An Alternative to the Connally Reservation

On 1 August 1946, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reported Senate Resolution No. 196 to the Senate. The resolution advised and consented to the deposit by the President of the United States with the Secretary General of the United Nations of a declaration accepting compulsory jurisdiction by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) under Article 36 of the Court's Statute. There were two reservations in this resolution. The second reservation was modified in the Senate by the addition of eight words: as determined by the United States of America. These eight words were the Connally Amendment, and they appear in the declaration filed by President Truman with the Secretary General a month later. They were added to the reservation in which it is provided that the United States recognizes the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court except that the declaration shall not apply to disputes with regard to matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of the United States. The Senate Report discloses that the Committee had considered and rejected the self-judging clause. Considerably distilled, Senator Connally's oratory in support of his short amendment laid emphasis on the fear that the Court might decide that immigration was an international question . . . that tariffs were an international question . . . that navigation was an international question

Law and economics · Political science · Sociology · International Law and Human Rights · Law

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