Registrar in Psychiatry of Learning Disability, West Midlands Rotational Scheme, Brooklands, Marston Green and Ashok Roy, Consultant Psychiatrist, North Warwickshire NHS Trust, Brooklands, Marston Green, Birmingham.Previous research has observed an accumulation of inpatients in admission facilities for people with a learning disability. This study looks at a sample of 21 patients who had been admitted for more than three months in admission facilities managed by an NHS Trust, and identifies diagnosis, circumstances leading to admission, and discharge planning. Almost all were appropriate for discharge, but could not be discharged because of lack of appropriate non-hospital facilities for people with a learning disability and a severe psychiatric disorder or behaviour problem. It is recommended that health and social services commissioners jointly invest in community-based services and skilled staff to reduce the inappropriate use of hospital beds.

II. THE HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT WITHIN THE UNITED NATIONS THE UN Charter, which came into force ton 24 October 1945, contains several provisions which emphasise respect for human rights. In particular, Article 1(3) provides that one of the purposes of the organisation is "to achieve international cooperation ... in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion". Article 68 gave effect to this purpose by obliging the Economic and Social Council to establish a commission or commissions for the promotion of human rights. A Commission on Human Rights was accordingly established which at its first session in early 1947 set up a committee, including a UK member, Lord Dukeston, to formulate the preliminary draft of an international bill of human rights. 7 Within the Foreign Office it was considered that the United Kingdom would make a positive contribution to the work of the committee if it were to submit a draft text of such a bill. The initiative appears to have come from W. E. (later Sir Eric) Beckett, Legal Adviser to the Foreign Office, who was chairman of the Working Party on Human Rights established by the Cabinet Office Steering Committee on International Organisations. 8 It was within this Working Party, on which a number of government departments were represented, that the text of the UK draft bill was elaborated. In a letter to Attlee dated 31 May 1947, the Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Hector McNeil, wrote: 9 In view of the extremely good record of this country in the matter of human rights we have thought it desirable that we should put in some suggestions of our own for a draft and we have given the United Nations to understand that we shall be doing this. McNeil pointed out that the draft, which it was proposed to publish as a non-parliamentary paper, was merely a preliminary statement of some suggestions which might become part of the final text, and did not commit the government. He went on: I do not think that Cabinet Ministers would wish at this stage to take our draft Bill in Cabinet. On the other hand, in view of the lively public interest in human rights as a subject, I would appreciate your covering authority for the action proposed in regard to publicity.

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This article is based on papers delivered at a staff seminar, Law Faculty, Australian National University, Canberra, in September 1987, and at the Cambridge meeting of the International Law Association in April 1988. 1. The archival material cited is from Public Record Office groups FO (Foreign Office), CAB (Cabinet Office), PREM (Prime Minister's Office), LO (Law Officers' Department) and LCO (Lord Chancellor's Office). In the case of the main Foreign Office political class, FO 371, the reference to the original Foreign Office file is also given to facilitate finding. Apart from FO 371 and the files of the Cabinet and Cabinet Committee minutes, most of the other files consulted consist of unfoliated papers, many of them typed "flimsies" on poor quality paper, contained within crumbling raanila file-jackets or folders. One must be apprehensive about their chances of longevity. Crown copyright material in the Public Record Office is reproduced by permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office. 773 (1988) 37 I.C.L.Q. 2. For official narrative accounts of British diplomatic involvement in the Suez Canal crisis, sec a secret print of the Cabinet Office dated 21 October 1957, "Memorandum on relations between the United Kingdom, the United States and France in the months following Egyptian nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company in 1956" (written by G. E. Millard, one of the Prime Minister's private secretaries at the time); see also "Memorandum on the diplomatic exchanges and negotiations from the Egyptian nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company on July 26 1956 to the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Egypt on October 29 1956" (written by D. A. Logan, an assistant private secretary to the Foreign Secretary at the time). Both documents are in FO 800/728.