Harold Pinter Quotes
There is a movement to get an international criminal court in the world, voted for by hundreds of states-but with the noticeable absence of the United States of America.
Pinter, Harold. Various Voices: Prose, Poetry, Politics, 1948-2005. Faber & Faber, 2005.
This quotation has special historical significance in American political history. Conservative President Warren G. Harding first suggested that the United States join and recognize the authority of the International Court. Then Herbert Hoover, a Republican icon after his term of office, in his Inaugural Address, advocated the Court. However, many of his own party and some Democrats were opposed to the U. S. recognizing any international court. So Hoover bucked the leadership of his own party. The FDR administration in 1935 signed the protocol, but it was never ratified by the two thirds of the Senate that was needed to become American law. In the beginning of the 21st century, the Republican was rabidly in opposition to any International or world court even though Hoover and Harding were all for it.
Those environmentalists who take this view do not give credence to other alternatives. For example, the same argument of environmental decision-making could logically justify one superpower nation taking over the government of all others on the planet for environmental matters. Another possibility is that the existing mechanisms and the UN are sufficient if the major powers reach agreement. Another is that science and technology will provide solutions.
It is a huge surprise for modern Republicans to discover that the great Republican President, Theodore Roosevelt, advocated strengthening the power of the World Court. 21st century Most Republicans consider this court and other international tribunals to be infringements on American sovereignty, and politicians who agree with Roosevelt as traitors.
Harold Pinter CH CBE was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964), and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1971), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993), and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television, and film productions of his own and others' works.
