Towards a Global Federalism

There is the common view, which George F. Kennan has stated in his Memoirs, that American foreign policy has suffered under re gimes of legalists, that too much emphasis has been placed on trea ties and international law, that pledges and promises in this field are only words on paper, that "covenants without the sword are but words." Kennan, steeped in the past, is symbolic of the political bank ruptcy of my generation.

It was said, when our own Constitution was up for adoption or re jection, that the judicial branch was the weakest of the three because it had neither the sword nor control of the purse strings - two his toric sources of power. The American judiciary has encountered many crises because of the lack of any such authority. It has, how ever, survived because of the consensus of our people to live under a Rule of Law. Particular decisions, particular judicial regimes have been disliked. But the Rule of Law has survived because it is the chosen way of life.

The Great Powers cannot perhaps be expected to reach a consen sus that will quickly transform the world into a federation. But now is the time for summit meeting after summit meeting, whose agenda is composed of existing and potential conflicts and whose main em phasis is on procedures, such as arbitration or adjudication, which rce for their solution.