The “ Council crisis” in the League of Nations in 1926 has presented a problem in actual international cooperation of some moment. Whether it is permanently solved or only temporarily settled, it can not fail to have a profound effect upon the fundamental bases of international law. The difficulties and decisions at Geneva give practical interpretations to the “ juridic equality” of states, which is the most elusive characteristic of the unit of international relationship. Subjective considerations—“ particular national, historic, cultural and other qualifications”—did not prevail over objective considerations—the effort “ to give the widest and most equitable representation” on the Council. Progress may be said to lie on the objective side in international affairs, since there sound and practical general principles may best be evolved.

The Mosul dispute involved the disposition of some 35,000 square miles of territory with a population of about 800,000. Iraq’s claim to the territory had been substantially supported by the unratified Treaty of Sèvres, but no agreement being reached at Lausanne in 1923, the treaty there negotiated and later ratified provided for maintenance of the military status quo and submission to the League of Nations Council, if nine months further negotiation proved fruitless.

In 1903 the United States, by treaty with China, agreed to give China every assistance in the reform of her judicial system, and stated that it would also be prepared “ to relinquish extraterritorial rights when satisfied that the state of the Chinese laws, the arrangements for their administration, and other considerations warrant it in so doing.”

To discover the origins in legal theory of the modern principle of territorial waters it is necessary to go back to the theory of the Glossators. There one finds stated for the first time in terms of law some of the elements which made the development of this principle possible.

The object of the present article is to attempt an interpretation of paragraph two of Article 10 of the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice in order to discover, if possible, the position of the British Empire and of the British Dominions in regard to the election of judges of the Permanent Court.

The Mixed Claims Commission, United States and Germany, is nearing the completion of its labors. It has considered about 12,000 claims, of which about 7,000 have been entirely disallowed. The claims as originally instituted amounted to some $1,480,000,000, including the government claim for reimbursement of Rhine Army costs, a claim not pressed. The awards to American citizens and corporations will amount, it is estimated, to about $125,000,000 principal and about $50,000,000 interest (to January, 1926), a total of about $175,000,000; the government's claims for subrogation as an insurer on maritime losses, for lost Shipping Board vessels, and in the Veterans’ Bureau, will amount, with interest, to about $60,000,000. Considering that the treaty under which these awards were made established rules of liability and damages widely exceeding the rules of international law, the ratio between awards and claims is probably not far in excess of the average, which is comparatively small. It may also be said that the commission, dealing with 12,000 claims in approximately three years, has established a record for speedy adjudications never before achieved. A critique of the decisions and opinions of the commission down to January, 1925, was essayed in an editorial comment published in this Journal, Volume XIX, p. 133. The present article will undertake to consider the decisions and opinions rendered during 1925. These practically conclude the decisive judicial work of the commission.

Apparently no consistent effort has been made to secure a uniform schedule of consular privileges and immunities applicable to all of the states with which the United States has entered into treaty relations. In the entire history of the United States up to the present time there have been only sixteen consular conventions. Some 109 other treaties, however, have secured consular exemptions in varying degrees from many different nations; and the popular most-favored-nation clause has extended the schedule still further. One of the first treaties the United States entered into was a consular convention, that of 1788 with France, but the second consular convention did not come until over sixty years later. During the interval many provisions in commercial treaties had extended exemptions in various countries, so that by 1853 every one of the privileges which are in effect today had been inserted in at least one treaty, and some of them had been repeated many times.