Defeat for the U.S.

A year and a half ago U.N. Secretary General Trygve Lie fired U.S. employees on his staff whom the U.S. considered disloyal. The result was a hue and cry. Twenty-one of those dismissed appealed to the U.N. Administrative Tribunal, a review board set up by the General Assembly. The tribunal held that eleven had been illegally fired, and awarded them $180,000 damages. The U.S. protested, and asked the General Assembly to overrule the tribunal.

The debate foundered on one legal question, and the Assembly put it up to the International Court of Justice: Must the General Assembly abide by a tribunal decision? The U.S. argued that since the Assembly had created the tribunal, the latter was a subordinate body which the Assembly could overrule. Last week in The Hague, the International Court ruled 9 to 3 that the tribunal is "an independent and truly judicial body," and its decisions final.

The U.S., footing a third of U.N.'s bills, will thus have to help pay off Americans ($40,000 in one case) who refused to answer congressional questions about their Communist ties.

The World Court last week dropped from its docket a $637,894 suit filed by the U.S. against Hungary and the Soviet Union. The case involved an Air Force C-47 forced down on Hungarian soil by Communist fighter planes, and then confiscated. The sum requested included the $123,605 ransom the U.S. had to pay Hungary to free the plane's four-man crew.

Hungary and Russia refused to accept the World Court's jurisdiction. Result: suit dismissed, since the court cannot force nations to accept its competence.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.