The Tribunal of the Nations

The proud Dutchmen presiding over the 50th anniversary celebration of The Hague's Peace Palace were puzzled by the young American. There were the gilded mosaics, the varnished canvases of vanished judges, the symbolic statues in white marble, the misty murals--but the visitor seemed to be most interested in the check signed by Andrew Carnegie, the $1,500,000 gift that built the palace. Could he possibly be a relative? Well, yes, said Henry Carter Carnegie, 28. He was the great-grandson of Andrew's brother Thomas.

It was more than familial interest that brought him to the Peace Palace, Henry Carnegie hastened to add. He is a lawyer, and the palace is the home of the International Court of Justice, better known as the World Court. "One thinks about appearing before the World Court," said Carnegie, "the way one thinks about appearing before the Supreme Court of the U.S."

The Carnegie ambition is shared by many lawyers. In a time of tension, the World Court remains one of mankind's best hopes for an orderly and peaceful world. But between hope and achievement lie hosts of obstacles. Though the court was organized to settle disputes between nations, it has no police to enforce its decisions; it cannot even hear a case unless both parties to the quarrel admit its jurisdiction. The wonder is not that it has settled so few arguments, but that in its 18 years it has handed down 13 decisions that have stuck.

Islets & Enclaves. The International Court of Justice is a descendant of an earlier court with a similar name. After World War I, the Allies organized the Permanent Court of International Justice, which met for the last time shortly after World War II and formally dissolved itself to make way for the World Court created by the United Nations.

The World Court is composed of 15 judges, each from a different nation. They are elected by the U.N., serve for a nine-year term at a tax-free salary of $25,000. To assure continuity, the terms are staggered so that five expire every three years. Like the U.S. Supreme Court, the World Court decides by majority vote, and any justice is free to file his own separate opinion. The court has two distinct functions. It hands down "advisory opinions" when requested by the General Assembly, the Security Council, or any other major arm of the U.N. And as the highest international tribunal, it decides "contentious" cases submitted by national governments.

Of all its decisions thus far, only one has directly involved the U.S.--a complex wrangle in which the U.S. and France argued about the right of French authorities in Morocco to discriminate against U.S. imports, tax U.S. citizens living there, and try U.S. citizens in Moroccan courts. The World Court upheld some of the U.S. claims, rejected others. In other decisions the court has ruled that:

> Norway was entitled to reserve certain coastal waters to its own fishermen, despite Britain's objections.

>Colombia was not required to surrender Peru's leftish leader, Victor Raul Haya de la Torre, who had taken asylum in the Colombian embassy in Lima.

> Britain had to live up to treaties with Greece and submit a Greek shipowner's damage suit against Britain to binding arbitration.

> Portugal had a right of passage to two landlocked enclaves of Portuguese territory in India.

>Islets in the English Channel belonged to Britain, not France.

>Disputed borderlands in the Low Countries were Belgian, not Dutch.

> A Hindu temple on the Thailand-Cambodia border belonged to Cambodia, and Thailand was obliged to withdraw the armed guards that it had stationed at the shrine.

In all these instances the nation that lost the case abided by the international court's ruling. Under the U.N. Charter, member nations are obligated to comply with the court's decisions--and there is no appeal from them. The Charter also provides that if a nation "fails to perform" its obligations under a World Court decision, the other nation involved can complain to the Security Council, which may "decide upon measures to be taken to give effect to the judgment." Only on one occasion has a nation failed to abide by a ruling: after the court's very first decision, Albania refused to pay an indemnity that the court awarded to Britain for warships damaged by mines off the Albanian coast.

More than 30 nations--not including any Communist states--have bound themselves to accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the World Court in any dispute that may arise in the future. Among them: Britain, France, Canada, India, Japan, many of the smaller nations of Western Europe and Latin America. A U.S. declaration goes only part way: the U.S. reserves the right to determine for itself what matters fall "essentially within the domestic jurisdiction" of the U.S. and outside the scope of the World Court. Called the Connally Amendment (after the late Tom Connally, U.S. Senator from Texas), this reservation limits the U.S.'s adherence to the World Court.* And under the reciprocity, or tit-for-tat principle of international law, the Connally Amendment gives every nation involved in a dispute with the U.S. the right to claim the same sort of "domestic jurisdiction" hedge if the U.S. submits the case to the World Court.

A Safer World. Considering the makeup of the court, it is difficult to see what supporters of the Connally Amendment are afraid of. The current President of the World Court, Poland's Bohdan Winiarski, is nominally a Communist, but his is only one vote out of 15, and his term as President expires next February. The only other Communist member is a judge from Russia. Non-Communist nations represented are the U.S., Britain, France, Italy, Greece, the United Arab Republic, Japan, Nationalist China, Australia, Mexico, Peru, Panama, Argentina. In February, the World Court's members from Panama and Argentina will be replaced by newly elected judges from Pakistan and Senegal (TIME, Nov. 1).

Many a U.S. lawyer who favors extension of the rule of law in international relations has urged that the U.S. repeal the Connally Amendment. Meanwhile, in more than 400 international treaties since the end of World War II, the signatories have committed themselves to submit any dispute arising under the treaty to the World Court. Within the past few years, France and India repealed their own versions of the Connally Amendment. Back in 1945, the committee of jurists that drafted the statutes of the new World Court declared: "It is confidently expected that the jurisdiction of this tribunal will be extended as time goes on." As the expectation is gradually realized, the world may learn to lean with confidence on the rule of law.

* The U.S. has invoked the amendment only once, when Switzerland brought suit on behalf of a Swiss holding company, Interhandel, claiming assets of the General Aniline & Film Corp., which the U.S. Government had seized in 1942 as German property. Last spring the Swiss claimants agreed to a settlement under which the firm will be sold and the proceeds divided between the U.S. Government and Interhandel stockholders.

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