410 Between Yesterday and Tomorrow (1914– )insurgents, known as the “contras,” took the form of training (in camps lo-
cated in Honduras), plus the supply of weapons and intelligence. Th ere were
also incidents of direct uses of force, in the form of the mining of Nicara-
guan harbors, along with an economic boycott eff ort. In this case, the gov-
ernment of Nicaragua reacted by bringing a series of claims against the
United States in the World Court, thereby opening the way for a judicial
pronouncement on the Reagan Doctrine.
In its judgment, handed down in 1986, the Court did not make express
reference to the Reagan Doctrine as such. But without naming it, the Court
held it to “involve a fundamental modifi cation of the customary-law princi-
ple of non intervention.” But it also held that the doctrine was not, in real-
ity, an attempt to propound a new principle of law. Th e various justifi cations
the United States sometimes gave for interventions on ideological grounds
had been, in the Court’s words, “statements of international policy, and not
an assertion of rules of existing international law.” It then pronounced, for
the record, that there is, in fact, no rule of international law allowing inter-
vention on the grounds put forward by the Reagan Doctrine. Th e Brezhnev
Doctrine was not fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to be subjected to a
similar judicial test.
Biding Time
Th e immediate post- 1945 de cades may have been full of commotion and
drama in a number of ways, but the world of international law was an eerily
quiet one in many respects. For one thing, the World Court was largely in-
active in this period. Time and again, the Court found itself, for one reason
or another, unable to resolve disputes. Generally, this was because of bona
fi de legal technicalities. In addition, governments took greater advantage
than they had in the interwar period to place far- reaching reservations in
declarations made under the Optional Clause. As a result, the prospect of
general ac cep tance by states of the compulsory jurisdiction of the World
Court appeared further away than ever.
Even when the Court did make pronouncements, they oft en had little ef-
fect. Th at was the case, as noted, in the controversy about UN admissions.
In addition, a judgment rendered against Albania in 1949, arising out of
damage to British vessels caused by mines in the Corfu Channel, went stub-