Some references have been made in the press recently to criticisms of a Canadian citizen, Mr. Stanley Ryan, who is a member of the United Nations Secretariat and who has been serving on the United Nations Committee of Inquiry in Greece. One of the officers of the United Nations Secretariat has been reported as having said that Mr. Ryan was hired by the United Nations "on the recommendation of a high official in the Canadian Department of External Affairs."

2. We have been in touch with this officer of the United Nations who denies that he made any such statement.

3. The reason I mention this is because it gives me an opportunity to explain the attitude of the Canadian Government on this whole question of the hiring by the United Nations and by specialized agencies of Canadians.

4. The general line which Canada has adopted on this whole question is mentioned on page 30 of our report on the London meeting of the General Assembly of the U.N.¹ In London we took a leading part in defeating a proposal by Yugoslavia that the governments of the members of the U.N. should be consulted over the appointment of their nationals to the United Nations Secretariat. The report states that "the Canadian delegation took the position that it would not be desirable that a government should intervene directly in putting forward national candidates for the Secretariat, since this might lead to competition among governments to secure the greatest number of posts for their nationals."

5. The provisions of the Charter on this subject are clear. The staff of the United Nations is appointed by the Secretary-General. In performing this. important duty, as in performing all his other duties, the Secretary-General is forbidden to "seek or receive instructions from any government" Moreover, each member of the U.N. has pledged itself under the Charter "to respect the exclusively international character of the responsibilities of the Secretary-General" and not to seek to influence him in the discharge of his responsibilities.

6. It would therefore be a violation of the Charter for the Canadian Government or for any other government to try to influence the Secretary-General in discharging his responsibility to appoint international civil servants. It would also be a violation of the Charter for the Secretary-General to seek instructions from any government on appointments of international civil servants.

7. The Secretary-General of the U.N. must accept under the Charter full responsibility for all appointments to the United Nations Secretariat and under the Charter the paramount consideration which must guide him in employing his staff must be "the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity"

8. He is under no obligation to insure that a Yugoslav appointed to the United Nations Secretariat is someone whom the Yugoslav Government likes and who likes the Yugoslav Government, or that a Canadian appointed to the international Secretariat is someone whom the Canadian Government likes or who likes the Canadian Government. He is under an obligation to insure that the Yugoslav or the Canadian possesses the highest possible standards of efficiency, competence and integrity.

9. The responsibility is the Secretary-General's alone and he cannot divest himself of this responsibility.

10. While the Canadian Government is glad to help the Secretary-General in any way it properly can to find Canadians for work in the international Secretariat, it has consistently refused to nominate Canadians for the international Secretariat either of the United Nations or of any of the specialized agencies.

11. The international civil service must be independent of national control and owe its allegiance to the United Nations alone. It cannot have this independence if its members owe their jobs in it to their national governments.

[E. REID]

¹Voir le volume 12, les documents 419-427.
See Volume 12, Documents 419-27.