COURT: U.S. Restricts Participation : U.S. Rejects ‘Compulsory’ World Court Jurisdiction

The United States no longer recognizes the “compulsory jurisdiction” of the World Court, President Reagan said Monday, ending what the State Department’s top lawyer called a noble but unsuccessful 39-year “experiment” in international law.

Despite the action, however, the United States said it will continue to refer cases to the court, officially known as the International Court of Justice, when the parties involved specifically agree to accept its judgment or when adjudication is required by treaty.

The decision was made because of a case filed by Nicaragua against the United States. It ends U.S. participation in cases brought under a seldom-used section of the court’s powers in which nations can sue or be sued, even if the defendant country objects.

The U.S. withdrawal reduces to 45 the number of nations that have accepted what the court calls its “optional compulsory jurisdiction.” Of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, only Britain now accepts that phase of the court’s jurisdiction.

In this case, “compulsory” means that a nation will accept the court’s ruling even if it objects to the suit. The court’s regulations do not require nations to accept that jurisdiction and permit countries to withdraw if they wish.

However, only nations that accept the jurisdiction are permitted to file suit under its provisions. But all nations may use the court as an arbitration panel, submitting disputes by mutual consent that cannot be solved peacefully in other ways.

State Department legal adviser Abraham D. Sofaer, a former U.S. District Court judge, said the action resulted from the court’s decision last November to consider Nicaraguan charges that U.S. aid to the contra rebels violated international law. That case is still pending.

The Reagan Administration announced earlier that it would refuse to accept the court’s jurisdiction in cases concerning Central America for two years.

“We felt the Nicaragua case was an unfortunate signal to us that we should be concerned about our security interests and about the use of the court for political-public relations purposes. . . . The President does not want the court used for those purposes--at the same time, he and others in this Administration want to continue to use the court for its intended purposes,” Sofaer said.

When former President Harry S. Truman signed the U.S. declaration accepting the court’s jurisdiction in 1946, Sofaer said, more than half of the U.N. member nations already had taken the same step, and there was reason to believe that acceptance might eventually become universal.

But in subsequent years, few additional countries joined. Most nations admitted to the United Nations after 1946 did not accept compulsory jurisdiction and some--most notably France, before the U.S. action--have ended their participation. As a result, only about 26% of the U.N. members now participate. The Soviet Union and most of its allies have never agreed to submit to the court’s jurisdiction.

“We made the right decision then (in 1946). . . . We participated in an experiment that has not worked,” Sofaer said.

Paul Reichler, one of the American lawyers representing Nicaragua before the World Court, said in a telephone interview: “It’s another indication that this Administration has no regard for international law--when international law conflicts with a foreign policy objective of the Administration, they will throw international law into the waste basket.

“Since when has the Soviet Union been the role model for the United States?” he asked.

Roy Squang Lee of the U.N. Legal Affairs Division said that the U.S. objection to giving the court jurisdiction in political cases is absurd because “almost every case that has come before the court has had both legal and political issues.”