get the idea that these sovereign United States were boundnto respect some standard of political morality invented bynprofessors of international law?nConsider the following flights of fancy, all of themnasserting the dignity of international law:n1) “Genocide means . . . causing serious bodily ornmental harm to members of the group. . . . Personsncharged with genocide . . . shall be tried by ancompetent tribunal of the State in the territory ofnwhich the act was committed, or by suchninternational penal tribunal as may havenjurisdiction.”n2) “Recognition of the inherent dignity and of thenequal and inalienable rights of all members in thenhuman family is the foundation of freedom, justice,nand peace in the world.”n3) “… to reaffirm faith in fundamental humannrights, in the dignity and worth of the humannperson, in the equal rights of men and women andnof nations large and small.”nThe first of these fantasies is found in the GenocidenConvention; the second is from the Universal Declarationnof Human Rights; the third is, of course, from the firstnparagraph of the UN Charter. Taken together, thesenpassages add up to an international commitment to annideology of rights that confounds genocide with the mentalnanguish caused by ethnic jokes and virtually commits thensignatories to something like the Equal Rights Amendment.nWorse, these proclamations challenge the very idea of statensovereignty and could turn potentially vital areas of domesticnpolicy and national interest over to the decidedly anti-nAmerican United Nations. It used to be argued that a systemnof international law could be built on the foundations ofnnatural law, and I continue to believe in that possibility, butnsuch a system would have to recognize a few facts of life,nsuch as the inviolability of the family, the sovereignty of thennation state, and the historical/cultural roots of Anglo-nAmerican civil rights.nThe most puzzling aspect of this human rights business isnthe fact that grown men — including the bureaucrats andnpoliticians who seek high office — actually approved andnsigned these documents on behalf of the United States. It isnas if a group of Mafia dons were to join an organization thatnrehabilitated drug addicts and redeemed fallen women.nStill better as an analogy: imagine the Soviet leadershipnembracing the language of humanitarianism. What could benmore preposterous than a general secretary of the CommunistnParty proclaiming that the USSR is committed ton”international cooperation on humanitarian problems, andnthese are not mere words. . . . Human rights is . . . one ofnthe components of the all-embracing system of security.”nThose inspiring words, of course, were addressed by MikhailnGorbachev to French President Francois Mitterrand in thensummer of 1986. “A man of words and not of deeds is like angarden full of weeds.” Whether Mr. Gorbachev’s promisesnwill turn out to be as empty as Mr. Khrushchev’s, it is simplyntoo early to tell. Glasnost is, so far, little more than rhetoric.nFor three decades US and Soviet leaders have beennsigning proclamations, accords, and protocols designed tonguarantee rights of self-determination, religious freedom.nand every other civil right which Britons and Americansnshed their blood to secure. Even as they were signing thenHelsinki agreement in 1975, the Soviets were at that verynmoment violating key provisions of that solemn assurance ofn”human rights and fundamental freedoms” in their oppressionnof religion, their suppression of a free press, and theirntreatment of minorities, to say nothing of the atrocitiesncommitted in Afghanistan.nIn a very thoughtful and restrained contribution to thenfirst issue of Ethics and International Affairs (published bynthe Carnegie Council), William Korey points out thendifficulties of our situation: we sign agreements with thenSoviets, who not only proceed to violate the letter and thenspirit, but actually use the agreement to attack human rightsnviolations in the US. The UN General Assembly now mustnlisten to pious Soviet harangues on homelessness in America,nour world-threatening commitment to SDl, our interventionsnin Central America.nThe whole Helsinki process is a “hair-raising absurdity”naccording to Enoch Powell, who pointed out that “[t]henrelationship of the Russian state to its subjects has remainednunchanged … to try to shame or cajole or negotiate thenRussian state into abandoning these convictions is likenstanding by the Volga inviting it to be so obliging as to flownnorth instead of south.”nWhen has the Kremlin ever abided by an agreement onn”human rights”? Do Hungary and Czechoslovakia have thenright to self-determination? Or the Ukraine and Byelorussia,nboth of which are voting members of the UN? We had highnhopes for the United Nations and even succeeded innorganizing the Korean War under its banner (the Sovietndelegation was absent when the vote was taken). But sincenKorea the tide has turned against the United States and itsnallies, and the United Nations has turned into a USsubsidizednplatform for Third World goons and Warsaw Pactnthugs. So end the hopes and dreams of world peace thatnwere cherished by so many decent, if unrealistic, Americansnsince the 1920’s.nThe terrible truth is that on this side of the moon there isnno peace, no human rights. As Will Percy wrote in one ofnthe most moving hymns of this century:nThe peace of Cod it is no peacenbut strife closed in the sod. . . .nThe doctrine of human rights is a myth that has outlivednits usefulness. Of course, man the political animal must livenby political myths. From the very beginning he has buttressednhis social systems with semireligious ideologies. Hisnkings were children of the gods; his patricians had directnaccess to powerful divinities and could not marry with lessernfolk; his modern governments have been based on the divinenright of kings or on the divine right of the people.nSince the later Middle Ages, the people’s right to makenand unmake a government has rested on the very ancientnidea of the social contract. In his primitive state man, so thenstory goes, had been free to do as he liked. Sensing theninconveniences of their situation, our distant ancestorsnwisely decided to sacrifice some of their freedom in returnnfor the blessings of orderly government.nAs a serious political theory, the social contract has beenndead for centuries. Where do these rights come from? Is annnDECEMBER 19881 7n