Dec 31, 2004
Howard N. Meyer: Fact Checking Required
To the Editor:
Professor Posner's column ("All Justice, Too, is Local," December 30) lards with purported facts, his negative opinions about the International Court of Justice. (ICJ)
It is a simple fact, albeit not very well known here, that in the aftermath of the decision in the Nicaragua case, the ICJ emerged from decades of neglect and has had a full calendar since 1987.
That change in the attitude of the world (minus U.S. administrations) has been widely credited for its having shown that "even a superpower is not above the law."
And that the Court's judgment in Nicaragua had some merit can be seen in the ill-remembered fact that the conduct of the U.S. had (prior to judicial review) been condemned as unlawful by Senators Goldwater and Moynihan.
Howard N Meyer
Professor Posner's column ("All Justice, Too, is Local," December 30) lards with purported facts, his negative opinions about the International Court of Justice. (ICJ)
It is a simple fact, albeit not very well known here, that in the aftermath of the decision in the Nicaragua case, the ICJ emerged from decades of neglect and has had a full calendar since 1987.
That change in the attitude of the world (minus U.S. administrations) has been widely credited for its having shown that "even a superpower is not above the law."
And that the Court's judgment in Nicaragua had some merit can be seen in the ill-remembered fact that the conduct of the U.S. had (prior to judicial review) been condemned as unlawful by Senators Goldwater and Moynihan.
Howard N Meyer