Judgments of the Administrative Tribunal of the ILO upon Complaints Made against Unesco - The hearings will begin on May 10th, at 10.30 a.m.

The followhg i-iofrmation from the Registry of the Lnternational

Court of Justice has been comunicated £0 the press:

In the Peace Palace on June 10th at 10.33 an,, the Court will .
begin its hearings in the matter af the request for an Advisory Opinion
concerning the effect of awards made by the United Nations Administra-bive
Tribunal.

The request for an Advisory Opinion was trmsmitted to the Court, by
the General Assembly of the United Nat ions under a Resolution dat ed

December qth, 1953. The circumstances leading up to the adoption of
this Fiesolution are as follows:

The Secretary-General af the United Nations dismissed twenty-one
staff members of the Secretariat. The lakter appealedto the Adminis-
trative Tribunal on the ground that their dismissalwas brregular, In
eleven cases the Tribunal found in favour of th& applicants and ordered
that compensation shouldbe paid to them. The Secretary-Gsneral then
proposed to the Assembly, at the Autumnsession of 13.53 t,at an appmpriation
'8 correspondsn &the total of the awards made, nmely, approxlmately

$ 1B0,000, should be inserted in the Budget.

When the Fifth (~ud~etary) Gammittze of Lhz Assemblywas seisedof
th8 .Secretary-General i s proposal, a discussion took place as to what action
should be 'taken in pursuance thereof. A certein nmber of representakives
were of the'opinion thatthe Assemblywas bound to pay the,compensabiong
others considered not only that the Asseriibly was entitled to review the
decisiona of the Achhistrative Tribunal, Sut also th& it. could and should
refuseto pay the carnpensation; and findly, some representativew sere of the
opinion that the Assernbly had the power to alter the &~zountof the

compensation. In short, the issue involved the powcrs of the bssembly in
respect of a decision. of the kdni~is rtative'Tribunal involving financial
eonsequences; or, in othar words, the effacts of such decisionç.

31 the circwrs tznces , several representatives proposed that the Court
should be requested to give an hdvisory Opinion on the legal aspects of
the question. The Besoltition ado~ted for this purpose by the Fifth .
a Committee and iubsequently by thehssembly is as follows :

The Gencral hssembls,

Considerin tge requestfor a supplementary appropriation. of
$ 179,&0, made by the Secretary-Generi an his rcport (~/2534)
for the purpose of covsring the awards made by the United'Mations
Administrative Tribunal in eleven cases numbered26, and 37 to
46 inclusive,

Considering the concurrence in thnt appropriation by the lidvisory
Committ eo on Adrninistrative and Eudget ary [lestions cont ained in
Tts twenty-fourth report to the eighth sessionof the GcneraL
kssembly(k/25€Q) ,

Considering, nevertheless, that important leg&1 questions have

been raised in the course of ckbate in the Fifth Conmittee wlth
respect to th~t apprcipriation, To submit the following legalquestions to the International
Court of Justice for an ~dvisory opinion: ,

"(1) 'Havhg regard ta the Ststute of the United Nations Adminis-
trative Tribunal dnd to any other relevmt instruments and
to the relevant records, has the General hssemblythe right
on atiy'grounds to refuse to give effect ta an awcrdof .

conipensalion mzde by that Tribunal in favour of a staff
memberof the United Nztions *ose contract af service has
becn terminzted without his assent?

(2) If the mswer given by the Court to question (1)is in the
affirmtive, whatsre the principd groundç upan which the
Generzl fiss embly could l~~dully exerciç e such 2 right?"

Having baen seised of the roquestfor an opinion, the Court, in

pursuance of Article 66, paragrapb 2, 8f its Statute, informed the Members
of qthe United Nations, as wcii as the international Labour Organisation
that it considered thern as likeiyto bo able ta furnish infornation on the
question md that it was prepared io receive Flritten StzLements from £hem,
Meroh 15th, 1954, was fixed as the tirne-lhit withùi which such kJiiiten (.
Statement night be presented .

The International Labour Orgmis~kian, 2s kll as the following
States (inthe .order in which theircornunication were received in the
~egist ry') have avclilcd thanselves of $ha right to subrnit blritten Statement :s
Frm~e, Swcden, th2 Metherlads , ~rekce, the United .Kingdom, the United

States of herica, ths Philippines ,exico, Chile, Ircq, China, Guatemala,
Turkey uid Ecuador. Furthemore, the Socretary-Gmeral of theUnited
Nations transmitted to the Court ' documents h'nich were likely to throw
lighk upon the question, as well as a Written Staf;¢i~~ent. Finally, the
Governments of Canada, the Union of Soviet SocLiList Republics, Yugoslavia,
Czechoslovakia andEgypt, whilst not filing Written St~tements, have
declared that they referred to the views eqressed by their representatives ,
in the debates of the Asçaably,

The Witten Stztements were eor~~rmiczted
to thc States who had been
infonned by the Court, that it was prepared to hear thern, 2s ml1 as.to the
International Labou~ Orgnni aiion; zt the scme tirne, they were notif ied
that the Court would heu. oral stoternents nt tha beginning of the monthof 0
June, 1954. The Secretary-Geners ol the United Nzkions, as rvell as the
Crovemments of the Unitcd States of :merica, Frmce , Grce ce, the United
Kingdom ad the Netherlturds, have signified their intention of being
representedat the oral proceedings; the Intaimztional Labour Organisation
has inform~d the Court thzt it is not its intention to subrnit 2n oral
statemznt unless the Court should requestfurther information supplementing
the Written Stat ement submitted by the Interng.ttiona1 Labour Organisation.

The nmes of the reprisentntivcs of the Secrct~ry-General of the

United Nations and af the States will be com~iu~icat ed subsequently.