.... Shabtai Rosenne, former Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations Office at Geneva and member of the UN's International Law Commission, notes that:

• It is an historical fact, which nobody has ever attempted to deny, that the negotiations between the members of the Security Council, and with the other interested parties, which preceded the adoption of that resolution, were conducted on the basis of English texts, ultimately consolidated in Security Council document S/8247. [...] Many experts in the French language, including academics with no political axe to grind, have advised that the French translation is an accurate and idiomatic rendering of the original English text, and possibly even the only acceptable rendering into French."[...] "[o]n the question of concordance, the French representative [to the 1379th meeting of the Security Council on November 16, 1967] was explicit in stating that the French text was "identical" with the English text.[21]

He also states:

• It is known from an outside source that the sponsors resisted all attempts to insert words such as "all" or "the" in the text of this phrase in the English text of the resolution, and it will not be overlooked that when that very word "all" erroneously crept into the Spanish translation of the draft, it was subsequently removed.[22]

Only English and French were the Security Council's working languages (Arabic, Russian, Spanish and Chinese were official but not the working languages).

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America argues the practice at the UN is that the binding version of any resolution is the one voted upon. In the case of 242 that version was in English, so they assert the English version the only binding one.[23] Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy points out that this was indeed the position held by the United States and United Kingdom:

• ... both the British and the Americans pointed out that 242 was a British resolution; therefore, the English language text was authoritative and would prevail in any dispute over interpretation.[24]

The French representative to the Security Council, in the debate immediately after the vote, asserted:

• the French text, which is equally authentic with the English, leaves no room for any ambiguity, since it speaks of withdrawal "des territoires occupés", which indisputably corresponds to the expression "occupied territories" We were likewise gratified to hear the United Kingdom representative stress the link between this paragraph of his resolution and the principle of inadmissibility of the acquisition of territories by force....[25]

Opponents of the "all territories" reading remind that the UN Security Council declined to adopt a draft resolution including the definite article way prior to the adoption of Resolution 242. They argue that, in interpreting a resolution of an international organization, one must look to the process of the negotiation and adoption of the text. This would make the text in English, the language of the discussion, take precedence.

21. ^ Rosenne, Shabtai. On Multi-Lingual Interpretation -UN Security Council Res 242, Israel Law Review, Vol. 6, 1971; reprinted in The Arab-Israeli Conflict, Vol. II: Readings, ed. John Norton Moore (Princeton University Press, 1974).
22. ^ Rosenne cites Arthur Lall, The U.N. and the Middle East Crisis (196 at 253-4. Rosenne states "Ambassador Lall had earlier been Deputy Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations, and although in 1967 he held a teaching post at Columbia University, in the City of New York, he is widely regarded as reflecting the views of the Indian delegation, which at that time was a member of the Security Council."
23. ^ Link to article on CAMERA website
24. ^ David A. Korn, "The Making of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242" (Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, 1992), pg. 12.
25. ^ UN Transcription of session referring to Chapter VI prior to the introduction of the Resolution, paragraph 111

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...Resolution_242


Also from the same link

......

The Common Law legal principle expressio unius est exclusio alterius (which, for Common Law jurisdictions such as the UK and USA, states that the terms excluded from a law must be considered as excluded intentionally) is cited by some[citation needed] as operating against an "all territories" reading. Arab states specifically requested that the resolution be changed to read "all territories" instead of "territories." Their request was discussed by the UN Security Council. However, it was rejected. The Security Council actively chose to reject writing "all territories" and instead wrote "territories." And it was this version, without "all" that was passed. Others insist that the legal principle in question cannot operate so as to create ambiguity.

Per Lord Caradon, the chief author of the resolution:

• It was from occupied territories that the [r]esolution called for withdrawal. The test was which territories were occupied. That was a test not possibly subject to any doubt as a matter of fact...East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan and Sinai were occupied in the 1967 conflict. I[t] was on withdrawal from occupied territories that the Resolution insisted.[26]

Lord Caradon also maintains,

• We didn't say there should be a withdrawal to the '67 line; we did not put the 'the' in, we did not say all the territories, deliberately.. We all knew - that the boundaries of '67 were not drawn as permanent frontiers, they were a cease-fire line of a couple of decades earlier... We did not say that the '67 boundaries must be forever.[27]

27. (MacNeil/Lehrer Report - March 30, 197

They understood what they were voting on. And they did not say ALL the territories DELIBERATELY.