British and U.S. Jewish Groups Join in Plea for International Commission on Human Rights

The delegations of the American Jewish Conference, World Jewish Congress and Board of Deputies of British Jews today presented joint memorandum to the United Nations Conference asking for an amendment to the Dumberton Oaks Proposals to assure that human rights and fundamental freedom be “clearly and unequivocally enumerated and their observances be mandatory for all members of the United Nations Organization.”

The organizations also proposed the creation of a Commission of Human Rights in a par with the Economic and Social Committee, and asks further for a hearing at which their views and recommendations may be fully presented. The document was signed by Dr. Stephen Wise, as president of the World Jewish Congress, Henry Monsky, Dr. Israel Goldstein and Louis Lipsky, as chairmen of the Interim Committee of the American Jewish Conference and by Professor Zelig Brodetsky, president of the Board of Deputies.

The organizations united in “unqualifying support”of the memorandum submitted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine to the United Nations Conference last Wednesday which asks that Jewish rights to Palestine be “reserved and safeguarded” in any international trusteeship plan.

The progress of Fascism and Nazism is attributed in the memorandum to the lack of an international guarantee of human rights, and the war in Europe is said to have started “not with an attack on Poland but with the abolition of fundamental freedems in Germany.”

The memorandum suggests that the amendment to Dumbarton Oaks can be implemented either by the Security Council or the Social and Economic Council. It also asks that the international ocurt planned as part of the new international organization be antherized to deal with violations where action by either of the two councils fails “to bring relief.”