An international lawyer who worked the UN’s procedures
On June 25, 1950, he reported on Korea and steered the Security Council’s procedure toward a vote on the resolution.
Ernest A. Gross was an international lawyer and U.S. diplomat whose work joined legal counsel, postwar administration, and representation of American policy at the United Nations. When the Korean War began in June 1950, he led the U.S. delegation and managed the Council’s procedures and voting so that Resolution 82 could be adopted. The result was a diplomatic success made possible by the Soviet delegate’s absence, but it also exposed the tension between collective security and great-power rivalry. He later practiced international law, assisting the Tibetan government in exile and challenging South Africa’s apartheid policy.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1931–1933Legal adviser, U.S. Department of State
- 1940–1943Associate counsel, National Labor Relations Board
- 1943–1945Chief, economic section, Civil Affairs Division, U.S. Army General Staff
- 1945–1949Legal adviser and deputy to the Assistant Secretary for Occupied Areas, U.S. Department of State
- 1949Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs
- 1949–1953Deputy U.S. representative to the UN, acting head of delegation in 1949–1950
- 1953–1999Lawyer, Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle
- 1959–1960UN lobbyist and adviser for the Tibetan government in exile
- 1960년대Brought a case before the World Court challenging South African apartheid
Related historical events
State Department Legal Adviser and Signing the Genocide Convention, 1947–1949
After the war Gross returned to the State Department, serving both as Legal Adviser and as deputy to the Assistant Secretary of State for Occupied Areas (Gen. John H. Hilldring, then, from 1947, Charles E. Saltzman). His formal tenure as Legal Adviser ran from his appointment on July 21, 1947, and entry on duty on August 16, 1947, to termination of appointment on March 3, 1949; from March through October 1949 he was Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs.
The signature act of this period came on December 11, 1948, at the signing ceremony in Paris, where Gross signed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on behalf of the United States. The Convention was adopted by the General Assembly on December 9, 1948, and was the first human rights treaty it adopted unanimously; conceived largely in response to the atrocities of the Second World War, it was the first legal instrument to codify genocide as a crime. Signature and ratification were separate steps, so the U.S. signature that Gross affixed did not itself bring the country into the treaty regime. Keeping Gross's 1947–1949 departmental service distinct from his later United Nations work shows that his delegation activity rested on this earlier legal-adviser and congressional-relations experience.