Today, the anniversary of the death of Franklin Roosevelt, is especially appropriate for a discussion of the political evolution of two territories whose development, before and after his death, was shaped by Roosevelt’s enlightened vision of world public order. The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) was an inheritance of a war waged by the United States in affirmation of “the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they live.” Puerto Rico’s progressive dismantlement of colonial government had its origins in the New Deal. It was furthered by Roosevelt’s support of Puerto Rico’s Popular Democratic Party and a policy favoring self-determination and decolonization entrusted by Roosevelt to a succession of sympathetic and imaginative administrators. Both territories emerged in the postwar period as natural objects of the concern of the world community which Roosevelt helped to organize.

As a form of government the Estado Libre Asociado, or to use the English title the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, reflects a cultural, economic, social, political process of long duration. It also embodies an explicit program of political pioneering initiated after the end of World War II.

One of the fundamental objectives that has guided international society during the last twenty to twenty-five years has been the quest for self-determination for all peoples. For many former colonies, the principle of self-determination has already been fulfilled through the acquisition of national independence. For others, self-determination has been delayed, due in large part, to the balance of conflicting forces that have prevailed within international society during this same period of time. But the present interaction of these political and economic forces and their juridical effects at the international level have brought to the surface new expectations for those who still struggle to free themselves from colonialism.

I shall examine the Trust Territory from four overlapping perspectives: as part of the Pacific; in light of the concept of self-determination; in light of American “security interests”; and a final one I shall call epis-temology. This last has to do with what the people want and how we know.

There can be no doubt that the principle of self-determination is applicable to the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. The UN Charter applies it. The United States as administering authority under its 1947 trusteeship agreement with the Security Council has explicitly and repeatedly recognized its applicability. The real question is precisely what elements of the principle are applicable, how they are to be applied, and within what framework.

Salt deals with strategic objectives and doctrine, weapons systems, evolving technology, and is discussed in esoteric terminology. Decisions, however, are made by political leaders in the United States and the USSR in political contexts. Of the four agreements concluded at SALT I, the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty is clearly the most important. Odier agreements are the Interim Agreement on Limitation of Strategic Offensive Systems; the Accident Measures Agreement; and the revised Hot Line Agreement.

Pertinent Highlights of the SALT Agreements: The SALT I Agreements signed in Moscow May 26, 1972, were the result of more than three years of negotiation by the Nixon Administration. They provide the basis for a great improvement in national security. The ABM Treaty recognizes the technical reality that neither the Soviet Union nor the United States can defend its population or industry against ballistic missile attack and that it is not simply wasteful but counterproductive to try to do so. The treaty limits each side to a negligible defense at two sites—the national capital and another at least 800 miles away. Furthermore, it limits the number of radar complexes around the national capital to six, at most, and the number of interceptors at each of the two sites to 100, with the clear implication that not only should these defenses against missiles be penetrable but also destroyable by those missiles.

First of all, it is not the case that the Arms Control Agency is a sacrificial lamb to congressional critics. Senator Jackson says that the trouble is with the Administration’s policy, not ACDA. The Agency will continue to play a large role, but it is only sensible to separate the negotiation process from the policy planning process.

It is awesome to consider nightmare scenarios such as Mr. Perle has proposed. The overriding aim of our strategic nuclear policy must be to see that they never become reality. No one likes the idea that our defense rests on the threat of genocide. But no one has yet devised a more effective deterrent. Mr. Perle’s suggestions ultimately rest on technological breakthroughs which may or may not happen. However, I do agree that the lessons of SALT I should be borne in mind when making predictions about the outcome of SALT II.

The adoption of the “Comprehensive Programme for the Further Extension and Improvement of Cooperation and the Development of Socialist Economic Integration by the CMEA Member-Countries,” to quote the document’s full title, opens a new chapter in the history of the self-styled “Socialist Commonwealth.” Two years on the drawing board, the 25,000-word encyclical is a strange mixture of ideological clichés, abstract formulations of political, economic, and juridical desiderata, projections of distant ends, references to proximate objectives, and elaborations of the concrete ways and means by which the next plateau on the road to the Communist millenium shall be reached. Approved at the 26th session of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) which met July 27-29, 1971, and subsequently ratified by the top political organs of the member states, the program enjoys locally the formal status of a multilateral treaty whose principles validly bind the CMEA partners to a general code of conduct aimed at achieving certain select goals by various designated methods. At the same time it represents a theoretical blueprint of how the leaderships of the countries concerned would like the region’s economic organism to perform in an optimal setting and how they propose to bring that situation about.

Comecon has achieved a goal long sought by the West: putting into effect a broad unification of international trade law. In 1958 each Comecon country adopted the Comecon General Conditions for the Delivery of Goods. Since then the General Conditions have regulated with the force of law every contract for the sale of goods between the Comecon countries. These General Conditions are a broad unification of both substantive law and conflict of laws rules.

Established in 1955 as a result of the Soviet effort to prevent West German rearmament through the Western European Union and to some extent as a counter to NATO’S decision to develop tactical nuclear weapons, the Warsaw Treaty Organization, more commonly known as the Warsaw Pact, stands as a multilateral political-military organization and the only example of such a regional defense alliance within the Eastern bloc. It was heralded by Moscow as the “main center” for coordinating the foreign policy of Communist states in Europe.

Being a China specialist in the midst of a panel of Soviet experts, I find myself as something of a marginal man. The theme of the meeting and the concern of the panel is the future of intergovernmental systems within the socialist commonwealth. Unfortunately, I must take a more pessimistic view than those who have gone before me. My research has yielded little on the relationship between socialist international organizations and the People’s Republic of China. It is evident that the PRC has not associated itself with tiiese organizations.

First, we have seen how the socialist countries have operated historically as an economic and political unity. Second, the introduction of the People’s Republic as an active participant in the socialist commonwealth has done much to create change within the alliance. This latter point will be the focus of my remarks since it certainly has important implications for the first point and bears directly on relations in general among the socialist states.

The topic for this roundtable is broad enough, and perhaps disparate enough, to raise some procedural difficulties. Fortunately for the moderator, these are nonetheless easier to handle than the substantive issues.

The thread which connects a discussion of the recovery of confiscated goods with one of capturing sanctioned goods is, as the title of the round-table suggests, that of remedies, and, more specifically, remedies in rem. Under applicable law, international or national, what action may be taken against property which is asserted either to have been unlawfully taken or to be unlawfully in commerce? To what extent may, or should, national courts pass upon the difficult substantive issues involved in the assertion of illegality in either situation?

The remedies for the recovery of confiscated goods outside of the confiscating state have been neither as fully utilized nor as fully developed as precedent, principle, and usefulness would seem to warrant. The possibility of recovering confiscated goods abroad after they have left the confiscating state is not, of course, a universally available response to the expropriation of an alien’s property. But it is available in many situations where the international movement of goods is involved and frequently affords the only means by which the victim of a confiscation can get a determination of rights under principles of international law and prevailing notions of public order.

Since Mr. MacCrate has traced the events in Chile which have lead Braden to institute legal proceedings in Europe to recover its allegedly confiscated copper and their proceeds, I think it important to state the legal theory upon which the company is basing its actions. Braden is asserting ownership rights in copper and other products derived from E1 Teniente mine on the ground that the constitutionally mandated procedures for valuating El Teniente’s assets, as applied, fell below the minimum standards required by international law and thereby resulted in the confiscation of Braden’s equity position in El Teniente. Accordingly, the Company argues that any rights acquired by Chile by virture of the nationalization are without legal effect.

I would like to center my remarks on the question of how the issue of sanctions should be dealt with in the Rhodesian case.

Rhodesia is a situation of outstanding importance. First, the rebel government of Salisbury is not recognized anywhere in the world in either a de jure or a de facto sense. Secondly, the British Government claims sovereignty over Rhodesia; therefore, constitutionally, the British Parliament can legislate for Rhodesia.

I would like to address myself to international outlaws and what domestic procedures are available to arrest their activities. While at first glance the nexus between domestic justice and international justice may seem tenuous, I wonder: Is it surprising that the same administration that is so insensate over the deprivation of the human rights of blacks in Southern Rhodesia is the same administration that proclaimed early in its tenure that if you have seen one slum you have pretty much seen them all, and hasn’t visited another since? Is it surprising that the same administration that evidences so little concern over the political rights of the majority in Rhodesia is the same administration that “bugs” and sabotages the political process within the United States?