THE CONNALLY AMENDMENT (09/24/60)

THE CONNALLY AMENDMENT

By Clarence A. Manning

The discussion which has been going on for some years over the preservation to United States participation in the World Court, associated with the name of its author, Sen. Tom Connally of Texas, bids fair to erupt in the present meeting of the American Bar Association for two separate committees of that Association have brought in directly contradictory recommendations. One, the Committee on Peace and Law through the United Nations reported in favor of the amendment. The other, the Committee on World Peace through Law, brought in a report urging the Association to throw its influence in favor of repealing the reservation whereby the United States can itself decide whether a case involving its interests can be brought against its will in the Would Court.

For many years Tom Connally as a senior member of the Senate was Chairman of its Committee on Foreign Affairs and he was one of the more respected members of that body. He served in that capacity under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and was familiar with the diplomatic negotiations that culminated in the establishment of the United Nations. He could in no sense be labeled as isolationist and when he proposed the amendment, he did it in response to his appreciation of the situation both in the United States and abroad. He had enthusiastic support from both political parties and to this day the amendment counts as many friends in the Republican Party as in Democratic.

Brother Edgar Against It

On the other hand President Eisenhower appealed to the American Bar Association to support the removal of the amendment on the ground that it presented the United States in an unfavorable light and betrayed the American lack of faith in the World Court and in due legal processes, ever though he admitted that he had never been able to convert his own brother Edgar to his mode of thinking. But it is not only Republicans who have this mode of arguing for there is a wing of the Democratic Party which will support the President in his attitude.

It is then not unfair to say that the political question involved in the Connally Amendment is far wider than narrow adherence to party lines. Furthermore it is impossible to identify the support pro or con in either party with either the liberal or conservative wing of the party in domestic and social legislation, although it cannot be denied that many of the extreme liberals will be opposed to the amendment on ideological grounds. Yet this is not necessarily so, except in so far as some liberals are in favor of any measure that any one can dub liberal and progressive.

African Tribal System Will Enter the Picture

Basically there is another question and this involves the attitude of the individual to the present set-up of international organizations, and still more the purpose of such organizations, and their methods. To put it in another way, there was a still older dispute as to whether a world court was to base its decisions upon an already established code of laws of whether it was to work more or less at random until it could develop a code which would be acceptable by trial and error to the majority of the nations of the world. This debate went back of World War I, back of the first foundation of the Hague Tribunal to the first attempts of Dutch and other jurists to provide a basis of international law. It played a part in all discussion of laws on naturalization and of the attempts of European nations to control their nationals even though they had later become naturalized citizens of the United States. In the early days it was largely a question of harmonizing the principles of the Anglo-American legal system based upon the common law, with the systems that ultimately went back to the Code Napoleon and the Roman law. Now it has been complicated by the introduction of completely extraneous modes of thinking, as the Soviet legal system, Islamic and other Asiatic customs and perhaps tomorrow it will have to take account of systems based upon the African tribal systems, whatever from they may assume.

Public Opinion Ineffective on Kremlin Actions

Those persons who argue for the desirability of the repeal of the Connally Amendment do so on the ground that the force of world public opinion will condemn those nations that refuse to submit to the decision of the Court, once it tries the case. Yet we may well ask what force world public opinion has had upon the actions of the Moscow Kremlin and its satellites in the United Nations whether in the Security Council, the Assembly or the various commissions. Khrushchev and his vassals have steadily maintained that no resolutions are binding upon the Communist world if they conflict with the desires of the Kremlin. In its desire for the conquest of all Korea, the Soviet Union treated the United Nations army in Korea as invaders and imperialists and insisted that so-called neutral nations, primarily Communist, should, serve on the armistice commission. They have peremptorily refused to allow a United Nations commission to enter Hungary but they have had no scruples about threatening to support Egypt with arms and claimed the credit for forcing Great Britain and France to withdraw from the Suez Canal. They have had no scruples against insisting upon equal representation of Communist and non-Communist nations on a Disarmament Commission and then torpedoed the meeting held in accordance with their own formula. their use of the U-2 episode and their support of Fidel Castro are other cases in point. We cannot say positively yet that the actions of Lumumba in the Congo and of Castro toward the Resolution of San Jose are directly inspired by the Communists or whether these leaders have witnessed the impunity of Khrushchev to world public opinion when he cannot manipulate it and are merely following his example but we can be sure that the World Court will be flooded with real or fictitious changes against the United States without the amendment in a way that will ultimately rebound to America's discomfiture.

Make Haste Slowly

On the other hand there is an equally progressive party which believes in making haste slowly. This is to be distinguished completely from any trend to isolationism and is to be compared to the constant and frequently repeated advice to all individuals to read carefully the small print when they are signing a contract and not to rest content with the large and general outlines. It is as much common sense for a government to scrutinize carefully its engagements as it is for an individual. If that is the purpose of the Connally Amendment, as it was generally understood to be, it is all to the good.

Nothing could be more disastrous for the United States than to identify either advocacy or opposition to the Connally Amendment with one or the other political party and yet there is a danger of this on the eve of a national election in which discussion is going to range over all aspects of foreign and domestic policy. We must remember that the personal animosities kindled by the refusal of President Wilson and his advisers to take any account of the criticisms of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge in the first stages of the debate over the old League of Nations resulted in the growth of isolationism during the term of Senator Borah as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Today the renewal of personal and partisan feuds will give Khrushchev the chance to push his favorite theme of Soviet victory through peaceful coexistence, something that is neither peace nor coexistence in the usual sense of the word.

Best Solution Requires Thought

The debate before the American Bar Association, to be resumed in the United States Senate, is over something more than partisan advantage. It directly pertains to the next step in the reorganization of the world. It offers a definite choice of actions and as such the consequences will fall upon both parties and the best brains and thought of both are required to find a solution which will be the best for the United States, its allies and the cause of freedom and one which is momentarily favored by a political combination to win an election. If the American people realize this, they will come to a true solution, whether the amendment is to be repealed or maintained as the best method for the introduction of a reign of international law and the improvement of the rights of man.

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