Lawyers Debate U.S.-Nicaragua Law Suit

In a near-reenactment of the case they fought before a the International Court of Justice (ICJ), lawyers for each side of a continuing lawsuit questioning the legality of U.S. support of Nicaraguan Contra rebels presented their cases before a small Law School audience last night.

Frankfurter Professor of Law Abram Chayes '43 argued that American support of the Contras in Nicaragua, and U.S. mining of Nicaraguan harbors violated international law.

His opponent, Assistant Counsel to the State Department John Norton Moore, claimed the U.S. action was an action of self-defense because Nicaragua was carrying out "secret wars" against its Latin American neighbors.

In a case begun in 1984, the ICJ denied American claims that the court did not have jurisdiction over the case, prompting the U.S. to boycott the World Court's proceedings. The case is still being tried without U.S. participation.

Charging that "the United States is trying to get out of town ahead of the sheriff," Chayes attacked the state department's decision to boycott the World Court case. Chayes was one of an international team of five lawyers who brought the suit to the World Court in the Hague, Netherlands.

The United States' strongest argument against the Nicaraguan suit was that the Sandinista government, along with Cuba, waged "secret warfare against other states. These attacks were intended to be secret, and not attributable," said Moore, who is a professor of law at the University of Virginia.

Citing the United Nations charter, Moore said Cuban and Nicaraguan action in E1 Salvador "constituted armed attack" and that "article 51 allows fighting back in self-defense."

Since the Organization of American States, of which the U.S. is a member, provides for mutual defense, the U.S. "had a duty or a right to respond [to Nicaraguan secret wars] and uphold the OAS charter."

But Moore said he disagreed with his side's decision to pull out of ICJ case because the decision not to try the case "hands Nicaragua a propaganda victory."

Chayes criticized the American boycott because it renounced the principle of community judgement. When the United States sets up a "Hobbesian world, where we are our own judges [of international conduct], then we must grant that right to all," Chayes said.

The United States' position advocates a world order which "doesn't only favor the strong [like ourselves] but the deceitful, fanatics, and those who have nothing to lose," Chayes said.

Moore attacked the Sandinista government for "violating its pledge" of political independence to make "a strong Soviet alignment," despite the United States' "extraordinary effort to have good relations" with the Sandinista government in its first two years.