The establishment of a United Nations Conciliation Committee, before which governments can be brought on charges of violation of religious rights, was recommended here by a United Nations body for the first time in history. The recommendation, which must ultimately be approved by the UN General Assembly, was approved by a vote of 11 in favor with two opposed and one abstention as the three-week long religious freedoms debate was concluded here today by the Sub commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.
The negative votes in the 14-member body were cast by the Soviet Union, which has been fighting the adoption of a religious freedoms Convention for several years; and by Mexico which is constitutionally opposed to the practice of any religion. Poland, which has been on the whole supporting the USSR’s fight against a religious freedoms document, abstained. The United States, Britain and France were among those who approved the proposal.
The adoption of the proposal for what may ultimately be an International Court of Religious Freedoms came as a culmination to the Sub commission’s approval of a United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Religious Intolerance. Many of the basic articles in the Convention are aimed directly against the USSR’s denial of religious rights to Jews in the Soviet Union.
Under the rules for implementing the Convention, Sir Arcot Krishnaswami, of India, proposed the formation of the Conciliation Committee, before which any state that has ratified the Convention may bring charges against any other such state. These charges will have to be subjected to probing by the committee, which will have to report on the issue. The state found guilty of religious freedoms violations could, then, take the matter to the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion. It was Sir Arcot’s proposal that was finally adopted.
Under the Convention, all states–including the Soviet Union–will have to permit to all practitioners of religion the fullest rights to practice their beliefs, to conduct schools for teaching their faith, to organize national and regional groupings propagating their faith, to make available the dietary articles needed by those religious practitioners, to permit association with like-minded religious groups abroad, and to permit pilgrimages to holy shrines abroad.
The entire Convention was considered by all members of the Sub commission–except the Soviet representatives–as a historic milestone in United Nations affirmation of the rights of all people everywhere–including the Jews in the USSR–to enjoy fullest religious rights.
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