The International Court of Justice had a busy year in 1951. It handed down judgments in the Haya de la Torre Case and the Anglo-Norwegian Fisheries Case, and an advisory opinion relating to Reservations to the Genocide Convention. An order indicating interim measures of protection was issued in the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company Case, and orders were given in the case concerning Rights of American Nationals in Morocco and in the Ambatielos Case; these three cases, as well as two newly-instituted cases—the Minquiers and Ecrehos Case and the Nottebohm Case, were pending at the end of the year.

The Far Eastern Agreement signed at Yalta at the very end of the Conference on February 11,1945, was frequently defended and criticized at the hearings held in April–May, 1951, on General MacArthur’s dismissal. Yet its legal status has not yet been adequately discussed.

The Committee on International Criminal Jurisdiction appointed by the General Assembly of the United Nations met in Geneva in August, 1951. Its report, accompanied by a Draft Statute for an International Criminal Court, has been submitted to the, governments of Member States for comment before June 1, 1952.

The need for an international criminal jurisdiction was recognized by the General Assembly of the United tjations in a resolution adopted in 1948, in which it was stated in the preamble thalt “in the course of development of the international community, there will be an increasing need of an international judicial organ for the trial of certain crimes under international law.”