It has been pointed out repeatedly that the Connally reservation, giving to the United States the right to decide what disputes with other countries are "domestic" and therefore out of The Hague court's jurisdiction, not only limits the Court but largely nullifies its activities. The American attitude had the damaging result that other nations adhering to the Court adopted restrictions similar to our own. The Eisenhower administration has urged elimination of the Connally restriction. To make the Court the valuable instrument it could be, action to remove the Connally reservation should not be delayed. Hon. J.W. FULBRIGHT, WASHINGTON, D.C., February 26, 1960. Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations, DEAR SENATOR FULBRIGHT: I am a junior majoring in government at Beloit College, Beloit, Wis. I am in Washington for the semester on a special program my school has with some 80 other colleges and universities called the Washington semester program. It is coordinated with the American University here. In connection with the program I am preparing a project paper on "United States Reservations to Acceptance of the Compulsory Jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice." It was for that reason that I attended the February 17 hearing on Senate Resolution 94. I am writing as a result of that hearing. It seemed to me there was an unfair and unrealistic impression created by the testimony of certain witnesses regarding the composition and legal background of the judges of the Court, upon which background cases were decided. With the aim of clearing up any misconceptions regarding the impartiality and similarity of background of the judges of the Court, I hereby request the following information compiled by myself with the help of the international organizations division and European law section of the Library of Congress be inserted in the printed record of the hearing. I hope this factual information will allay any fears regarding the caliber and competence of the judges and the legal background which forms the basis for their decisions. Bohdan Winiarski 3. Enrique C. Armand-Ugon 3 Feodor Ivanovich Kojevnikov 4. Country of nationality Norway. Pakistan. El Salvador. France. United States. Poland. Uruguay ROBERT COPAKEN. Legal background University of Oslo, doctor juris. Government College, Lahore; King's College d'Autun and University of Paris. Washington University. and George Warsaw, Cracow, Paris, and Heidelberg. United Arab Republic. University of Grenoble, doctor honoris U.S.S.R. United Kingdom. Argentina.. Mexico... causa; Fouad I, Cairo, and University of University of Moscow, doctor juris. University of Buenos Aires, doctor of juris- National Preparatory School, National Columbia University, Hon. LL.D. and Sydney University. 1"Yearbook", International Court of Justice, 1946-47, The Hague, p. 49. "The International Year Book and Statesman's Who's Who," 7th ed., 1959, London: Burke's Peerage Ltd., 1959. 3"The International Who's Who," 23d ed., 1959, London: Europa Press, 1959. 4"Annuaire" 1953-1954, Court Internationale de Justice, Levden: A. W. Sijthoff, 1954, p. 12. Quien es Quien en la Argentina," 7th ed., Buenos Aires, 1959. "Recueil des Cours, Academie de Droit Internationale," 1929 vol. V (30), Paris: Hachette, 1931, p. 193. FEBRUARY 26, 1960. Hon. J. W. FULBRIGHT, Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C. MY DEAR SENATOR FULBRIGHT: The only hope for peace in the world is through the medium of an international court where all international disputes will be settled according to rules of law and principles of justice. The charter of the United Nations has provided for an International Court of Justice, but the United States, to a great extent, has crippled its effectiveness. In 1946 the Senate adopted what has become known as the Connally amendment which permits the United States to determine for itself whether it will permit the Court to sit in cases involving "domestic jurisdiction." Under this proviso, the United States may refuse to answer in Court in any international dispute by simply asserting that it involves "domestic jurisdiction." Of course, when we do this, the other nations have the right to do the same. As a consequence, the International Court of Justice is a big, beautiful hall peopled by 15 robed justices who have practically nothing to do. They stare at the ceiling while the building itself reverberates not only from the cannon shot of bloody war but from nuclear detonations preparing the world for an all-annihilating explosion. Is this not the most absurd situation that can be imagined? If the International Court of Justice had had the jurisdiction it should have, the Korean war, which resulted in the death of 30,000 American boys, would have been averted. If the International Court of Justice could have functioned as a true court, other sanguinary conflicts which followed World War II and brought mourning to countless homes throughout the world could have been prevented. If the United States declares that we will be subject to law as we demand that other states shall, no other nation can take refuge behind a camouflaged stand of "domestic jurisdiction" and perpetrate international brigandage. Your committee is now considering Senate Resolution No. 94 which would repeal the Connally amendment. I respectfully submit that Senate Resolution 94 should pass and the Connally amendment should be repealed. Those who oppose Senate Resolution 94 fear that since we have only 1 judge among the 15 who comprise the International Court, the other judges might conspire against us. This is a child's argument. On that basis, all nations in the United Nations could conspire against us, if, jettisoning every principle of decency, they wished. If the fear thus expressed had shaken the founders of our Nation, there would never have been a Constitution of the United States because there were those who argued that if the individual States consented to give up some of their sovereignty to a Federal Government, a number of States could combine to demolish a single State. The Connally amendment has placed the United States in a very inconsistent position. Article 36 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice declares: "In the event of a dispute as to whether the Court has jurisdiction, the matter shall be settled by the decision of the Court." Yet, after making this commitment, we say that we will let the Court determine jurisdiction if it pleases us that it have jurisdiction, but if we are not satisfied with its decision about jurisdiction we will not be bound by it. This is not law, this is resistance to law; this is not order, it is disorder; this is not equity, it is inequity. Despite many signs to the contrary, the human race is basically sound and just. I sat on the International Court in Nuremberg. In that tribunal we were called upon to interpret the law of many nations and I found that the underlying principles of justice were more or less the same in all systems of jurisprudence. What the world needs is a tribunal which commands respect and whose decisions will be enforced. Once we have that tribunal, there will be no more wars and mankind will come into the true millenium of happiness. But the International Court of Justice cannot be that tribunal if the United States refuses to make itself subject to its jurisdiction. The United States has undertaken the moral leadership of the world. We fought World War II for no territorial gain and received none. This Nation laid on the altar of freedom and justice the lives of thousands of American lads. That sacred sacrifice was made for but one object and that is peace 51053-60-33 and true understanding between man and man and between nation and nation. That sacrifice, however, will go for naught, if we do not, with every moral persuasion at our command, bring about the substitution of the courthouse for the battlefield. It is my sincere belief that there is nothing before the Senate today more important than the passage of Senate Resolution 94. I have been a judge for 28 years. Leaving aside devotion to one's chosen work, I believe the time has come to turn over to the judiciary the safeguarding of the destiny of mankind. Without intending any disrespect to the noble endeavors made by the diplomats and military leaders in history to achieve the supreme desideratum of the peoples of the world, I would say: Give the judges a chance to bring peace and human understanding to a war-weary world. Respectfully, MICHAEL A. MUSMANNO, Justice, Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. STATEMENT OF WILLIAM LEIGHTON, NEW YORK CITY, N.Y. Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee on Foreign Relations, my name is William Leighton and I live in New York City. As an applicant for intervention in the Interhandel case now pending before the Federal courts in the District of Columbia, I am particularly interested in the effect which the repeal of the Connally reservation would have on the outcome of that case. That is the domestic aspect of a case involving upwards of $150 million and now almost 12 years old. The international aspect of the case has been before the International Court of Justice and its judgment of March 21, 1959 (hereinafter referred to as the "judgment") is hereby offered as an appendix to this statement and made part hereof. It is fair to state that the true reason for the administration's support of Senate Resolution 94 is its desire to remove the mandatory statutory defense in the International Court litigation, the defense required by the Connally reservation. It is also fair to point out that repeal would be of immediate and primary benefit to those speculators seeking to buy Interhandel's alleged assets in the United States at a fraction of their true value. With the Connally reservation on the statute books, this end cannot be achieved. Long before Senate Resolution 94 was referred to this committee, I have raised the questions pertaining to the Connally reservation in my copyrighted petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Justice Department, through its Office of Alien Property, has opposed me at each step and turn because it is aware that if such questions are judicially decided, it would face exposure for its deliberate mishandling of the Interhandel case. One glaring instance of such capriciousness can be gaged from the fact that the judgment was not even transmitted by the administration to this committee. Nor was or is this judgment filed in the Federal courts even though in explicit terms it requires that its directives be followed by such courts. The Justice Department has opposed as "wholly irrelevant" my motion for leave to file this judgment in the Federal court of appeals where two cases pertaining to the Interhandel complex of matters are now pending. The pertinency of the judgment to Senate Resolution 94 can be seen from the preamble thereto which in terms states: *** Domestic jurisdiction of United States and scope of reservation (b) of its declaration of acceptance of compulsory jurisdiction of Court ***. 1. The domestic jurisdiction of the United States clearly encompasses all matters covered by the Constitution and the exercise of that jurisdiction is expressly stated by article III section 1 to be the function of the Supreme Court and of courts ordained or established by the Congress; i.e., the Federal courts. The International Court of Justice is not a "court ordained or established by the Congress." The Court was established pursuant to a treaty, the United Nations Charter, duly assented to by the Senate but not by the Congress as a whole. Thus, the narrow question is whether the International Court has the same status as other courts ordained and established by the Congress pursuant to article III section 1. Had the Constitution contemplated that courts can be 1 The 125-page judgment referred to is on file with the committee. "ordained or established" by treaty, it would not have limited the judicial power of the United States to courts created by the Congress. By this token, the Congress cannot transfer the judicial power of the United States to a court not created or ordained by it. Therefore, the Connally reservation merely affirms in explicit terms the constitutional requirement. 2. The principle of article III is that the Constitution is to be exclusively expounded by the Federal courts.-Much has been said about the effect of the reservation on claims that the United States may file in the International Court and the possibility that such claims may be barred by the reciprocal operation of the reservation. This view has been urged by the proponents of repeal who seem to assume that each and every claim, if brought by the United States, is automatically within the jurisdiction of the International Court. The short answer to such arguments is that the United States as a party plaintiff would have standing to sue in the International Court only if denied justice by the courts of the defendant state. This is the rule of the "exhaustion of local remedies," the one rule that saved the day for the United States in the Interhandel case. As the judgment expressly states: "the rule that local remedies must be exhausted before international proceedings may be instituted is a well-established rule of customary international law; the rule has been generally observed in cases in which a state has adopted the cause of its national whose rights are claimed to have been disregarded in another state in violation of international law" (p. 27). Since the Connally reservation expressly confers upon the United States exclusive jurisdiction to determine what constitutes a matter coming within its domestic jurisdiction, the question next to be reached is how such determination should be made in a justiciable case or controversy. Article III section 2 would seem to supply the answer. That section clearly vests the Federal courts with jurisdiction to decide cases or controversies arising under treaties and laws of the United States. Pursuant to this prerogative and as part of the judicial code, Congress has enacted section 1350 of title 28, United States Code, which confers upon the Federal courts original jurisdiction of any action brought by any alien alleging violation of a treaty to which the United States is a party or of the law of nations. Thus, since the United States or its citizens would enter an appearance as aliens in the courts of any foreign state, a denial of justice by such courts would automatically entitle the United States to bring suit in the International Court on its own or on behalf of its citizens. This is so because the Federal courts are open to the citizens of such state if they have a cause of action similar to that alleged by the United States or its citizens. Thus if the Connally reservation were reciprocally invoked by some defendant foreign state in the International Court the United States could require such state to show that access to its courts was not denied to it or its citizens and that justice was dispensed by its local courts on a par with 28 U.S.C. 1350. 3. The validity of any treaty to which the United States is said to be a party is a matter within the domestic jurisdiction of the United States.-The Federal courts never decide a question of constitutional law unless the pleadings require it. This is especially true of cases involving treaties and executive agreements which may or may not be binding upon the United States. Before any claim is entertained by the Federal courts under any such treaty or executive agreement, an inquiry is made into its validity. If found "present, valid, and effective," Iwancevic v. Artukovic, 211 F. 2d 565, 575, cert. denied, 348 U.S. 889, the courts will proceed to consider granting the relief sought. The question of the validity of the treaty is one of considerable moment because the courts will not assume the lack of validity unless alleged and then will cautiously proceed by way of ascertaining the need for making a pronouncement either way. Thus, in Wilson v. Girard, 354 U.S. 524, the Supreme Court exhaustively searched a treaty between the United States and Japan for constitutional defects that may invalidate it. The court found none and the treaty was determined to be valid. If the Connally reservation were repealed the task of deciding on the validity of a treaty or executive agreement pursuant to which the United States is being sued in the International Court would devolve upon that Court rather than upon the Federal courts. In the Interhandel case, through the improvident admission of the then legal adviser to the State Department, the United States was declared by the International Court to be bound by a "treaty" known as the Washington accord of May 25, 1946. This so-called treaty was never consented to by the Senate, was never proclaimed by the President, was never pub lished in the Statutes at Large or the current U.S.T. series and was never passed upon by the Federal courts in the context of the case. This is a treaty which purports to modify to a considerable extent the Trading With the Enemy Act which the Congress had enacted pursuant to its war power. 4. Without the Connally reservation, the United States would be liable for unlimited damages caused by the inept handling of the Interhandel case.-Willful denial of justice may be actionable for damages in the International Court. Since that Court has found and declared the United States to be bound by a treaty, the question arises whether Interhandel, the alleged Swiss national, is being denied the benefits of that treaty by the Federal courts. It is certainly amazing that almost 1 year after the judgment had issued, Interhandel still fails to seek any relief under its terms in the Federal courts. It is even more amazing that the Justice Department should consider the treaty and the judgment as "wholly irrelevant" to the Federal court litigation. There is only one possible answer. The Justice Department appears to be wary of facing the Federal courts in the matter of the treaty and by way of escape, it seeks to have the Senate repeal the Connally reservation. When and if done, this would give the Swiss Government the opportunity to renew its litigation before the International Court and, without the Connally reservation, the International Court would acquire unchallenged jurisdiction to decide that the treaty has modified the Trading With the Enemy Act. Achieving this result is worth $150 million to Interhandel. Therefore when the Senate is urged to repeal the Connally reservation, it is well to remind it that repeal is urged upon it because all other means of forcing the Government to lose the case are failing and that the investors in Interhandel stock are getting impatient at the lack of immediate tangible results. 5. Conclusion.-The Committee on Foreign Relations should appoint a subcommittee to investigate and report to the Senate the effect which the repeal of the Connally reservation would have on the International Court litigation of the Interhandel case. Senator J. W. FULBRIGHT, WEST ENGLEWOOD, N.J. Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR FULBRIGHT: The New Jersey Coalition, Inc., respectfully requests that the following resolution and statement be made a part of the record re hearings on S. Res. 94, introduced by Senator Hubert Humphrey, March 24, 1959. "RESOLUTION SUPPORTING RETENTION OF CONNALLY AMENDMENT (RESERVATION) "Whereas it has been suggested in high places that the United States may sponsor widened authority for the International Court of Justice, known as the World Court; and "Whereas the World Court is an agency of the United Nations and the United States has accepted the jurisdiction of the World Court in international affairs, but has refused to permit it to say what could or could not be done here in the United States; and "Whereas when the U.S. Senate ratified the United Nation's Charter and the World Court, it was very specific about this matter, saying that its approval would not apply to "disputes with regard to matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of the United States of America as determined by the United States of America"; and "Whereas the jurisdiction of the World Court without the Connally amendment (reservation) would subject the United States to foreign control and the beginning of world government: Therefore be it "Resolved, That the New Jersey Coalition, Inc., opposes any and all attempts to repeal the Connally amendment (reservation) which limits the jurisdiction of the World Court to purely international affairs and guarantees self-determination to the citizens of the United States and the maintenance of our sovereignty." "STATEMENT OF THE NEW JERSEY COALITION, INC. "Let us not be deceived by the Humphrey resolution, Senate Resolution 94. It makes but one significant change in existing legislation regarding the World Court. The Morse World Court resolution of 1946 has already provided for |