The ninth session of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea met in New York from February 27 to April 4, and in Geneva from July 28 to August 29, 1980. In addition, the Drafting Committee met for 3 weeks in June in New York.

The Protection of Trading Interests Act, passed by the United Kingdom Parliament on March 20, 1980, is one of the most remarkable pieces of legislation to emerge in recent years from that body. It effects a significant shift in British policy relating to the control of international restrictive practices, and is of considerable interest to international lawyers. The aim of the Government in introducing the measure was, in the words of the Secretary of State for Trade, “to reassert and reinforce the defences of the United Kingdom against attempts by other countries to enforce their economic and commercial policies unilaterally on us.” This aim is secured, in general terms, by a combination of three measures. Firstly, an extension of the power of the British Government to forbid compliance by British citizens and businesses with orders of foreign authorities, where those orders have extraterritorial effect and prejudice British trading interests. Secondly, a prohibition on the enforcement by United Kingdom courts of foreign judgments involving the award of multiple damages and of certain other judgments touching upon the control of restrictive practices. Thirdly, the establishment of a right for British citizens or businesses against whom foreign courts have awarded multiple damages to recover the noncompensatory element from the original plaintiff by an action in a United Kingdom court.

Until quite recently the doctrine of act of state had long occupied a quiet backwater of English jurisprudence. Some cases of the last few years, however, have indicated that this doctrine may assume considerable importance in the future. In this respect the English experience is similar to that of the United States, where act of state cases were relatively rare and received little attention for many years before Sabbatino. This coincidence should cause little surprise for, as the cases in both nations make clear, there are common underlying causes. Act of state doctrine developed in an era when governments confined themselves to a narrow range of activities. Nowadays, however, the doctrine is being strained to cope with the activities of states whose governments own and develop natural resources, and engage in international trade, while maintaining an approach to property and contractual rights vastly different from that of the United Kingdom and the United States.

The Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III) is important not only because of the scope and substance of the issues with which it is concerned, but also because it represents a major international experiment in decision making by consensus. Most of the attention it has attracted so far has been focused on the problems, progress, and prospects of the conference as a unique event. Given the magnitude of the matters at stake, not to mention the drama of the proceedings, this is natural enough. In addition, there is the risk of a severe blow to the process of international negotiation in general, and to the United Nations system in particular, should UNCLOS III fail. Only a few writers have so far begun systematically to discuss procedural developments at UNCLOS in terms other than those relating to the success or failure of the conference itself. Jonathan Charney and Bernard Oxman have pointed out the significance of procedural developments and precedents, Robert Eustis has begun the exploration of UNCLOS as a model of multinational negotiation, and Edward Miles has argued that nothing similar to UNCLOS should be tried again. United Nations concern about problems in the process of international negotiation in general is demonstrated by General Assembly Resolution 32/48 (December 8,1977), requesting a report on the techniques and procedures used in the elaboration of multilateral conventions.

The material in this section is arranged according to the system employed in the annual Digest of United States Practice in International Law, published by the Department of State.

By a note handed to the Secretary of the People’s Committee (the ranking official) of the Libyan “People’s Bureau” at Washington, on December 22, 1980, the Department of State signified acceptance by the United States Government of an offer of compensation from the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for damages and expenditures that resulted from a mob attack (“students’ spontaneous demonstration”) on the American Embassy at Tripoli on December 2, 1979. Without acknowledging responsibility for the attack, the Libyan Government had agreed to pay compensation in a note received in the Department on December 6, 1979. Following the attack, the United States had reduced its mission at Tripoli to two officers, whom it withdrew on May 2, 1980, when the American Embassy at Tripoli was closed.

In a note of June 10, 1980, the Turkish Embassy requested assistance from the Department of State in connection with a child custody proceeding in a Virginia State court. The court had reportedly ruled that, because there was martial law in certain Turkish provinces, Turkey was not a safe place of residence for the children. The Embassy suggested that it was not for the court to “pass judgment about conditions in Turkey about which authoritative information is not in its possession”; rather, it was “the responsibility of the executive to make a policy decision about the visit and residence of U.S. citizens in foreign countries and [to] inform the judicial and legislative bodies.”

On December 18, 1980, the Department of State announced that the United States Government had accepted the proposal by the Government of Israel to pay $6 million in three annual installments of $2 million each, beginning on January 15, 1981, as final settlement of U.S. claims arising out of an unprovoked attack upon the Liberty on June 8, 1967, by Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats in international waters in the eastern Mediterranean. The attack occurred while the ship was some 20 miles off the Sinai coast during the Six-Day War.

On July 16, 1980, France passed a law forbidding the communication of economic, commercial, industrial, financial, or technical documents or information to foreign natural or legal persons. In doing so, France joined a growing number of nations in efforts to put an end to what they perceive as the “abusive” extraterritorial application of United States law.