Recent events in the international monetary system culminating in the decision of the United States, announced on August 15, 1971, to suspend the convertibility of the dollar induce the international lawyer to ask once again what contribution sanctions can make to respect for international law and the effectiveness of multilateral treaties. This question has been a practical problem at two stages in the development of the International Monetary Fund. It arose first during the negotiation and drafting of the original Articles of Agreement which were adopted at the Bretton Woods Conference in July 1944. The second stage was the negotiation and drafting of the amendment of July 28, 1969, which dealt mainly with the legal structure of special drawing rights as a supplement to existing reserve assets. It is now apparent that there will be a third stage, in which a reform of the international monetary system, perhaps in some of its most fundamental aspects, will lead to a further amendment of the Fund's charter.

The inauguration of the League of Nations took place at Paris in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on January 16, 1920. Representatives of the eight members of the Council, exclusive of the United States, namely, Belgium, Brazil, the British Empire, France,Greece, Italy, Japan and Spain, formally met, elected M. Leon Bourgeois, of France, the first chairman of the Council, and proceeded to organize the machinery for the practical execution of the clauses of the Treaty of Peace, the urgent necessity of which, the chairman explained, made it impossible further to postpone the meeting of the Council.

In the controversy between Great Britain and the United States as to neutral rights from 1914 to 1917, both governments appealed again and again to precedents of the American Civil War. British prize courts as well as British diplomats made effective use of the Civil War decisions. Indeed, Professor A. Pearce Higgins has recently gone so far as to assert that, if one views the decisions as a whole, there was no greater extension of the principles of international law by the decisions of British prize courts during the World War than in the American cases.

Public Report of Review of NAO Submission No. 9703.

U.S. National Administrative Office, U.S. Department of Labor, July 31, 1998.

On July 31,1998, the U.S. National Administrative Office (NAO) issued its Public Report of Review (Report) on a petition filed by several U.S. and Canadian labor unions alleging labor law violations in Mexico. The Report found credible allegations that Mexican workers were threatened and attacked as they sought to pursue legitimate union activities at an export-processing plant in Ciudad de los Reyes, Mexico. In addition, the Report determined that Mexican officials had failed to protect the labor interests of Mexican workers seeking to exercise their freedom of association. The Report called for ministerial consultations between the U.S. Secretary of Labor and the Secretary of Labor and Social Welfare of Mexico to address these issues.

During its session of October 31–December 2, 1927, the Hungarian–Czecho–Slovak Mixed Arbitral Tribunal established under the Treaty of Trainon rendered several decisions condemning the Hungarian State to pay approximately five million Czech crowns indemnity on claims filed by Czechoslovak nationals in conformity with Article 232 of the Trianon Treaty. In accordance with the provisions of the Peace Treaty, the Hungarian Government accepted without question these decisions of the Mixed Arbitral Tribunal.

In an article in this Journal some years ago, Professor Georg Maier analyzed the legal cases presented by the Republics of Peru and Ecuador during their long boundary dispute and concluded that the Ecuadorian Government had a much stronger de jure title to the disputed territory, while the Peruvian Government’s claim rested primarily on a strong de facto title. Consequently, he argued that the 1942 Rio Protocol which awarded the Peruvian Government the bulk of the territories in question was not an equitable solution to the dispute since such a solution would lie between the extremes of Ecuador’s de jure case and Peru’s de facto case. He further concluded that a more equitable solution should be sought so the dispute would no longer be an impediment to amicable relations between the two countries. The conclusion of this writer is that the Peruvian Government’s de jure case in the dispute was stronger than that of the Ecuadorian Government and that Peru’s legal case was then buttressed by a prolonged occupation and development of much of the disputed area. Furthermore, even if the Rio Protocol was not an equitable solution to the problem, no legal justification exists for demanding the renegotiation of a pact signed and ratified by both the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Governments and then guaranteed by four other American Governments.

We are witnessing today a remarkable evolution toward organized international justice. Such an evolution is inevitable in any permanent society of states, just as much as the growth of law and the establishment of organs of justice are inevitable in any lasting society of individuals. Our immediate and pressing interest in relation to this great development of international justice is this: What should be the r61e of our country? Shall the United States, faithful to the liberal arbitration policy which characterized her earlier history, adopt obligatory arbitration for the peaceful settlement of international disputes? This question may soon be determined when the Senate comes to consider the new Pan American Arbitration Treaty.