This is a brief report for information.

Since April 7 the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly has been debating two of the Draft Conventions produced by the United Nations Conference on Freedom of Information at Geneva in March and April, 1948. It has completed the text of a new draft convention incorporating, with a good many amendments, the substantive portions of the Draft Convention on the Gathering and International Transmission of News, and the Draft Convention on the Institution of an International Right of Correction. The new draft convention is entitled "Convention on the International Transmission of News and the Right of Correction". Under the First (Geneva) Draft Convention-on the Gathering and International Transmission of News-contracting states would undertake to permit the widest possible access to news for all foreign correspondents on the same basis as for national correspondents. Under the Second (Geneva) Draft Convention-on the Institution of an International Right of Correction-contracting states would set up a procedure for the correction of erroneous reports. At Geneva the Canadian delegation voted in favour of both Draft Conventions, but made a reservation on Article 4 of the First Convention, which implied an acceptance of the principle of prior censorship in peacetime.

From the Canadian point of view some difficulties have arisen in connection with Articles 4 and 9 of the Draft Convention on the Gathering and International Transmission of News.

Article 4. This article established the principle of free egress of news without censorship, except in the interests of "national military security". Our objection in principle was undermined by the discovery that we had admitted the principle of prior censorship in peacetime in the International Telecommunications Convention of 1947. In the end Article 4 was amended to provide that censorship might be exercised only in the interests of "national defence".

Article 9. This article, as adopted, contained a paragraph stating that "It is the duty of information agencies and foreign correspondents to report the facts without discrimination..:', etc. Our delegate objected to this paragraph on the grounds that enforcement of duties on correspondents would lead to the totalitarian practice of instructing correspondents as to what they might write.

The Mexican delegation which had sponsored the offending paragraph has, under pressure from the United States delegation, agreed to amendments which, if adopted, will meet our objections. Our delegate has been instructed to vote in favour of the whole Convention if these amendments are, in fact, adopted.

Since April 29 the Committee has been debating the Third of the Geneva Draft Conventions which proposed to establish certain basic freedoms of nationals and non-nationals alike to impart and receive information and opinions. The Committee has adopted a thoroughly unsatisfactory Article 2 which waters down the undertaking to guarantee the freedoms listed in Article 1. Prolonged discussion has led to a stalemate, and it is probable that further consideration will be postponed until the next General Assembly.⁷⁸

A.D.P. H[EENEY]

⁷⁸On peut lire le compte rendu de la discussion à l'Assesnblée générale dans Le Canada et les Nations Unies 1939, pp. 105-109.
For an account of the discussion in the General Assembly, see Canada and the United Nations 1949, pp. 101-105.