Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

pluralistic institutions. Similarly in the international arena stability requires a certain equilibrium of power. Our basic foreign policy objective inevitably must be to shape a stable and cooperative global order out of diverse and contending interests.

But this is not enough. Preoccupation with interests and power is at best sterile and at worst an invitation to a constant test of strength. The true task of statesmanship is to draw from the balance of power a more positive capacity to better the human condition-to turn stability into creativity, to transform the relaxation of tensions into a strengthening of freedoms, to turn man's preoccupations from self-defense to human progress. An international order can be neither stable nor just without accepted norms of conduct. International law both provides a means and embodies our ends. It is a repository of our experience and our idealism-a body of principles drawn from the practice of states and an instrument for fashioning new patterns of relations between states. Law is an expression of our own culture and yet a symbol of universal goals. It is the heritage of our past and a means of shaping our future.

The challenge of international order takes on unprecedented urgency in the contemporary world of interdependence. In an increasing number of areas of central political relevance, the legal process has become of major concern. Technology has driven us into vast new areas of human activity and opened up new prospects of either human progress or international contention. The use of the oceans and of outer space, the new excesses of hijacking, terrorism, and warfare, the expansion of multinational corporations will surely become areas of growing dispute if they are not regulated by a legal order.

The United States will not seek to impose a parochial or selfserving view of the law on others. But neither will we carry the quest for accommodation to the point of prejudicing our own values and rights. The new corpus of the law of nations must benefit all peoples equally; it cannot be the preserve of any one nation or group of nations.

The United States is convinced in its own interest that the extension of legal order is a boon to humanity and a necessity. The traditional aspiration of Americans takes on a new relevance and urgency in contemporary conditions. On a planet marked by interdependence, unilateral action and unrestrained pursuit of the national advantage inevitably provoke counteraction and therefore spell futility and anarchy. In an age of awesome weapons of war, there must be accommodation or there will be disaster.

Therefore there must be an expansion of the legal consensus, in terms both of subject matter and participation. Many new and important areas of international activity, such as new departures in technology and communication, cry out for agreed international rules. In other areas, juridical concepts have advanced faster than the political will that is indispensable to assure their observance-such as the U.N. Charter provisions governing the use of force in international relations. The pace of

legal evolution cannot be allowed to lag behind the headlong pace of change in the world at large. In a world of 150 nations and competing ideologies, we cannot afford to wait upon the growth of customary international law. Nor can we be content with the snail's pace of treaty-making as we have known it in recent years in international forums.

We are at a pivotal moment in history. If the world is in flux, we have the capacity and hence the obligation to help shape it. If our goal is a new standard of international restraint and cooperation, then let us fashion the institutions and practices that will bring it about.

Secretary Kissinger then set forth the United States view on the law of the sea, outer space, the laws of war, and international economics, including the activities of transnational enterprises. The following is the concluding portion of his address:

Since the early days of the Republic, Americans have seen that their nation's self-interest could not be separated from a just and progressive international legal order. Our Founding Fathers were men of law, of wisdom, and of political sophistication. The heritage they left is an inspiration as we face an expanding array of problems that are at once central to our national well-being and soluble only on a global scale.

The challenge of the statesman is to recognize that a just international order cannot be built on power but only on restraint of power. As [Justice] Felix Frankfurter said, "Fragile as reason is and limited as law is as the institutionalized expression of reason, it is often all that stands between us and the tyranny of will, the cruelty of unbridled, unprincipled, undisciplined feeling." If the politics of ideological confrontation and strident nationalism become pervasive, broad and humane international agreement will grow ever more elusive and unilateral actions will dominate. In an environment of widening chaos, the stronger will survive and may even prosper temporarily. But the weaker will despair and the human spirit will suffer.

The American people have always had a higher vision-a community of nations that has discovered the capacity to act according to man's more noble aspirations. The principles and procedures of the Anglo-American legal system have proven their moral and practical worth. They have promoted our national progress and brought benefits to more citizens more equitably than in any society in the history of man. They are a heritage and a trust which we all hold in common. And their greatest contribution to human progress may well lie ahead of

us.

The philosopher Kant saw law and freedom, moral principle and practical necessity, as parts of the same reality. He saw law

as the inescapable guide to political action. He believed that sooner or later the realities of human interdependence would compel the fulfillment of the moral imperatives of human aspiration.

We have reached that moment in time where moral and practical imperatives, law and pragmatism point toward the same goals.

The foreign policy of the United States must reflect the universal ideals of the American people. It is no accident that a dedication to international law has always been a central feature of our foreign policy. And so it is today-inescapably-as for the first time in history we have the opportunity and the duty to build a true world community.

See Dept. of State Bulletin, Vol. LXXIII, No. 1889, Sept. 8, 1975, pp. 353–362.

[blocks in formation]

The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), in a Final Act signed at Helsinki on August 1, 1975, by the United States and the 34 other participating states, adopted a Declaration on Principles Guiding Relations between Participating States, Principle X of which provides, in part:

The participating states will fulfill in good faith their obligations under international law, both those obligations arising from the generally recognized principles and rules of international law and those obligations arising from treaties or other agreements, in conformity with international law, to which they are parties.

For the full text of the CSCE Declaration on Principles Guiding Relations between Participating States, see post, Ch. 2, § 1, pp. 8-12. For reference to other provisions of the Final Act of the CSCE, see index entries, this Digest, under Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) (1975).

[blocks in formation]

The Declaration on Principles Guiding Relations between Participating States, adopted in the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe at Helsinki on August 1, 1975, states in Principle X:

In exercising their sovereign rights, including the right to determine their laws and regulations, they [the participating States] will conform with their legal obligations under international law; .

For the full text of the CSCE Declaration on Principles Guiding Relations between Participating States, see post, Ch. 2, § 1, pp. 8-12. For reference to other provisions of the Final Act of the CSCE, see index entries, this Digest, under Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) (1975).

Chapter 2

SUBJECTS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

§ 1 States-International Status, Attributes, and

Types
Sovereignty

The question of whether the United Nations Charter should be implemented by member states of the United Nations so as to supersede the constitutions of individual nations was raised at Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger's press conference in Milwaukee on July 16, 1975. The Secretary replied:

The United Nations Charter is based on the proposition that the United Nations is composed of a group of sovereign states, and therefore the United Nations has never been intended as a world government superseding the sovereign governments. When I speak of interdependence, I do not speak of world government. I speak of cooperation among sovereign nations, based on their recognition that they are now living on a small planet, under conditions in which they cannot maintain the peace or achieve economic progress except by cooperative efforts. . . .

Dept. of State Bulletin, Vol. LXXIII, No. 1884, Aug. 4, 1975, pp. 179–184.

Cyprus

On February 13, 1975, the Department of State issued a statement expressing regret at the unilateral action that day announcing the establishment of a Turkish Cypriot federated state on Cyprus. The Department statement declared:

. We support the sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of the Republic of Cyprus and have sought to discourage unilateral actions by either side that would complicate efforts to achieve a peaceful settlement. . . .

On the same date Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger affirmed that "the United States continues to recognize the Government of Cyprus as the legitimate Government of Cyprus."

(6)

« ÎnapoiContinuă »