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14. Finally, by common international law, if an international conference of Government representatives is held in this country with the consent of Her Majesty's Government, full diplomatic privilege has, for the period of the conference, to be accorded to all the foreign representatives of the Governments attending it. This is recognised by Section 4 of the International Organisations (Privileges and Immunities) Act, 1950, itself, under which when such a conference is held in London, power is given to the Foreign Secretary to issue lists of the persons attend- ing it who are entitled to diplomatic immunity during the conference.

16. The diplomatic immunity of the high officials is of course open to criticism. The number of these is, however, very small because no international organisation, apart from the United Nations itself (which has ten) has been allowed to have more than one or two officials altogether in this category and of these few, if any, will be resident in the United Kingdom. (The North Atlantic Treaty agreement provides, however, for an unspecified number of very high officials; but these are likely to be three or four at the most in the foreseeable future.)

17. There are good grounds for according the present exemption from taxa- tion on the salaries of officials of international organisations:

(i) If salaries were liable to taxation they would merely be raised by the Organisation and Her Majesty's Government's contribution to the Organisation would be correspondingly increased;

(ii) Net emoluments of officials of equivalent grades could not be uniform, as is clearly desirable, if they were subject to different rates of taxation in different countries.

ANNEX II

ORDERS IN COUNCIL MADE UNDER THE DIPLOMATIC PRIVILEGES (EXTENSION) ACT, 1944, ÀS AMENDED BY THE DIPLOMATIC PRIVILEGES (EXTENSION) ACT, 1946

The Diplomatic Privileges (United Nations and International Court of Justice)

Order in Council, 1949.

The Diplomatic Privileges (International Labour Organisation) Order in Council,

1949.

The Diplomatic Privileges (International Civil Aviation Organisation) Order in

Council, 1949.

The Diplomatic Privileges (World Health Organisation) Order in Council, 1949. The Diplomatic Privileges (International Refugee Organisation) Order in Council,

1949.

The Diplomatic Privileges (Food and Agriculture Organisation) Order in Council,

1949. The Diplomatic Privileges (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural

Organisation) Order in Council, 1949.

The Diplomatic Privileges (International Refugee Organisation) Order in Council,

No. 2, 1949.

The Diplomatic Privileges (International Labour Organisation) (Amendment) Order

in Council, 1949.

The Diplomatic Privileges (World Health Organisation and International Civil

Aviation Organisation) (Amendment) Order in Council, 1949.

The Diplomatic Privileges (United Nations and International Court of Justice)

(Amendment) Order in Coucil, 1949.

The Diplomatic Privileges (Brussels Treaty Permanent Commission) (Amendment)

Order in Council, 1949.

The Diplomatic Privileges (Organisation for European Economic Co-operation)

Order in Council, 1949.

The Diplomatic Privileges (Brussels Treaty Permanent Commission) (Amendment

No. 2) Order in Council, 1949.

The Diplomatic Privileges (General Amendment) Order in Council, 1959 of 200

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