Senator Moynihan and the World Court - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

National Review, August 24, 1984 by C. Dickerman Williams

These limitations on the Security Council and the World Court reflect Soviet policies accepted by the United States at the time these bodies were created.

Stalin's Veto

GEORGE KENNAN, although not at Yalta when the veto issue was decided, was stationed at our embassy in Moscow in 1944 as an assistant to Ambassador Harriman. He devotes several pages of his memoirs to the Great Power veto--a right opposed by the United States in the preliminary discussions. he took part in such discussion both at the embassy and, apparently, at the Soviet Foreign Office, or at any rate with its personnel.

the American statesman involved (other than himself) thought of appealing to Stalin to eliminate the veto in order to help Roosevelt Administration with its domestic political problems. Much to Kennan's relief, this argument eventually was not made, but we did urge Stalin not to insist upon the right to veto, on the ground that such a right would discourage the hopes and expectations of the American people. Stalin firmly rejected this argument in a reply received in Washington on December 15, 1944, immediately prior to the Yalta Conference. As Stalin saw it (in Kennan's opinion), the postwar world would be ruled by the joint hegemony of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. If these powers agreed, fine--their will would be done. If the United States and the Soviet Union disagreed--something that Stalin anticipated far more than the innocent American people and the uncomprehending Roosevelt, who thought that his unstinting aid would inspire gratitude and cooperation--then the Security Council would take no action. Stalin did not want the execution of his policies obstructed by this world organization that the Americans were so crazy about. Stalin was thinking at the time of the countries of Eastern Europe, and wanted to be let alone regarding them. If he were let alone, according to Kennan, in a memorandum he wrote at the time, then "they [the Soviet Union] would be equally prepared to reserve moral judgment in any actions that we may wish to carry out in our sphere of interest, i.e., the Caribbean area."

In short, world bodies were to let the Great Powers alone. It was implicit in Stalin's statement that the Great Powers would act as they saw fit in their respective spheres of interest.

In this scheme of things the Court has been of very little use. Only one case was filed between 1976 and 1981. The disputes that it has received have been almost exclusively minor ones. The Court has a possibly useful role in boundary disputes between democratic countris, such as the present dispute between the United States and Canada over the boundaries of the Gulf of Maine. Such disputes, however, could be readily submitted to arbitration as they formerly were. The United States, in its desperation over the hostages seized by Iran, did invoke the jurisdiction of the Court, but clearly it was the separate deal worked out between the Carter Administration and the Ayatollah's regime that eventually freed four hostages--not the ruling of the Court.