In some respects, the thirteenth year of the activities of the Permanent Court of International Justice has been in keeping with the tradition associated with that number. Though three sessions of the Court have been held, during part of the year the judges have not been kept busy; and possibly because of general conditions prevailing in the world, the activities of governments with reference to the Court have proceeded at a somewhat slackened pace.

On March 16, 1935, the Chancellor of the German Reich promulgated a law for the introduction of a system of general compulsory military conscription with a view to increasing the strength of the German army to twelve corps consisting of thirty-six divisions, aggregating, it was estimated, a total of 600,000 men. On the same day he convened the diplomatic representatives of the European Powers at Berlin and delivered to them the text of the law.

The press reports characterized the resolution of the Chaco Commission of the League of Nations Assembly as amounting “to condemning Paraguay henceforth as the aggressor in the Chaco War.” This resolution of January 16, 1935, recommended a raising of the arms embargo in behalf of Bolivia, because Bolivia had accepted and Paraguay had rejected the Assembly’s report made on November 24, 1934, under Article 15, paragraphs 4 and 9 of the Covenant.

While a duty of preparedness for war is constantly urged upon American statesmen and upon military and naval officers, the fact is too often overlooked that there is also a duty of preparedness resting upon American statesmen, jurists, and legal authors to keep abreast of the times, or even in advance of the times, in connection with rights and duties affected by war. A prominent international lawyer has written that “as the flag of a nation follows the territorial explorations of its subjects, jurisprudence follows the path of science.” This broad statement must be qualified by the admission that jurisprudence only follows at a very long distance. Too rarely do statesmen and lawyers try to visualize changing industrial, economic, social, and governmental conditions, and to promote, in advance, needful corresponding changes in the law. Especially in connection with international law and international agreements is the gift of imagination lacking, the possession of which is necessary in order to attain preparedness in any field.

The draconic character of German National Socialist legislation on political crime has been brought forcibly to public attention by the recent activity of the People’s Court (Volksgericht), which was established last year for the purpose of assuring a more effective repression of treason and espionage. The subject is one of international concern, since the court has jurisdiction over aliens for acts committed abroad as well as upon German territory, and applies a law which is almost unparalleled at the present time in its severity and comprehensiveness. The safeguards commonly deemed essential to the protection of the accused are absent from the proceedings of the Volksgericht, which are secret as to indictment, investigation and trial.

For a long time it has been asserted by the Department of State and to a more limited extent by the Department of Labor that a native-born woman who married a foreigner prior to March 2, 1907, and thereupon acquired a foreign matrimonial domicile, lost her American citizenship.

One who was present during a discussion at Paris by President Wilson, Lloyd George, and Clemenceau concerning the subject of Mandates has stated that it was quite evident each was employing this novel term in a different sense. So it is with the term codification: like the Monroe Doctrine, whether you are in favor of it or opposed to it, codification is variously understood and interpreted. The discussions of the subject in the League of Nations in recent years indicate a serious divergence of opinion, although everybody would seem to favor some form of codification.

The exchange of ratifications on April 9, 1935, of the Franco-American Convention on Double Taxation by Ambassador Straus and Foreign Minister Laval calls attention to the development of a new field of law in which the United States has been participating since the post-war depression. International double taxation had existed for some time before the World War as the result of countries taxing income whether derived by non-residents from local sources or by residents from foreign sources, but it did not become a serious problem until the budgetary exigencies of the World War had caused such an increase in rates that the payment of taxes to the foreign country, as well as to the home country, resulted in taking practically all of the income from carrying on business in the two. Likewise, serious double taxation existed in the field of property and estate or inheritance taxes as the result of countries taxing property having a local situs as well as property having a foreign situs but belonging to persons domiciled within their territory.

The doctrine of the clausula rebus sic stantibus is the familiar rubric under which are classified various materials bearing on the revision or termination of treaties. Much that the phrase connotes proves on examination to be too mischievous or vague for serious consideration. Yet there remains “a legal residuum,” in Dr. Lauterpacht’s phrase, “which, although of a limited compass, is capable of application by a judicial tribunal.” English jurists have suggested, somewhat cautiously, that a discussion of the implied clause might be illuminated by an examination of the principle of frustration in the private law of contracts. And an analogy is also suggested between obsolescent treaties and restrictive covenants which, because of an essential change in circumstances, equity will no longer enforce. The matter is of such contemporary importance that international law cannot afford to leave unexamined any juristic material which promises to be suggestive. And if in the end the conclusion is reached that the principle of rebus sic stantibus can have only the most limited application to so-called obsolete treaties, this result will be none the less significant in clarifying the true nature of the problem.

It is frequently asserted even today that the armed neutrality formed by the Northern Powers in 1780 constituted the first organized effort by neutral states to secure freedom of navigation on the high seas. Likewise, it is said that this league was promoted by Catherine II of Russia for the express purpose of protecting neutral rights.

Notices of withdrawal from the League of Nations during the year 1933 on the part of two States permanently represented on the Council, Japan and Germany, have turned attention once more to the provision for withdrawal in the Covenant of the League and to the necessity for interpretation of the scope and meaning of that provision.

The development of political relations between the Baltic States and the Soviet Union has passed through two distinctive stages. The first began with the conclusion of treaties of peace signed in 1920 between Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Finland, and the then Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic. By the terms of these treaties Soviet Russia renounced all its previous rights of sovereignty over the territory of the Baltic States and unreservedly recognized their independence.