THE LAW: Promising Debate

• Share

Vice President Nixon's strong proposal that the U.S. lead in extending the rule of law to relations among nations (TIME, April 20) touched off ferment and comment in the major capitals of the free world. Last week a group of 26 Senators and Representatives—mostly liberal Democrats who have little else in common with Nixon—introduced concurrent resolutions in the House and Senate embodying their own proposals on how the rule of law might be achieved.

Where Nixon had urged a strengthening of the International Court of Justice, the Senate-House group called on the President to study strengthening and revising the U.N. Charter "to promote a just and lasting peace through the development of enforceable world law." Leader of the Senate group: Pennsylvania Democrat Joe Clark; House spokesman: Oregon Democrat Charles O. Porter.

Ohio Republican Frank Bow waded into House debate over Porter's resolution to ask whether "perhaps we are beginning to find our way into the One World Federation." He was all for Nixon's rule of law proposal, said Bow, so long as it protects U.S. sovereignty. Replied Porter: "I think we could afford to make some concessions for world peace."

Prospects for the Clark-Porter resolution's getting through Congress are dim. But the spreading U.S. debate on ways and means of working out a world system of law hold nothing but promise for a nation in search of a policy that can contribute to a just and enduring peace.