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Stalin, Soviets and Israeli QuestionCONCLUSION OF COUNSELOR OF THE USSR MFA B.E. STEIN'S DRAFT STATUTE OF JERUSALEM DRAFTED BY THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE OF THE COUNCIL OF TRUSTEES "
March 1, 1948
On December 1, 1947, the Trusteeship Council established an ad hoc committee to draft the Statute of Jerusalem, composed of representatives from the United Kingdom, the United States, France, China, Australia and Mexico. The representative of the United States, Gehrig, was elected Chairman of the Committee.
On January 26, 1948, the Committee approved, as a recommendation to the Trusteeship Council, the draft Statute of Jerusalem, consisting of 45 articles and a preamble.
This draft is to be discussed in the second part of the 2nd session of the Trusteeship Council. The second part of the session of the Trusteeship Council was supposed to be convened in mid-February 1948, however, there is still no information on the date for the convening of the Trusteeship Council.
The draft of the Statute of Jerusalem is mainly based on the relevant section of the UN General Assembly resolution of November 29, 1947. Nevertheless, in a number of paragraphs, the draft deviates from the relevant provisions of the resolution, and all these deviations are, from our point of view, undesirable.
The main flaw in the project is to give the Governor of Jerusalem almost unlimited power to the detriment of the rights of the Legislative Council.
Extending the relevant provisions of the November 29, 1947 resolution, the draft Statute grants the Governor the following prerogatives:
1. The resolution only says that "the governor organizes special police units," (part 111 4c).
The draft Statute says that “the governor will organize ... in such quantity as he considers necessary, ...Thus, only the governor (without any participation of the Legislative Council) is given the right to determine the number of police units (Article 5, paragraph 4).
2. This unrestricted right conferred by the Statute on the Governor is further strengthened by a special clause (33), which prohibits the Legislative Council from reducing the governor's appropriation for the maintenance of the police force.
The resolution on November 29 does not contain a corresponding decree at all.
3. The resolution says that administrative staff is provided to assist the governor (part 111 2).The draft Statute establishes a new position for the Chief Secretary, “to be appointed by the Trusteeship Council on the recommendation of the Governor,” (art. 16)
Further, this article also establishes the “Administrative Council”, which is not provided for in the resolution, consisting of the Chief Secretary and such other chief officials and citizens as the governor may appoint, ”(Article 16).
Thus, the power of the governor not only expands on its own, but is also supplemented by the power of the General Secretary and the Administrative Council, entirely subordinate to the governor and dependent on him.
4. The resolution of November 29 grants the governor “the right of veto over bills that are incompatible” with ... “the provisions set out in the Statute of the city” (part 111 5). Further, the resolution grants the Governor “the authority to issue temporary regulations in cases where the Council (Legislative) does not adopt in a timely manner bills deemed necessary for the normal functioning of the government,” (ibid.).
The draft Statute goes much further. First of all, according to article 24 of the draft, the governor is given the right to temporarily suspend the activities of the Legislative Council (the wording of this article is not clear enough). During this time, the governor can issue laws in the form of orders, which will be binding. Further, during the activity of the Legislative Council, the Governor may also issue orders having the force of law unless the Council has passed such a bill or such resolution at such time and in such a manner as the Governor may deem reasonable and appropriate. (Article 23 p. 5).
Such an expanded formulation, deviating from the November 29 resolution (which speaks only of the timeliness of the adoption of bills), gives the governor truly unlimited rights.
5. The infringement of the rights of the Legislative Council takes place in the draft Statute also in the following respects:
a) The Chairman of the Legislative Council, according to the draft Statute, may “Not be a member of the Legislative Council, (Art. 25 p. 2).
6) The budgetary right of the Legislative Council is limited by the fact that "only the governor submits budgets to the Legislative Council," (Article 33) and nothing is said about the budget initiative of the members of the Legislative Council. Another limitation was stated above (budget for the police).
c) The rights of the Legislative Council in the field of external relations are also limited, since the governor can sign agreements only by consulting the Legislative Council on these agreements (we are talking about international agreements), but without seeking either the prior or subsequent consent of the Legislative Council.
6. The rights of the governor in the field of external relations are expanded in the direction that only he agrees to accredit representatives of any state in Jerusalem. This exclusive right may lead to the fact that the governor, at his own discretion, may not agree, for example, to the accreditation of a representative of the USSR in Jerusalem. The corresponding article (article 35, paragraph 4) of the draft does not even establish an appeal against the actions of the governor to the Trusteeship Council.
7. The resolution of November 29 does not establish the so-called working languages, defining only Arabic and Hebrew as official languages. There was a struggle on this issue in the Palestinian Committee, since it was proposed to declare only English and French working languages.
Article 30 of the draft Statute establishes that English and French are the working languages.
All the provisions of the draft Statute noted above, from our point of view, should be recognized as undesirable and unacceptable.
The statute is currently being discussed by the Trusteeship Council, where, as comrade Gromyko points out, there are disagreements between the British and the Americans. While the Americans seek to strengthen the powers of the Trusteeship Council (in the issue of governing Jerusalem), the British are doing their best to expand the authority of the governor. Obviously, the American position is more advantageous for us than the British one.
The main difficulty at the moment is that the representative of the USSR is not present at this session of the Trusteeship Council. There are no states friendly to us in the Trusteeship Council, through which we could influence the results of the discussion of the Statute.
B. SteinWUA RF. F. 47. Op. 3.P. 11.D. 29.L. 1-4.