It has not been established with sufficient clarity and certainty whether a state commits a breach of international law by breaking a contract made by it with an alien. The question needs an answer. It is not one of an entirely theoretical nature. On the answer to it will depend many important consequences. There are four of special significance. First, if the breach of contract is characterized as a breach of international law, the final arbiter of the question whether there had been a breach of contract and of the extent of that breach would be an international court whether as a court of last resort or otherwise. This is the natural consequence of the fact that it is the organs of enforcement of international society that have the power of finally determining questions relating to the breach of legal norms belonging to that society. Municipal courts would not have the final decision. Secondly, the norms applicable by an international court in making such a decision would be the norms of international law and not necessarily the rules of a municipal system of law. International rules should, of course, be applied in determining whether there has been a breach of international law. Thirdly, questions of evidence and procedure relating to the contract would be governed by international law.

In more than one sense the European Communities are a frontier land of modern international organization. One aspect of the work of the European Economic Community which has thus far escaped the attention lavished on other facets is the multi-pronged effort to reduce the differences among the national laws of the member states. Stated more affirmatively, this is an effort to make the national legal systems of the member states more similar, to “assimilate” them. This effort has much in common with the “uniform law” movement in the United States and with the “unification-of-law” movement which has flourished on the Continent in this century. But it differs from these “uniformity” and “unification” movements in at least two respects

In addressing oneself to the subject of “diversity and uniformity in the law of nations,” it is well to suggest at the outset that these two attributes are perennially present not only in the international legal system but in many, if not all, legal systems. This is a statement of the obvious, but it merits some attention at a time when there is such a spate of writing about the changes in international law which are said to be required to meet the needs of an international society which is itself experiencing great changes.

“They meant simply to declare the right, so that enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.

“They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere.”

The Test Ban Treaty of August 5, 1963, prohibits nuclear weapon tests or other nuclear explosions in the atmosphere, in outer space, or under water, i.e., in the environments where detection from outside the territory of the testing state is possible. Underground nuclear explosions are not prohibited as long as they do not cause radioactive debris to be present outside the territorial limits of the state under whose jurisdiction or control such explosions are conducted. The parties to the treaty also undertake to refrain from “causing, encouraging, or in any way participating in” the carrying out of explosions anywhere which have any of the prohibited effects. The treaty is, as President Kennedy pointed out in his message to the Senate, “the first concrete result of 18 years of effort by the United States to impose limits on the nuclear arms race.” Similarly Lord Home, as he then was, said as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of the United Kingdom, that the limited test ban in three environments was “a good thing in itself not only first, because it reduces the danger of pollution of the atmosphere, but, secondly, because it makes the first agreement of substance which we have been able to make with the Russians for a very long time.” Mr. Khrushchev, on his part, praised the treaty as a “document of great international significance” and said that “its conclusion means a major success for all people of goodwill who for many years have been actively fighting for the discontinuance of nuclear tests, for disarmament, for peace and international friendship.” It is stated in the Preamble to the treaty that the parties seek to achieve the discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time and are determined to continue negotiations to this end.

Enacted in 1921, the United States law on dumping in international trade was regarded at the time as a “model of draftsmanship.” Present-day technicians are content with its provisions, though they do not echo this encomium. But the reader who approaches the nine closely written pages of the law’s text for the first time is likely to find the experience rather terrifying. These nine pages can be roughly summarized as follows. The Act comes into operation when a foreign producer sells to United States importers at a price less than that which he charges purchasers in his own country, with resultant injury to United States industry. When this is the case, a dumping duty is assessed on the imports, measured by the price differential which has been found.

This article deals with Professor Sergei Borisovich Krylov’s (1888-1958) work as an example of the impact of Soviet theory and practice on international adjudication. Krylov’s statements and performance regarding this institution are examined in the light of his relationship with his state. By bringing out some of the factors that motivate an individual acting in a state-oriented society, further appraisals of the rôle and the effective limits of international adjudication, with Soviet participation, may be aided.

It is sometimes stated that the question of state succession to treaties is a question more of treaty interpretation than of the existence or otherwise of general rules of law concerning the fate of treaties upon change of sovereignty. In general terms the proposition is true: a customary rule favoring or negativing devolution would tend to be either excessively comprehensive or excessively restrictive with respect to the category of treaties whose fate is in issue. Many treaties, upon interpretation, might be found to be inapplicable under the new circumstances, while many others might be deliberately drafted in anticipation of a change of sovereignty, and might incorporate a clause providing for the solution of the problem. A study of concrete issues is thus, generally, more instructive in determining the effect of change of sovereignty upon treaties than is the enunciation of general principles of succession.

Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino is a seminal decision, interpreting significantly the role of a domestic court in an international law case. At the same time, it avoids reaching definitive results. Very little is settled once and for all by the Supreme Court. This realization prompts caution. Sabbatino will not yield an authoritative interpretation, except, perhaps, as a consequence of subsequent Supreme Court decisions. A commentator must be content, therefore, with the less dramatic claims of provisional and partial analysis. Those that claim more are misleading us. The complexity of Sabbatino is almost certain to poison hordes of over-clarifiers who are descending upon this major judicial decision as vultures upon a freshly dead carcass.

The purpose of this paper is to examine certain aspects of the nature and content of the duty, arising in the law of international claims, tot exhaust local remedies. The general rule of exhaustion of local remedies, as set forth in familiar terms in the award of the Commission of Arbitration in the Ambatielos case is as follows:

One of the more heartening developments in the field of development economics has been the modest success of the United States investment guarantee program. It did not therefore come entirely as a surprise when Mr. Eugene R. Black, then President of the World Bank, told his Board of Governors at their Vienna meeting in September, 1961, that, following a suggestion by the Development Assistance Committee of the O.E.C.D., the Bank was “studying the possibility of devising a multilateral scheme for the insurance of private foreign investments against various non-commercial risks.”

“Chicken War” is a quip for a long-festering controversy that in the summer of 1963 bristled with menace of a possible trade war between the United States and the European Economic Community. Actually, no outbreak of hostilities eventuated; for, in good time, basis for a détente was found. This entailed resort to a dispute-resolution machinery, made possible because of the existence of an organized international forum in which countries have gained experience in the tasks of harmonizing trade interests. How the controversy started, burgeoned and was disposed of illustrates the complications arising from the creation of the Common Market and the ways devised for coping with these and other complications afflicting international trade.

On June 22, 1953, important amendments to the Netherlands Constitution concerning the administration of foreign affairs came into force. Among the most radical probably was the recognition by our Constitution of the primacy of international agreements and of decisions of international organizations over rules of municipal law. This spectacular innovation inspired the editors of the Chicago Daily Tribune, when announcing this event in their issue of December 12, 1952, to choose as a headline: “Less than a Nation.”

After two and one-half years of negotiation, an agreement settling claims of the United States against Bulgaria was signed at Sofia on July 2, 1963. Under its terms Bulgaria will pay a lump sum of $3,543,398 in settlement of the claims of United States nationals arising out of war damage, nationalization of property and certain financial debts. Together with the Rumanian lump-sum settlement of 1960, which it closely parallels, the Bulgarian agreement constitutes a unique development in postwar international claims practice, for it follows rather than precedes a unilateral adjudication of the claims by the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, a United States national claims commission acting pursuant to domestic claims legislation. Avoiding some of the problems of its predecessor, so ably considered in an article by a former Department of State attorney, the present agreement “merits analysis, not only for the benefit of private claimants involved, but also for a general understanding of technical, concrete experience in settling international disputes in a day when the chief talk revolves about grandiose schemes of the rule of law.”

The case of the Cameroons v. The United Kingdom concerning the Northern Cameroons, described, in a typical understatement, as “almost unique in the annals of international litigation,” has been terminated by a judgment of the International Court of Justice which appears as well to be “almost unique.” In fact, neither the Court nor any of the separate opinions referred to any precedent.