WORLD COURT CRITICISED

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31135, 11 August 1966, Page 17

WORLD COURT CRITICISED

(N.Z P A -Reuter —Copyright! MONTREAL, Aug 10. The Canadian Prime Minister, Mr Lester Pearson, tonight criticised the World Court’s refusal to deal with apartheid in South-west Africa and said the ruling may have “unhappy consequences.”

One effect of the decision, Mr Pearson told the American Bar Association, might be to slow the extension of the

Court's compulsory jurisdiction to more countries. This, he said in his prepared speech, “cannot but be a matter of deep concern.” Mr Pearson said it was dif-

ficult to appreciate the “narrow procedural point” behind the Court’s refusal to deal with South Africa’s extension of apartheid to South-west Africa. “The Court’s inability to come to grips with the merits of the South-west Africa case may, in the long run, have unhappy consequences from the point of view of the progressive development of the rule of law in the international field, which is so vital for the future well-being of the world community,” Mr Pearson said. (In its ruling, the International Court of Justice refused to act on a complaint by Ethiopia and Liberia against South Africa’s administration of South-west Africa, a League of Nations mandated territory. By an eightseven vote, the Court dismissed the complaint on the ground the two countries did not have sufficient standing or legal rights in the matter.) Mr Pearson said the “anger and resentment” which met the decision had led to “charges that the World Court has now shown itself to be a white’s man’s tribunal, dispensing white man’s law at the expense of black man’s justice.” But. he said, it would be wrong to argue that “direct political action, or even force

must now replace reliance on legal processes.” Both law and progress would suffer under such circumstances, he said.