Page image
Page image

52

that no provision of this Convention shall be construed as entitling another contracting State to intercede on behalf of such national with his Government, as distinguished from interceding on behalf of the information agency by which he is employed." * The approach of delegations to the general subject-matter of the Committee's work was naturally conditioned not only by their traditional attitude to the freedom of the press, but also by the extent to which their countries had developed domestic and foreign press agencies. Understandably, therefore, the representatives of countries like France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States were on the whole concerned to spell out conditions which would assure to correspondents adequate facilities to gather and transmit news and to Governments the right to correct false reports. Other representatives sought to ensure that the privileges accorded foreign information agencies by the Convention should not prejudice the establishment of domestic facilities. Thus, in Latin America and the Middle East, domestic information services are still comparatively undeveloped and agencies in both regions have found difficulty in establishing themselves in face of the commercial and financial resources of older international agencies. The production and distribution of motion pictures in Latin America is an illustration. The difficulties raised by the second group of delegations were appreciated by the Committee and sections 4, 5, and 6 of Article XII of the permit States to extend preferential treatment to their own agencies. Bearing in mind the varying degrees of interest and development in this specialized and controversial field, the fact that a Convention could be drawn up and adopted by the Assembly by a vote of 33 tc 6 with 11 abstentions might well prove to be a fact of some importance in itself, although obviously its full significance can be weighed only in the light of the subsequent application of the Convention. Along with the draft convention the Assembly adopted three resolutions : (i) Referring to the Fourth General Assembly the draft Convention on Freedom of Information, and resolving not to open for signature the Convention on the International Transmission of News and Right of Correction until the General Assembly completes action on the draft Convention on Freedom of Information. (ii) Referring to the Economic and Social Council a group of v resolutions adopted at the Conference on Freedom of Information and relating to more technical aspects of the subject. (iii) Urging States to accede to the Convention when it is opened for signature and to extend the application of the Convention to any territories for which they have international responsibility.

* Article XII (8). f See Appendix.

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert