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Radio Propaganda—A Modest Proposal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2017

John B. Whitton
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Once again the attention of students of international law and relations has been directed to the use of propaganda as an offensive weapon of power politics. President Eisenhower, in his historic speech last August before the United Nations, included in his comprehensive plan for the Middle East a proposal for a system of monitoring inflammatory broadcasts.

Type
Editorial Comment
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , October 1958 , pp. 739 - 745
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1958

References

1 39 Dept. of State Bulletin 337-342. (1958). President Eisenhower stated as follows: ” I believe that this Assembly should reaffirm its enunciated policy and should consider means for monitoring the radio broadcasts directed across national frontiers in the troubled Near East area. It should then examine complaints from these nations which consider their national security jeopardized by external propaganda.” Ibid. 339.

2 1 Oppenheim, International Law 293 (8th ed., Lauterpacht, London, 1955); Lauterpacht, “Revolutionary Propaganda by Governments,” 13 Grotius Society Transactions 143 (1928); idem, “ Revolutionary Activities by Private Persons against Foreign States,” 22 A.J.I.L. 105 (1928); 1 Hyde, International Law, Chiefly as Interpreted and Applied by the United States 606 ff. (Boston, 1945); Wright, “The Crime of ‘ War-Mongering,’ “ 42 A.J.I.L. 128 (1948); also Stone, Legal Controls of International Conflict 318-323 (New York, 1954), and Fenwick, “The Use of Radio as an Instrument of Foreign Propaganda,” 32 A.J.I.L. 341 (1938).

3 Preuss, ‘ ‘ La répression des crimes et délits contre la sûreté des Etats étrangers,'' 40 Bev. Gén. de Droit Int. Public 606 (1933), and “International Responsibility for Hostile Propaganda against Foreign States,” 28 A.J.I.L. 649 (1934); Van Dyke, “The Responsibility of States for International Propaganda,” 34 ibid. 58 (1940).

4 Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations 136 ff., 346 ff. and passim (2d ed., New York, 1955); Haas and Whiting, Dynamics of International Relations, Ch. 9, “Propaganda and Subversion” (New York, 1956); Palmer and Perkins, International Relations 189 ff., Ch. 6, “Propaganda and Political Warfare as Instruments of National Policy“ (Boston, 1953). For the importance of communications in the present approach to the study of international relations, see Wright, The Study of International Relations, chapters on International Communication, International Education, the Psychology of International Relations, and passim (New York, 1955).

5 Op. et loc. cit.

6 Op. cit. 606.

7 Whitton, ‘ ‘ Propaganda and International Law,'’ 72 Hague Academy Recueil des Cours 596 ff. (1948); Wright, op. cit. 132 ff.

8 “ Intervention by Propaganda,'’ in Thomas and Thomas, Non-intervention, the Law and Its import in the Americas 273-302 (Dallas, 1956).

9 Lauterpacht and Preuss, cited notes 2 and 3 above, and Whitton, loc. cit. 588 ff.

10 John Martin, L., International Propaganda 109-163 (Minneapolis, 1958)Google Scholar; Whitton, loc. cit. 595 and passim. See also Soviet and other Communist laws on ‘ ‘ Offenses against the Peace and Security of Mankind,” 46 A.J.I.L. Supp. 34, 99 et seq. (1952).

11 Martin, op. cit. 55, 109 ff.

12 Ibid. 173; 1 Bousseau, Principes G6n£raux du Droit International Public 129, 843 (Paris, 1944).

13 Art. III , Treaty of Oct. 8, 1801, 7 Martens 386; Martin, op. tit. 89-90.

14 2 8 A.J.I.L. Supp. 1-20 (1934).

15 13 Martens 246 (3rd ser.), and 21 ibiS. 70; Whitton, loe. tit. 622; 23 A.J.I.L. Supp. 238 (1929).

16 League of Nations Doe. 602. M. 240. 1931. IX-IX Disarmament. 1931.IX.19.

17 Martin, op. cit., Ch. 5.

18 U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/8ub. 1/105, p. 29.

19 Records of the 9th Ordinary Session of the Assembly, Plenary Meetings, p. 471.

20 Broadcasting and Peace 115 (International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, Paris, 1933); Whitton, loc. cit. 618 ff.

21 Whitton, loc. cit. 616 ff.

22 L. N. Official Journal, 1926, p. 1191.

23 Ibid., 1936, p. 1437; 32 AJ.I.L. Supp. 113 (1938).

24 Final Act of the United Nations Conference on Freedom of Information, Does. E/ Conf. 6/79, E/727 and E/727/Add. 1; Whitton, “The United Nations Conference on Freedom of Information and the Movement against International Propaganda,” 43 A.J.I.L. 73-87 (1949).

25 Whitton, loc. cit. 81 ff., and Hague Recueil, note 7 above, p. 631.

26 Jem, “An International Bight of Replyt” 44 A.J.I.L. 141 (1950); U.N. General Assembly, 3rd Sess., Official Records, Pt. II (April 5-May 18, 1949), p. 21 ff.

27 U.N. General Assembly, 2nd Sess., Official Records, Resolutions (Doc. A/519, 1948), p. 14; U.N. Yearbook 1947-1948, pp. 91-93. Resolution 110 (H), Measures to be Taken Against Propaganda and the Inciters of a New War.

28 U.N. General Assembly, 6th Sess., Official Records, Supp. No. 1 (Doc. A/1844, 1951), p. 65; U.N. Yearbook, 1950, pp. 203-204.

29 Whitton, note 7 above, p. 624 ff.

30 U. S. Department of State, Conference Series, No. 19 (1934), p. 279 ff.

31 7 Hudson, International Legislation, No. 407 (Washington, 1931).

32 U.S . Department of State, Conference Series, No. 33 (1937); LeEoy, “Treaty Regulation of International Radio and Short Wave Broadcasting,” 32 A.J.I.L. 719, 729 ff. (1938).

33 LeEoy, loc. cit. 730 ff.

34 Pan American Union, Congress and Conference Series, No. 27.

35 1 Annals of the Organization of American States 77 (1949); 46 A.J.I.L. Supp. 46 (1952).

36 Annals, op. cit. 134.

37 lbid. 217-219.

38 Ibid. 326.

39 Ibid. 23 (1951).

40 Art. VII, referring to radio propaganda, and which was proposed as part of the revised Convention on Duties and Rights of States in the Event of Civil Strife, read as follows: “Article VII. The Contracting States agree of collaborate, within the limits of their respective constitutional powers, in preventing the use of the radio to carry on systematic and hostile propaganda, the object of which is to incite to the use of force or violence against the government of any Contracting State.” 5 Annals of the Organization of American States 305 (1953).” The United States opposed Art. VII, arguing that it was “fraught with grave dangers to freedom of speech, sacred to this Hemisphere and to democratic countries everywhere.” Fenwick, “Proposed Control over the Radio as an Inter-American Duty in Cases of Civil Strife,“ 48 A.J.I.L. 289-292 (1954). Due to the attitude of the United States and other governments, Art. VII was eliminated from the final draft. Protocol to the Convention on Duties and Eights of States in the Event of Civil Strife, opened for signature May 1, 1957 (Pan American Union, Treaty Series No. 7, Washington, D. C, 1957). This view reflects the typical hesitation found in many free countries to accept obligatory norms which, while designed to curb abuses, necessarily carry with them certain limitations on freedom of speech and expression.

41 5 Annals of the Organization of American States 166 (1953).

42 New York Times, Aug. 15, 1958.

43 U . S. News and World Report, Aug. 29, 1958, p. 47; New York Times, Aug. 14, 1958.

44 Op. tit. 207.