If you read the US-UN HQ agreement (treaty), you'll see the grounds
are still under US sovereignty. It's like the Panama Canal Zone
situation was - the UN gets to act "as though it were sovereign" and
"titular" sovereignty resides in the donor country - if the host
leaves, it abandons its prerogatives, and the area reverts to the
"donor". The HQ area is treated like diplomatic territory (with
multiples of nations involved rather than just one over each plot as
with embassies), and the US agreed basically, that the US would not
administer the area, deferring the UN authority. The same formula is
followed in Geneva and Vienna.

With respect to the post office, mail from the US to the UN is
domestic, mail from the UN to the US is international (for US postal
service rates apply). However, the proceeds from sales of UN stamps
used on mail that is to transit the mailstream goes to the US postal
service, which carries all the UN's mail. The UN keeps the proceeds
only from stamps sold to collectors.

I have examples of UN stamps on insured mail from the UN where the US
postal insurance fee was paid and the insured label is the US post
office label. The cancellations used on mail are US cancellation
marks reading "United Nations". When one orders first day covers of
new UN stamps, the instructions from the UNPA say for the order to be
sent to another post office in NY off the UN grounds.

Regards

LN

--- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "adamnvillani" <avillani@u...>
wrote:

> I've read in several places that the UN headquarters in New York is
> international territory. Is this really true? Did the US cede
> sovereignty of that parcel to international authorities? Does the
> state of New York recognize this? How about the City of New York?
>
> Even though I've seen this written in several places (just google
> "United Nations" and "international territory"), it sounds fishy to
> me. If you committed a crime at the UN headquarters, would you be
> tried by an international court? That doesn't make sense.
>
> Adam