Rocking the Rule of Law

The termination of American acceptance of the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice is a mistake that weakens world efforts to construct a rule of law. It is a move without justification even in narrow nationalist terms.

President Reagan, we are told, “has concluded that continuation of our acceptance of the court’s compulsory jurisdiction would be contrary to our commitment to the principle of the equal application of the law and would endanger our vital national interests.” But that is patently absurd. There is not a shred of evidence that the acceptance of this international jurisprudence is “contrary” to the equal application of the law. There is not the least factual base to argue that the court has affected or could affect “vital national interests.”

The real reason, officials in Washington acknowledge, is that the President did not like the unanimous decision of the court on behalf of Nicaragua last year. The court called for an end to American mining of international waters in the undeclared war then being aged by the Central Intelligence Agency. Nicaragua had gone to the court seeking relief from predatory action by the world’s most powerful nation. But this has now been dismissed by the American President as subversion of the court, as a move to convert the court into “a political weapon.”

There is good reason to be disappointed in the court’s progress as compared with its promise. Only 44 nations accept its compulsory jurisdiction. The United States is not the first nation to defy its actions. The court has no power to enforce its decisions. But it represents a carefully constructed and appropriate step in the long process of putting together, in a disparate world, an accepted standard for international relations, and an agreed body for adjudicating those disputes. It has made a start in establishing an appropriate review of international actions in cases as varied as Iran’s seizure of the U.S. Embassy and South Africa’s control of Namibia.

For the United States to terminate acceptance of court authority because a single case has gone against it and because it disagrees with the basis for that case is to encourage international anarchy, and to bestow extraordinary power on a puny adversary.

If the President is sincere in his challenge to the abuses of Nicaragua, Cuba and the Soviet Union, he should be committed all the more to strengthening the World Court, not undermining it.

There may be, within the White House, a sense that this withdrawal has been effected with impunity. Not so. The covert aggression that President Reagan unleashed against Nicaragua came to be condemned not only by the World Court but also by Congress and the American people. There is an unwelcome arrogance to power that permits an American President to dismiss with contempt the due process of an international court. That arrogation will not right his wrongs, including the erosion of the rule of law.