestic correspondents. Thirdly, there shall be no peacetime censorship except for national defence and then only according to a rigid formula. Fourthly, no foreign correspondent shall be expelled from a contracting State on account of .any lawful exercise of the right to collect and reDort news. Fifthly, foreign correspondents shall have equal access to all international news transmission facilities in a contracting State. Sixthly, a contracting State may send a factual correction of an allegedly false and distorted despatch likely to harm its international relations to other contracting States in which the amending despatch was distributed. These States In turn musi release the correction to the press, but newsnapers would not be obliged to oublish it.