The New York Times · 27 April 1988

CP-1988-118

U.S. LOSES RULING IN WORLD COURT ON P.L.O. MISSION

ARBITRATION IS ORDERED — Enforcement Powers Lacking — Judges Want a Hearing in Move to Shut Office

By PAUL LEWIS

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Transcribed from the clipping

THE HAGUE, April 26 — The World Court ruled unanimously today that the United States must submit to international arbitration in its attempt to close the Palestine Liberation Organization observer mission to the United Nations.

The court ruled that American legislation calling for the mission to be closed had created a dispute that must be settled according to arbitration procedures laid down in the 1947 treaty governing relations between the United States and the United Nations.

Although the court lacks powers to enforce its ruling, the decision represents a setback for the Reagan Administration, which has refused international arbitration. The Administration contends that there is no dispute to arbitrate because the United States has not yet closed the mission. Administration Awaits U.S.

Ruling The Administration is asking a Federal court in New York to issue an order to close the mission in accordance with legislation approved by Congress last year. But the Administration says it will not move against the mission until the American courts give a final ruling that it is obliged to do so. The legal action may take months. In Washington, Charles E.

Redman, the State Department spokesman, said the World Court ruling was “premature because the issue is still subject to litigation here,” Reuters reported. He declined to comment further. The judgment was read in French by Judge José María Ruda of Argentina, the president of the 15-member court, formally the International Court of Justice.

Two of the judges did not attend the public session. The judgment was welcomed by the United Nations representative at the hearing, Carl-August Fleischhauer, the chief legal counsel. “It corresponds with what the U.N. Secretary General has maintained all along,” he said after the session.

“We must now wait and see what effect it has on the Administration, the Congress and the U.S. courts.” The United States was not represented at the session today, and it was absent last month when Dr. Fleischhauer presented the United Nations's case to the court. The Reagan Administration submitted a short letter at the time outlining its point of view.

President Reagan had opposed the Antiterrorist Act of 1987, the legislation seeking to close the P.L.O.'s observer mission in New York as well as the group's information office in Washington. But he signed it into law because Congress attached the legislation to a State Department spending bill that the President said he could not veto. Secretary of State George P.

Shultz has described the law as “one of the dumbest things Congress did last year.” It was reported in February that a State Department legal adviser had pressed the Justice Department to delay carrying out the legislation and to invoke arbitration under the 1947 treaty. The Justice Department was said to have rejected the suggestion.

In its ruling, the World Court was responding to a resolution approved by the General Assembly at an emergency meeting March 2, when it voted to uphold the P.L.O.'s right to have an observer mission in New York and asked the court for an advisory opinion as to whether the United States should accept international arbitration. Only Israel voted against the resolution.

The United States did not take part. The ruling today does not address the fundamental question posed by the dispute, lawyers following the case said.

That question is whether the American legislation violates the terms of the 1947 treaty, known as the Headquarters Agreement, that the United States and the United Nations signed when the organization established its headquarters in New York.

How this transcription was made

Assembled from 2 scans: s065_1 is the Page A1 column, s065_2 is the jump on Page A10. The jump scan also carries a separate, unrelated story, U.N. Sets No Blame in Gulf War Gas Attack, and a house advertisement; both excluded from this record. — This is a genuine deck, not a kicker: a second-level head set in caps between rules under the main headline, followed by a third bank in smaller type. All three banks transcribed above as printed, in order. — Two clippings of one article, joined into a single image for the record (s065_1.png, s065_2.png).

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