’World Not Ready For Rule Of Law’

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30856, 15 September 1965, Page 17

’World Not Ready For Rule Of Law’

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, September 14. An Australian, Sir Percy Spender, President of the International Court of Justice, said today the nations of the world were not ready to accept compulsory submission of their disputes to the World Court.

Addressing the opening session of the conference on world peace through law, he said that less than half the countries were prepared to submit disputes to the Court under the current voluntary provisions of the United Nations Charter. Mr Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, said that survival of mankind depended on whether a world ruled by law became a reality. He felt this centuries-old goal could be attained. Sir Percy Spender, a former Australian Ambassador to the United States, said the world was not ready at the founding of the United Nations in 1945 for compulsory adjudication of disputes. “I do not think they are now or will be for a considerable time to come,” he said.

Speaking to a gathering of more than 2500 lawyers from 110 nations he drew the heaviest applause during Ms speech when he said: “All the nations have not given themselves inside the United

Nations to the pursuit of the high purposes of the Charter, but more than once they have allowed national interests to intrude.”