Editor:
Shortly after John Roberts was chosen to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day 0’Connor, Newsweek published a profile containing passing mention of the appointee’s enthusiasm for “a new book by Richard Haass, a friend who runs the Council on Foreign Relations.”
Haass’s book, entitled The Opportunity elaborates on a concept expressed in Richard Gardner’s revealing 1974 essay “The Hard Road to World Order,’ published in the CFR journal Foreign Affairs.
Digested to its essence, the idea is to integrate the world under a single political and economic order through a war of attrition�in Gardner’s infamous formulation, an “end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece.”
“Our policies must recognize that globalization is a reality, not a choice,” asserts Haass in the book that has so enchanted Roberts�who is now to serve as chief justice following the death of William Rehnquist. In the new order as Haass defines it, “sovereignty is conditional, even contractual, rather than absolute,” subject to revocation by the international community in the case of nations that defy its will.
“The world 35 years from now will be semi-sovereign,” “he concludes. “It will reflect the need to adapt legal and political principles to…the most serious challenges.”
During Roberts’ confirmation hearings, a senator should have asked the prospective chief justice what role, if any, he would play in helping “adapt” our legal system to the global order described in the manifesto written by his dear friend who heads the CFR.
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