I CANNOT SEE WHY the Government should be cool to
the idea of a NATO Court of Justice. The proposal, which is not new, has now been taken a stage further by the Atlantic Congress; a study group is to investigate new methods of settling disputes, of which a NATO court would be one. What have we to lose? Assume such a court is established and gives verdicts in our favour—well and good. If it looks like giving adverse verdicts, why, we can always invoke the precedent from the International Court of Justice in 1957, when the United Kingdom withdrew from jurisdiction 'any question which in the opinion of the United Kingdom affects the national security of the United Kingdom or of its dependent territories.' The great advantage of this method is that it prevents foreigners from having any say in which cases should, and which should not, be brought before the court; 'national security' is a good, vague term which can be twisted to mean exactly what we want it to mean. And in case any stupid Members of Parliament or weekly papers—who are perpetually asking that there should be honour among thieves— object, the Foreign Office can always wait, as it did in 1957, for Parliament to go into recess before reporting a withdrawal from the Court's juris- diction. The sooner we help to set up a court on these terms, I should have thought, the better.
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