346
Remarks Upon Signing World Law Day Proclamation.
July 8, 1965

Ladies and gentlemen, Justice Goldberg, Attorney General Katzenbach, Dean Storey, and other most distinguished guests and friends:

I welcome you this morning to the Rose Garden. By tradition and custom, and by direction of the Congress, and on petition of the public, the Presidents sign many proclamations each year on many subjects. Some are of great significance and great impact. Others are, as I am sure the press will agree, of somewhat lesser significance and import. But today we are meeting in this manner to observe the signing of a proclamation which, in its way, expresses something of the greatest importance about the ’purposes of the American people and the purposes of the American Nation. And that is our commitment to, and our quest toward, a world where all men may live in peace with the hope of justice under the rule of
law.

That goal cannot be made real by any proclamation that I issue or sign. It cannot be attained by the observance of any single day of the year. But I do believe that by observing together one day designated as World Law Day, we may remind ourselves, and we hope call to the attention of others, that a decent world ruled by just law is not a vain dream.

It can be real. It will be true—if the peace-loving peoples uphold the beginnings of world law with the same resolve as they defend the end of individual liberty.

In this 20th century, millions of men and women have fought and have died and have struggled and sacrificed to win or to redeem their liberty or freedom. The fighting and the dying and the struggle and sacrifice go on as even we meet here today.

But this century has really seen the beginning of a will and an effort to establish respect for the rule of law over the conduct of the nations of the world. Those beginnings must not perish under the heel or by the hand of those who refuse to honor their own agreements, or refuse to keep their own treaties, or refuse to respect the borders or the rights of their own neighbors. And this is central to the purposes of the American people and the policies of the governments around the world.

And by faithfully honoring our agreements, by faithfully keeping our treaties to which we are party, we seek to assure sub stance for the dream of a world that is ruled by law.

This year, in September, the leaders of the law for many nations will assemble here in Washington. In observance of this International Cooperation Year, they will confer on this most vital and on this most basic subject of strengthening the hope for world peace by strengthening the rule of law among world nations.

And so to honor this significant occasion, I am today proclaiming September 13, 1965, as World Law Day. In so doing, I would call upon citizens throughout the land to join in appropriate observances on that date to reaffirm our abiding American goal of a world where all men live in obedience to the rule of laws that they have chosen, rafter than in subjugation to the rule of men that they have not chosen.

It is a great pleasure to have the leadership that we have present with us here this morning.

I will now sign the proclamation.

NOTE: The President spoke at 12:23 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White House just prior to signing Proclamation 3662 "World Law Day" (30 F.R. 8773; 3 CFR, 1965 Supp.). In his opening words he referred to Associate Justice Arthur J. Goldberg of the Supreme Court of the United States, Attorney General Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, and M. Robert Storey, former President of the American Bar Association and Dean of the Southern Methodist University Law School in Dallas, Tex.

For the President’s remarks on September 16, 1965, to the delegates to the Conference on World Peace Through Law, see Item 516.