Since the legal rights of the coastal state and of foreign states within the territorial sea differ greatly from the rights of all states on the high sea, it should be made possible for a navigator, or a fisherman, or the coastal state, to determine with certainty whether or not a vessel is in territorial waters or on the high sea. It will be practically impossible to negotiate a general convention embodying fundamental international law relating to territorial waters until the geographical problem of delimiting the zone of territorial waters is solved. The complexity and importance of the geographical problem are evident in the fact that, of the 28 “ bases of discussion” which were formulated by the preparatory committee, for the consideration of the Commission on Territorial Waters at the Conference for the Codification of International Law recently held at The Hague, one-half related to the delimitation of territorial waters, while the other half related to legal rights and obligations.

The case of the Oriental Navigation Company, decided October 3, 1928, by the Claims Commission established between the United States and Mexico, has brought up anew the difficult question of the de jure government's right to close ports which are at the time in the de facto control of insurgents.

The State of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, or the State of Jugoslavia, is one of the creations of the World War (1914-1918). It is composed of the former Kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro, of the Southern Slavic provinces belonging to the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (see the Treaties of Peace of St. Germain of September 10, 1919, and of Trianon of June 4,1920), and of a certain part of the Bulgarian territory (see the Treaty of Neuilly of November 27, 1919). The Jugoslav State was founded by the Pact of Union of December 1, 1918 n.s. (signed at Belgrade, capital of the former state of Serbia, and now capital of Jugoslavia) and was subsequently recognized by the Treaties of Peace (1919-1920) which liquidated the World War, a3 well as by the neutrals.1 It secured its Constitution on June 28, 1921, whereby the State of Jugoslavia was to be a monarchy, in its nature constitutional (with the Karageorgevitch dynasty), parliamentary (of the unicameral type) and hereditary.

Much controversy has raged for a long period of time over the precise nature of what Wormser refers to as the “anatomy” of a corporation. Wormser himself defines a corporation as a “group of one or more persons authorized by sovereign authority to act as a unit and a personality in the eye of the law.” The definition indicates, on the one hand, that the act of incorporation creates a new person or entity, on the other that this new entity is in fact composite, made up of one or more pre-existing entities. The question arises, at what times will the court regard the corporate entity, and at what times will it look to the real persons who compose it ? A key to the solution of the problem is offered by Lord Mansfield. “A fiction of law shall never be contradicted so as to defeat the end for which it was invented, but for every other purpose it may be contradicted.” By the separate entity theory is meant that a corporation is to be regarded as an entity separate and apart from its corporators and that it is to be treated like any other independent person. That this is the theory of corporations generally accepted by the courts need hardly be proved. It will only be noted that the ruling English case on the subject is that of Salomon and Co. v. Salomon. In his opinion in that case Lord Halsbury said: “Once the company is legally incorporated it must be treated like any other independent person.”

Immediately after the outbreak of the World War in 1914, Secretary of State Bryan wisely approached the belligerent governments proposing that both sides agree to conduct their naval warfare in accordance with the rules embodied in the Declaration of London. This document was drawn up at the London Naval Conference called by Great Britain in 1908, and was signed by the delegates of all the nations represented. The conference agreed that the rules contained in the document “correspond in substance with the generally recognized principles of international law.” The Declaration never became legally binding on the nations, however, having failed of ratification by the British Government itself. Legally, therefore, Great Britain was not bound by it in 1914, except in so far as it embodied preexisting rules of law.