ABSTRACT
Hans J. Morgenthau recently affirmed his belief “in the eternal truth of Hobbes’ insight into the nature of society and of the relation between law and politics to the effect that there can be no legal order, that there can be no peace within society, without the existence of a government which can give the law, formulate the law, apply, and enforce it.” Tensions, as de Visscher paraphrasing Morgenthau put it, “defy rational expression, they assume a passionate quality that makes them refractory to pacific settlement.” “The subject matter of the dispute may be identical with a certain segment of the subject matter of the tension. The tension may be compared to an iceberg, the main part of which is submerged while the top stands out about the surface of the ocean.” In determining the character of a dispute as legal or political the Court will, of course, disregard the motivation of the party or parties, which is invariably political.
