HC Deb 24 January 1949 vol 460 cc73-4W
39. Mr. Platts-Mills

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why the British delegation in the Third Committee in the United Nations General Assembly on 22nd October, 1948, voted against the Soviet proposal to add to Article IV of the draft International Declaration of Human Rights an addendum whereby slavery and the slave trade would be prohibited in all their aspects, and requiring all violations of this principle, whether they be of an overt or clandestine nature, to be punished according to law.

Mr. Mayhew

The United Kingdom Delegation voted in favour of Article IV (1) of the proposed Declaration of Human Rights which reads as follows:

"No one shall be held in slavery or involuntary servitude."

The United Kingdom delegation voted against the proposed Soviet addition to this Article because the first part of the addition added nothing to the Article in the form in which it had already been approved, and because the second part was quite inappropriate in a document of the nature of the Declaration.