Green Haywood Hackworth (Prestonsburg, Kentucky, January 23, 1883 – Washington, DC, June 24, 1973) was an American jurist who served as the first U.S. judge on the International Court of Justice, as President of the International Court of Justice, as the longest running Legal Adviser to the US Department of State (1925 -1946) and as a member of Secretary of State Cordell Hull's inner circle of advisers.Hoopes, Townsend & Brinkley, Douglas. FDR & The Creation of the U.N. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997. p.112. Print. Hackworth was instrumental in the development of plans for the post World War II world order and was a key member of the U.S. delegation to the Dumbarton Oaks Conference (1944).Hilderbrand, Robert C. Dumbarton Oaks: The Origins of the United Nations and the Search for Postwar Security, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990. p.18. Print. He served as a member of the Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy (1942), as a member of Post War Programs Committee (1944) and as Chairman of the Committee of Jurists that drafted the initial statutes for the International Court of Justice (1945). Hackworth also represented the U.S. Delegation on Committee IV at the United Nations Conference on International Organization where the articles in the United Nations Charter pertaining to the International Court of Justice were finalized.Whiteman, Marjorie M. "Green Haywood Hackworth: 1883 - 1973" The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 68, No. 1 (Jan., 1974) p.92.
Early life and education
Green Haywood Hackworth was born in Prestonburg Kentucky and his youth was spent in the area of the Big Sandy River. He received a B.A. degree from Valparaiso University, a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Kentucky and an L.L.B degree from George Washington University.Whiteman, Marjorie M. "Green Haywood Hackworth: 1883 - 1973" The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 68, No. 1 (Jan., 1974) p.91. In 1916, after completion of his legal studies, Hackworth secured a job as a law clerk with the U.S. Department of State and in 1918 was promoted to Assistant Solicitor within the department. Although a Democrat, Hackworth was chosen in 1925 by Republican U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, for nomination by the President and subsequent approval by the Senate to become Solicitor of the Department of State.
Legal Adviser to the U.S. Department of State
As the longest running Legal Adviser of the Department of State, Hackworth was relied upon for legal advice by five successive U.S. Secretaries of States: Charles Evans Hughes, Frank B. Kellogg, Henry L. Stimson, Cordell Hull and Edward Stettinius Jr. Hackworth was noted for being a skilled legal draftsman concerning the area of treaty provisions and was a perforce in matters involving the U.S. and its foreign relations from the period of U.S. neutrality to the country's entry into World War II. He provided advice to the U.S. President, the U.S. Secretary of State, members of congress and other departments within the U.S. State Department. As Legal Adviser to the Department of State, Hackworth represented the U.S Government before the International Joint Commission formed by the United States and Canada under the Boundary Waters treaty of 1909. He was a U.S. delegate in 1930 to the First Conference for the Codification of International Law, held at the Hague under the auspices of the League of Nations. Hackworth participated in the 8th Conference of American States (1939) held in Lima, in the 8th Scientific Congress of American States (1940), and in the Inter-American Maritime Conference (1941). Following the outbreak of war in Europe, Hackworth served as Adviser to Secretary of State Hull at the 2nd Meeting of Foreign Ministers of the American Republics (1941) held in Havana.
World War Two On Sunday 7 December 1941, Hackworth was in conclave with Secretary of State Hull at the State Department prior to a scheduled meeting with Japanese ambassadors Kichisaburo Nomura and Saburo Kurusu, when at 1:30pm President Roosevelt called to inform Hull of the attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor. Hull consulted with Hackworth and Joseph Ballentine, a State Department expert on the Far East, on whether or not to see the waiting Japanese diplomats.Greaves Jr., Percy L. 2010 Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy Auburn: Mises Institute, 2010 p.324. After seeing and then dismissing the diplomats, Hull met with President Roosevelt and then later again with Hackworth where the two discussed the drafting of a proclamation of war between Japan and the United States. As World War II progressed, Hackworth advised Secretary Hull, President Roosevelt, Special (now White House) Counsel Samuel Rosenman, and numerous agencies within the government. His role was to consider legal developments in the laws of war, laws of neutrality, laws of belligerency, and the effects of these laws upon the U.S. and other countries. Post War Planning
In February 1942, US Secretary of State Cordell Hull organized the Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy which was followed by the Special Subcommittee on International Organization of which Hackworth was an integral part. The subcommittee prepared draft proposals that helped clarify the State Department's vague views on a postwar organization. In over 40 meetings in 1943, the Special Subcommittee on International Organization made intensive studies of key issues upon which any plans for a future world organization would pivot. In March 1943, Hull formed the Informal Political Agenda Group which was composed of Hackworth, Edward R. Stettinius, and other members of Hull's inner circle. This group championed a global organization, as opposed to Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles' vision of a regional post war system. In December 1943, the group prepared and delivered to President Roosevelt a detailed post-war plan that became the founding framework of the United Nations.Hearden, Patrick J. Architects of Globalism: Building a New World Order During World War II Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2002. p.165. Print. After President Roosevelt approved an outline of the plan, Hull created The Policy Committee and the Post War Programs Committee, composed of Hackworth and other close advisers from the previously established Informal Political Agenda Group, to implement the vision of a United Nations. In 1943, Hackworth served as an adviser to Secretary Hull at the Moscow Conference.
The Pullman Porter affair Hull had long been in dispute with his nominal deputy, the Undersecretary Sumner Welles, whom he resented because President Franklin D. Roosevelt trusted and liked Welles considerably better than he did Hull. Welles became in September 1940 the center of a long-running sex scandal when he while intoxicated while riding a train through Virginia made homosexual advances on two Afro-American Pullman porters. Hull used Pullman porter affair as a chance to destroy Welles's career and leaked information about the scandal to William Christian Bullitt Jr., the former ambassador to France who made it his personal mission to force Welles to resign. Hackworth supported Hull against Welles and in January 1943 wrote up a legal opinion stating that the Virginia state government would be well within its rights to indict Welles for violating both the anti-gay and anti-miscegenation laws on Virginia's statue books. Hackworth's legal opinion was promptly leaked to Bullitt who used it as another reason as to why Welles needed to resign or be sacked.
The United Nations War Crimes Commission Hackworth took a strong dislike to Herbert Pell, who represented the United States on the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWWC), and his plans to prosecute all German officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity. As the long-time State Department legal adviser, Hackworth had wanted to serve as the chief American delegate on the UNWWC and was very jealous that Pell had a job that he desperately wanted for himself. Hackworth in a memo in March 1943 noted that the chairman of the commission was to be the British judge Sir Cecil Hurst, and wrote that the chief American delegate should be someone of "similar caliber" to Hurst, by which he clearly meant himself. He was notably angry about the fact that Pell had no legal experience at all and complained that Pell was only appointed because he was an old friend of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Hackworth had a high opinion of his legal abilities and greatly resented that Pell as an amateur lawyer was holding a position that he wanted for himself. Adding to the bitterness of their feud was the difference in social status. Pell, who was born into an extremely wealthy family, viewed himself as a "gentleman" and took on a quasi-aristocratic style. He did little to disguise his distain for Hackworth as a "careerist" lawyer who was no "gentleman". Pell wrote: "Hackworth was well named. He was a little legal hack of no particular attainments. He was manifestly not a born gentleman and acquired very few of the ideas of a gentleman on his way up in the world. His manners were bad, his fingers were dirty, he was clearly unused to good society".
Hackworth objected to Pell's plans to introduce a new category of crimes to indict the Nazis for, namely crimes against humanity, as legally wrong. Hackworth especially objected to Pell's plans for international courts or if necessary American courts to prosecute Nazi officials for crimes against German citizens both before and during the war as violations of international law. He felt that having international courts prosecute the officials of the German government for crimes against its people would create an unwanted precedent for international courts to prosecute American officials for their treatment of black Americans. Hackworth noted under that Pell's definition of crimes against humanity as being state-sanctioned violence against a group for ethnic, religious or racial reasons that American officials could very well be indicted for tolerating the lynching of American blacks, and should be stopped for just that reason alone. Like the Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, Hackworth was from the South and both Hull and Hackworth supported white supremacy. At the Dumbarton Oaks conference, Hackworth had drafted resolutions for the United Nations charter on behalf of the United States government that nominally condemned racism and colonialism, but were so carefully phased in such vapid and banal language as to be legally ineffective. The French sociologist Guillaume Mouralis wrote that Hackworth was opposed to any attempts at having international law be against racism, but rather engage in a "frontal" battle chose to the more subtler method of seeking to "neutralize" such efforts by making the relevant sections of international law be written in such vague and bland language that it would be useless for anyone to invoke such sections.