Justice among Nations. A History of International Law - Stephen C. Neff

Building Anew 405

were, however, some signs of ill temper even in these staid circles. In 1951,

Korovin ostentatiously resigned from the American Society of International

Law, accusing it of turning the American Journal of International Law into

“a vehicle of slanderous misrepre sen ta tion” of the Soviet Union and “an in-

strument for kindling hostility between states and nations.” Academic

journals have seldom been supposed to have so great an impact.

Th e World Court and the Cold War
Attempting to resolve fundamental po liti cal disputes through the courts is a
hazardous business at best. But persons devoted to the rule of law are con-
stantly minded to attempt it. Th ere were a number of instances of this dur-
ing the Cold War, especially in the early years. Th e eff ect, however, was to
demonstrate more the weakness of the World Court than its strength, in the
face of deep- seated po liti cal rivalry.
Th e clearest demonstration of this was the attempt to enlist the Court’s
aid in resolving a long- running dispute about the admission of would- be
new member states to the UN. Western governments were reluctant to
admit Eastern Eu ro pe an states into the or ga ni za tion on the ground that
they were mere puppet states of the Soviet Union. As such, their only role
would be to increase the voting power of the Soviet Union in the General
Assembly. Th e Soviet Union struck back by opposing the entry of Western-
oriented countries such as Japan. As the years passed, the number of states
“stacking up” for membership grew ever higher. An obvious compromise
solution was a “package deal,” whereby all of the waiting states would be
brought in, with the eff ect of keeping the overall balance more or less con-
stant. Both the American and the socialist- state governments supported
this.
In 1947, the General Assembly voted to seek an advisory opinion from the
World Court on the question of criteria for admission. In a controversial
decision the following year, the Court held that it is not legally permissible
for member states to add po liti cal criteria to the legal ones stated in the
charter. Th at meant, in eff ect, that states had a legal right to be admitted to
the or ga ni za tion. Th e Court also expressly stated that a package deal, of the
kind envisaged, would not be lawful. Far from solving the problem, the
Court’s opinion may actually have made it worse because governments that