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into peace, to relax tensions and strengthen freedoms,
to free the energies of men from self-defense to human
progress.

For it is law that represents our highest aspirations.

It both provides a means and embodies our ends. International

law is at once a body of principles drawn from the practice

of states and an instrument for fashioning

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[4]

new patterns of relations between states. It is a system for promoting values
and practices that nations have maintained and aspire to develop further.

Preoccupation with interests and power is an invitation to chaos, without the
institutionalization of restraint of which law is the highest stage.

Law is an expression of our own culture and yet a symbol of universal
goals. It is a repository of both our experience and our idealism. It is the
heritage of our past and a means of shaping our future. The interdependence
of nations in the contemporary world -- the intertwining of our economic
progress as well as our physical safety -- is a reality, not an aspiration.

We flourish together or we suffer together. If the arena of nations is ever
to become a global community, law will be its banner and its charter.

What is the state of international law in our time? Certainly the wide
diversity of interests, purposes and cultures that characterize the international
arena will not easily be reconciled. Yet in an increasing number of areas of
political concern, the legal process -- negotiation, agreement, rulemaking --
of
has become/central relevance. Technology, and human advance itself have

- 7 -

opened up great new areas of human activity and created
vast potential for both progress and international conten-
tion. The use of the oceans for navigation and for exploitation
of resources; the use of outer space for exploration and
for learning more about the earth itself; the expansion of
multinational corporations; the new excesses of hijacking,
terrorism, and warfare -- these are issues of international
dispute, but they could also become issues settled or
regulated by a legal order. Many of these issues have come
to the forefront of international diplomacy. They encompass
many of our foreign policy concerns; strengthening security,
ensuring the health of the economic system, reconciling
political objectives, promoting human rights and wellbeing.

The United States will not force a parochial self-serving
view of the law on others. But we will not carry the quest
for accommodation to the point of prejudicing our own standards,
our own values, our own rights. Evolving standards of
rights and obligations cannot be a unilateral burden

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[Y]

on the United States or the nations of the West. If we believe
in our standards and values, we have a duty to promote them
and defend them. They have brought progress and liberty to
countless millions. We do not apologize for our system or
for our success.

But the new corpus of the law of nations must benefit
all peoples equally; it cannot be the preserve of any one
nation or group of nations or culture. The spreading sense
of our interdependence on this small planet now requires a
determined expansion of the legal consensus. The danger
of anarchy is the danger of unilateral national action --
in a world where the unrestrained pursuit of special advantage
inevitably provokes counter-action and therefore spells futility
and danger. There must be accommodation, especially in an
age of awesome weapons of war.

The United States therefore sees it in its own interest,
as it has traditionally, to further the rule of law among
nations. Our efforts begin with our recognition of the

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reality of the modern age -- of both the difficulty and the
necessity of achieving this goal.

In some areas that demand legal regulation a consensus
is as yet unformed. In other areas, our juridical concepts
have advanced faster than the underlying political
will that is indispensable for their observance. But in
a world in which the pace of change is headlong, the pace
of legal evolution cannot be allowed to fall behind. Can
we afford to wait upon the growth of customary international
law? If not, can we be content with the snail's pace of
treaty making as we have known it in recent years in
international forums?

We are at a pivotal moment in history. If the world is
in flux, we have the power to help shape it. If our goal is
a world of cooperative international relations and economic
and social progress, then we can begin to shape institutions
and practices that further this goal. If we fail, we will