"NO NOBLER MISSION"

To a Just Peace Through the Rule of Law

BECAUSE Secretary of State John Foster Dulles has refused to negotiate away U.S. strengths for Communist promises, he has been derided by the idealists as "negative" and "inflexible,'' taxed for such hard-hitting phrases as "massive retaliation and "brink of war." Last week, in a notable speech to the New York State Bar Association in Manhattan, Dulles made it clear that he is trying to steer U.S. policy toward the most positive and flexible peace-seeking goal known to civilized man: a world rule of law that substitutes "justice and law for force," leaves room for "peaceful change whereby justice is manifested." and provides for "a system of order based upon the replacement of force by community justice, reflecting moral law.

"Often peace is identified with the imposition by strong nations of their 'benevolent' rule upon the weaker," said Dulles. "Most of these efforts collapsed in war . . . But the world of today is very different from the world of past centuries. It cannot be ruled. Hence the time is ripe for the rule of law."

"We in the U.S. have from the very beginning of our history insisted that there is a rule of law which is above the rule of man. That concept we derived from our English forebears, but we played a part in its acceptance. As John Marshall put it, 'There are principles of abstract justice which the Creator of all things has impressed on the mind of his creature man.'

"Thus, since its inception, our nation has been dedicated to the principle that man. in his relationship with other men, should be governed by moral, or natural law. It was believed that this was something that all could comprehend. So great responsibilities were placed upon a jury, and the conscience of the chancellor was relied upon to temper legal rigors with equity. And legislatures annually change our statute laws in the hope of thereby making these laws more conformable to justice."

"We now carry these concepts into the international field. The U.S. helped base the United Nations Charter on peaceful settlement of disputes in conformity with the principles of justice and international law." Since then, the Communists--to whom laws are means "whereby those in power suppress or destroy their enemies"--have used the U.N. as a propaganda forum made safe by their veto power while using force everywhere else from Hungary to Tibet. The U.S. meanwhile helped 21 new nations advance to freedom by lawful, orderly means.

Hardest testing point of this principle of law: the U.S. stand against its friends, when it opposed the British-French-Israeli Suez invasion in November 1956. "The invading forces were withdrawn. Tolerable solutions were found through peaceful means." Had the U.S. tolerated the rule of force by its friends at Suez, "the whole peace effort represented by the U.N. would have collapsed . . . While it is premature to say that the Suez affair marks a decisive historical turning point, it may so prove."

Now, said Dulles, the U.S. needs more than ever before to advance the rule of law as a "shield and protector of those who rely on good faith in international engagements." Specifically, the U.S.--and the other members of the U.N.--need to: P: Condemn more and tolerate less the anticommunity actions of the Communist bloc. "Those nations should be made to feel the weight of public disapproval . . . Unless the U.N. becomes, for all, an instrumentality of peace through justice and law, then some alternative must be found." P: Intensify within the U.N. General Assembly the quest--"in my view, sometimes overlooked"--for genuine moral judgments rather than "feudal" voting by "blocs," geographical regions or "haves versus havenots." P:Spread rule of law inside the free world by greater use of the International Court of Justice. "We are closely examining the question of our own relationship to the International Court with the view of seeing whether ways and means can be found to assure a greater use of that court by ourselves and through our example by others.

"To accomplish peace through law will take patience and perseverance. It will require us at times to provide an example by accepting for ourselves standards of conduct more advanced than those generally accepted. We shall be misunderstood for our motives, misinterpreted by others who have had no such training as we in doctrine of law.

"There is no nobler mission that our nation could perform."

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