U.N. Body Votes for Right of Persons to Emigrate; Soviet Abstains

A series of basic principles on the right of persons to leave and return to their own countries, which could affect emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union if the principles are finally adopted by higher United Nations bodies and heeded by the USSR, was adopted here this weekend by the Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.

The principles had been hammered out in two weeks of arduous debate and were finally voted, 10-0, at an unaccustomed Saturday session with the Soviet expert on the Subcommission, Boris S. Ivanov, abstaining. Because he was the author of the study which was the basis of the entire debate, Judge Jose D. Ingles, of the Philippines, also abstained.

The entire set of principles, embodied in a report on the rights of emigration and immigration, was part of a study on the subject prepared by Judge Ingles, a member of the 12-man subcommission acting as special rapporteur. His entire report was adopted, again with Mr. Ivanov attacking some of Judge Ingles’ data on the grounds that it was “non-objective and provocative.”

In his attack, Mr. Ivanov referred once more, as he had done earlier, to data in the Ingles report furnished by the Coordinating Board of Jewish Organizations, comprised of B’nai B’rith and the Board of Deputies of British Jews. He had also objected to the insistence on the right of persons to leave for family reunification voiced before the body earlier by Dr. Meir Rosenne, Israel’s observer and special representative to the Subcommission.

The entire Ingles report plus its guiding principles now goes to the Subcommission’s parent body, the UN Commission on Human Rights, which will meet next March in Geneva. Before they become fully effective, the Ingles report and the guiding principles must be adopted by the Economic and Social Council and, finally, by the General Assembly.