Bulletin Winter 1978

bureaucratic organisation or expertise at ail relevant levels to cope with such a system. There is in fact an analogous gulf which often exists between the law and the under-privileged sections of the community in national societies, and which schemes like community law centres struggle valiantly to bridge with only relative success. The problem is of course even more complex in the international society. Cultural Differences Culturally, in the first place, in the West, even though there may occasionally be dissents expressed with varying degrees of forcefulness, people, on the whole, have, in the course of many centuries, learnt to accept the technicalities and complexities of the l aw, as either inevitable or a price to be paid for the rule of law. Indeed certain procedural rules, such as those under the notion of due process, have an aura of sacrosanctity surrounding them. The non-Westem world, on the other hand, is much more likely to look merely at the substance of each case. Secondly, the Western emphasis on rights, coupled with the bias in favour of the adversary procedure, risks encouraging the parties, especially those which have, or have access to, the requisite expertise, to push their claims as far as they think the law would allow them and perhaps a little more, whilst, for instance, the Eastern stress on duties may well lead them to take a more passive attitude and simply to wait for the other side to do the right thing. When this fails to happen and there is no Portia to play Judge Balthazar, the blame is then laid on the law. Such grievances, whether genuine or unfounded, can be further aggravated by the Western tendency to make law the sole arbiter of the normative correctness of one's actions, especially in the international arena. The non-Western world may well not be used to the sharp distinction drawn between law and morality, and the low priority the West appears openly prepared at times to assign to the latter, notwithstanding the Roman law dictum Non omne quod licet honestum est (Not everything which is lawful is honourable). Thus not very long ago, the Secretary of State of a great nation sought to assuage the fears of his country that it might be called upon to redeem what had been referred to as its "solemn commitments" to a collapsing ally by saying that such commitments as existed were not legal, but only moral. In this connexion, it may be of interest to observe that one of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's strictures of the West in his Harvard speech in the summer of this year was its legalistic approach to life. Subject May be Worth Pursuing To sum up, perhaps the problem, if one hopes to bring about a fuller acceptance of international law by all the States of the world, is to find a way whereby it is possible for international law to retain its character of law with all its virtues and yet for it to be at the same time more responsive to social needs and aspirations, accessible to even the most under-privileged in the community, shorn of its excessive technicalities and the premium it tends to put on assertiveness, and nevertheless not the be-all and the end-all of values upheld by society and mankind. In the solution of this problem social scientists may well wish to be involved. In particular, the experience and cultures of non- Western nations which have traditionally applied different methods of social regulation do seem to offer a subject for comparative study which is worth pursuing. It is for this reason, Mr. Chancellor, that I have taken the liberty of drawing attention to this topic this afternoon, perhaps at excessive length, at this multi-cultural academe with its flourishing Faculty of Social Science, in the hope that the issues it raises may find some interest in its midst. Thanks and Good Wishes Your Excellency, I have spoken for far too long. Before I sit down, however,I hope you will allow me just enough time briefly to return to my main mission which is to render thanks, on behalf of the honorary graduates, to you, Sir, and to our new University. In doing so sincerely and gratefully, I would like at the same time, as would, I am sure, everyone present, to convey all our good wishes first to this University which celebrates this year its fifteenth anniversary and secondly to its new Vice- Chancellor who last month took over the helm of this splended ship. We bid them both Godspeed. 18