Private property of enemies lost its absolute inviolability when at the end of World War I it was subjected to the claims of Allied nationals against Germany. After World War II enemy exterior assets became the object of reparations at the Potsdam Conference between the Governments of the United States, the Union of Soviet Socialist Eepublics, and the United Kingdom. To implement the Potsdam Agreement the Allied Control Council for Germany on October 30, 1945, enacted Law No. 5 which, inter alia, purported to vest in the Council title to German private assets in the neutral countries. In Switzerland this action eventually culminated in the Swiss-Allied Accord of May 25,1946, between France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Switzerland, which provided for the liquidation of German property in Switzerland4 valued at approximately 150 million dollars. The proceeds of liquidation are to go fifty percent to Switzerland and fifty percent to the several governments signatory to the Paris Reparations Agreement of December 21, 1945.

Many applications of international law receive but little attention from the general public. Unpublicized or little-publicized settlements involving relatively obscure persons and comparatively small amounts of money tend to be undramatic. They may seem of little importance during a period of major, kaleidoscopic developments in a worldwide conflict. But the fact remains that in numerous instances rules have become the bases for the disposition of practical questions which were of importance to the individuals immediately involved and of some concern to their respective governments. Collectively, these dispositions may help to attest the vitality of the principle of legality. At a time when the world situation puts in question the very fundamental elements of an international legal system, there may still be justification for drawing attention to the manner in which settlements of private claims against governments have been and are effected.

Income tax law and human rights law operate in quite separate worlds, but a proposal recently presented to Congress brings them together. The Clinton administration has advocated a tax on certain unrealized capital gains of expatriates and some of its opponents have claimed that it constitutes a violation of human rights law. They evoke the hardships visited on those who fled from Nazi Germany in the 1930s and from the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic more recently. They assert that a similar wrong would be inflicted by this proposed tax on those who surrender United States citizenship. The reaction of this writer is that of Justice Cardozo to the charge that twentieth-century administrative practices are “Star Chamber” procedures: “Historians may find hyperbole in the sanguinary simile.”

It is the unalterable fate and the inevitable risk of any debt that its value is closely connected with the fate and actions of the debtor whose assets are subject to the liability. This applies especially to the public debts of a belligerent state whose wealth and resources, and sometimes its very existence, are at stake. The domestic laws of almost every civilized country protect the creditor against the effects of legal changes and of non-remunerative mutations affecting all or an important portion of the property subject to the liability. This liability remains with the transferred property. To a certain extent it is legally vested in the person who succeeds to the property rights.

The Treaty of Peace concluded in Paris between the United States and Spain on December 10, 1898, ending the Spanish-American war, provided in Article III that “Spain cedes to the United States the archipelago known as the Philippine Islands and comprehending the islands lying within the following lines…” In another treaty concluded between the same countries on November 7, 1900, it was provided in the Sole Article that

The fourteenth year of the Permanent Court of International Justice has been one of its lean years. The Court’s output has been small, and action by governments with reference to its maintenance and functioning has been somewhat less significant than in some of the earlier years.

During 1935, the Court was in session for 107 days as compared with 120- days in 1934,178 days in 1933, and 240 days in 1932. The 34th session, from February 1 to April 10, 1935, was largely devoted to the case relating to Minority Schools in Albania, in which an advisory opinion (the 26th) was given on April 6,1935. The 35th session, from October 28 to December 4, 1935, was largely devoted to the case relating to the Consistency of Certain Danzig Decrees with the Constitution of the Free City of Danzig, in which an advisory opinion (the 27th) was given on December 4,1935. At the close of the year two cases were pending on the docket of the Court.

If a defeated Japan is to be “ pared back to her volcanic core,” China will be a prime beneficiary. The Cairo Declaration promised to return to her Formosa, the Pescadores, and Manchuria. But what of those parts of the Japanese colonial empire which were not Chinese? Some other arrangements must be made for Korea and the Japanese mandated islands. Liquidation of Italy's African empire raises similar questions.

This note is meant to take the place of a review of the first six volumes of the Reports of the Decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Communities which are published in the four official languages of the European economic communities and contain the decisions rendered during the years 1954–1960.