ISSUES OVER WHICH THE COURT MIGHT TAKE JURISDICTION

For many years the U.S.S.R. has been scheming to find some way to internationalize the Panama Canal. What chance would we have to retain this vital link in our national security if we give 14 alien judges the power to give the canal to Panama? Actually eight judges could do it by a majority vote.

Castro could ask the World Court to make us vacate the big Navy base in Cuba. What a horrible thing it would be if Russia would then make a submarine base there so close to our shores.

Alaska is but 55 miles from the Soviet Union, but a great distance from United States proper. The Soviets teach their people that the sale of Alaska by the czars is not binding on it today. Russia could ask that our 49th State be returned to the Soviets, thereby permitting them to establish a base threatening Canada and the United States. These are but three of many examples full of danger which could be cited.

We already have a sad record of being outvoted by folks who do not appreciate our sense of property rights. In the Human Rights Convention on the vote to recognize the individual's right to own real estate, only Turkey voted with us and 14 voted against us (even Canada voted against such recognition). Our respect for property rights is unique among nations of the world.

Gentlemen, how then could we expect the 14 other judges in the World Court to protect our national property?

UPHOLDING THE CONSTITUTION

Let us uphold the Constitution.

The Constitution of the United States now provides that the judicial power be vested in one Supreme Court and numerous inferior courts. It is very hard to see how Congress can assume the power to change these provisions by misinterpreting the treaty clause. We strongly urge you gentlemen who have taken the oath to uphold the Constitution not to attempt to place foreign judges above our own Supreme Court, thereby opening the doors to others grabbing our outposts.

We have already come dangerously close to that because the World Court is the creation of the United Nations and we made its charter the supreme law of the land in 1945.

Later, the Morse resolution was introduced in the Senate to give the World Court blanket authority over the whole of the United States. The Senate then revolted at such a horrible idea, and wisely adopted the Connally amendment to that resolution in order to protect the interests of the United States. Now we have the right thereunder to determine which cases may go to the World Court. That amendment has protected us for 13 years.

Today we are here considering the advisability of wiping out that protection and opening the doors wide to raids against our possessions, and very possibly our sacred freedoms as well.

All yearly conventions of The Congress of Freedom have gone on record for the past 9 years urging the Congress to build in more and more protection into our Federal Government. Extreme pressures are being exerted both from without and from within to destroy our beloved Constitution.

WHAT IS THE LAW?

We are led to hope that if we agree to give up this Connally amendment, that in some mysterious way we shall arrive at the rule of law and that the Soviet Union and the free nations can settle all their differences by bringing them before the World Court.

This argument is either childish or something less than honest. Differences between the United States and the Soviet Union cannot be settled by vague law, because the question arises: "What is the law?" Will we settle questions of property according to Soviet or Hungarian law? Will we settle the rights of individuals according to Soviet principles of justice or the ancient rights of the Anglo-Saxon common law? There is now no authority which can decide these issues. We should simply be taking on a new set of quarrels with the Communist powers, and what rules of law will be enforced?

GROUPS COMPRISING THE CONGRESS OF FREEDOM

The hundreds and hundreds of proconstitutional groups making up the Congress of Freedom and the many groups comprising the Southern Michigan Council of Libertarian Representatives look to you to continue to protect our great heritage of freedom and not let us down. We are counting upon you not to repeal the Connally amendment.

When the day comes that the world is really at peace and no other nation threatens our way of life, then, and only then, can we safely consider giving alien judges any power whatever over our God-given freedoms.

I respectfully request that you make this a part of the recorded hearings on Senate Resolution 94.

Thank you.

Senator GREEN. Thank you very much.

Senator Carlson, any questions?

Senator CARLSON. Mr. Chairman, for the record I think it would be helpful if Mr. Pursell would mention some of the organizations that compose the Congress of Freedom.

I think as his testimony is read, that question arises, and I think for the record, some of the members ought to be listed.

Mr. PURSELL. Well, they all have ranged as high as 550 and I think at present we are down a little bit like most businesses, down to about 350.

Senator CARLSON. What individual groups? You mentioned here groups, different organization that constitute the congress.

Mr. PURSELL. Yes; they are pro-Constitution groups. There are many of them that are antifluoridation groups, there are a great number of them that are real-estate groups, property owner groups, homeowner groups and constitutional study groups, and they range in, I believe, every State of the Union.

But they are all proconstitutional groups. That is the basis upon which they are admitted to membership in the Congress of Freedom. Senator CARLSON. That is all.

Senator GREEN. Thank you. The next witness is Charles R. Goldsborough, Jr., attorney, Calvert and Preston Streets, Baltimore, Md.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES R. GOLDSBOROUGH, JR., ATTORNEY AT LAW, BALTIMORE, MD.

Mr. GOLDSBOROUGH. Thank you for the privilege granted by your committee under our Constitution to appear to speak in favor of retaining the Connally reservation. I am Charles R. Goldsborough, Jr., a lawyer from Baltimore, Md., and member of the American Bar Association. I appear simply as a private citizen.

This Resolution No. 94 has such far-reaching potentialities that after discussing this matter with many acquaintances I feel compelled to speak against the proposal to repeal the Connally amendment.

INALIENABLE RIGHTS

The problem before you is not alone one of law, of international good will, or of faith among nations. It goes far deeper than any of these. It is a matter which goes to the heart of the rights and freedom of every American now living, and for generations yet unborn. This core of the question is the inalienable rights protected by our Constitution and the subsequent justice thereby secured to us by our courts.

I think we cannot remind ourselves too often of the unique words of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

These inalienable rights we enjoy. All men are entitled to them. These rights of man are natural to him and transcend all human institutions. They come from God alone. No nation may bestow these rights nor should deny them to its citizens. The rights to "Life, Liberty and pursuit of Happiness" are above governments and given to man at his birth by his Creator.

Every man has the inviolable moral power to defend these rights as his own, and no power on earth may deny them. And God, who gave man these rights, will never take them from man.

These inalienable rights are basic in our Constitution and, properly, civil rights flow from and amplify those inalienable rights.

A just government will protect these basic rights of man. Justice is "that which disposes us to give to each man what is his due." Unless we abide by the fundamental concept of what is man's due, i.e, his inalienable rights, we cannot have justice.

All of our elected and appointed officials from the President of the United States down to the least justice of the peace acknowledge these rights when they take their oath of office on the Holy Bible to uphold the rights of their fellow citizens.

I put the question to you. If a man, a nation, or a government does not believe in God, then whence do man's rights come? The question answers itself. An atheist must of necessity believe that man has no God-given rights but receives his rights from his government. From this necessarily follows the conclusion that such rights, since they come from the government, may be taken away by that government. This reduces rights to an arbitrary, transient status. This conclusion is repugnant to our entire concept of justice.

SUBMITTING BASIC RIGHTS OF AMERICANS TO AN ALIEN JURISPRUDENCE

We cannot then in justice or conscience, and I contend cannot constitutionally, submit the basic rights of American citizens to a jurisprudence which is so far alien to our own that it does not share our basic and true concepts of the rights of man. We cannot submit our rights to the control of a judicial tribunal which does not share our basic and true concept of justice.

The International Court is such a tribunal. I do not call it an International Court of Justice, because the Court is composed of members from Iron Curtain countries which have atheistic governments. The Court has, as well, justices from still other countries whose concepts of justice are contrary to our own. Therefore by the very nature of this composition it is incapable of dispensing true justice as we understand it.

I am thoroughly convinced that nations no less than individuals should be subject to law. As there was no security for individuals until all were made to submit to municipal law, so there will be no international security until all nations comprehend and appreciate the source of man's inalienable rights and the nature of justice.

I do not believe in extending the power of courts to the international area now. The time is not yet propitious for us to hand over the power of deciding what is justice and what is not to a court some of whose members think that justice is anything that promotes worldwide revolution. And other justices with beliefs almost as repugnant

to us.

The World Court's blood brother, the U.N.'s Commission on Human Rights, after 400 meetings came to the extraordinary point where the majority absolutely refused to include in the Covenant on Human Rights any provision recognizing or guaranteeing the basic American right to own private property and to be secure in its enjoyment as against its arbitrary seizure by government. What makes anyone think that a World Court, in its turn, will come to any different posi-, tions regarding similar rights which we deem to be basic?

QUALIFICATIONS FOR JUDGES OF INTERNATIONAL COURT

The second general ground upon which I oppose Senate Resolution 94 of the Statute of the International Court itself.

Chapter I, article 2, of the Statute states that for persons to qualify as judges they must: "possess the qualifications required in their respective countries for appointment to the highest judicial offices. ***"

Is there anyone so ill-informed as not to know what qualifications the Soviet Government and its satellite governments require in their respective countries for appointment to their higher judicial offices? The qualification, the sine qua non, is an unswerving dedication to the promotion of communism at home and throughout the free world. Such a judge is incapable of an objective and impartial decision. is, because of his beliefs, obligated to promote not the rights of man, not justice, but atheistic materialism. Any official freely elected in the democratic country who does not keep this fact in mind, when dealing with a matter in which the Soviets and their satellites are

He

concerned, is fooling himself. Such an official is doing a dangerous disservice to his country.

Once a person qualifies as a judge under chapter I, article 2, of the Statute of the International Court he cannot be impeached or otherwise removed for good cause by any organization other than the Court itself. Chapter I, article 18, provides:

No member of the Court can be dismissed unless in the unanimous opinion of the other members he has ceased to fulfill the required conditions.

The unanimous opinion of the other members: Does any thinking person actually believe that the Soviets and/or their satellites would allow for an instant one of their fellow judges to be dismissed?

Under this article 18, you have then a group judging its own case. I mention this section of the Statute in answer to those proponents of Senate Resolution 94 who contend that no country should judge its own case in determining what constitutes a domestic or what constitutes an international matter. Idealists so-called insist that such decisions should be left up to the World Court.

Is not the International Court judging its own case under the provisions of article 18?

In "lighting the way for other countries" let us not be blinded by our own torch to some of the basic tenets of the Statute of the International Court.

SOVIET ACTIONS

In allowing the Court to determine whether a matter is essentially domestic or an international question, as proposed in Senate Resolution 94, the United States would rely upon chapter I, article 20.

This article provides:

Every member of the Court shall, before taking up his duties, make a solemn declaration in open Court that he will exercise his powers impartially and conscientiously.

There are now and no doubt always will be Soviet and their satellite representatives on the Court. Presently Soviet Russia and Communist Poland are represented on the Court. The Soviets have made many solemn declarations on every subject from fair trade to military agreements.

These same Soviets have broken their solemn declarations no less than 48 times in dealing with 50 major agreements.

On this point 35 years ago our then Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby said:

We cannot recognize, hold official relations with, or give friendly reception to the agents of a government which is determined and bound to conspire against our institutions.

More recently on this point, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary (84th Cong., 1st sess., in "Soviet Political Treaties and Violations") said about Soviet Russia:

That this Government had broken its word to virtually every country which it ever gave a signed promise.

What accounts for this type of action? In the Foundation of Leninism (Stalin Marxist Library Editions, p. 101), we learn: Soviets

** Will accept a reform in order to use it as an aid in combining legal work with illegal work, to intensify under its cover, the illegal work for the revolution. ***