“I believe the United States has a strong interest in developing rules of international law that limit claimed rights to use armed force and encourage the peaceful resolution of disputes.”

John R. Stevenson, Legal Adviser, “United States Military Actions in Cambodia: Questions of International Law,” 62 Department of State Bulletin 765, 766 (1970).

Rarely, if ever, has the relationship between the President’s authority as Commander-in-Chief and Congress’s power to declare war been thrown into such sharp relief as by the Cambodian incursion. The issue is quite simple: Was the President within his power under Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution in ordering United States ground troops into Cambodia on April 30, 1970? The Constitutional question stands alone, in this instance freed of the other issues which tended to divert debate over United States involvement in South Viet-Nam and recent Presidential actions elsewhere.

In appraising national security decisions, such as the recent decision to send United States combat forces into the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong border sanctuaries in Cambodia, it is useful to focus on three interrelated questions. First, is the decision consistent with national and international law? Second, is the decision consistent with the national interest? And third, are there other alternatives which are likely to be more satisfactory in implementing the national interest? Each of these questions represents an important perspective for appraisal. Although the answer to the first question is important for answering the second and third questions, international lawyers should resist the temptation to regard an affirmative answer to the legal question as equivalent to proof that a decision is the best option for national action. Conversely, international lawyers should also avoid the temptation to regard personal doubts about the efficacy of a particular option as equivalent to proof of the illegality of the option. An international legal perspective is a critical input in national security decisions and should have a major rôle in defining the national interest and in introducing and delimiting options for national action. On the other hand, efforts to overuse international law, whether by way of support or criticism of national action, serve only to obscure the vital rôle that an international legal perspective should play.

Marine pollution is a global problem in several senses. It affects the health of the oceans in all parts of the world; it affects all countries, both developed and developing; and all countries contribute to some aspects of the problem. Some marine pollution problems are local, but many have international implications. Particularly if the effects of pollution on the living resources of the sea are considered, very few marine pollution problems can be considered matters of exclusively local interest.

[Editor's Note: In recent years, there has been a great deal of discussion concerning the fixed par-value system of exchange rates established in the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund. A recent report (September, 1970) from the Executive Directors of the Fund to its Board of Governors—"The Role of Exchange Rates in the Adjustment of International Payments"—grouped the main problems which have been encountered in the operation of the par-value system: (1) adjustments in par values have often been unduly delayed; (2) the general cost of delayed exchange adjustment is high in relation to the general benefit from the avoidance of premature adjustment; and (3) there is a likelihood that disequilibria between major modern economies may arise fairly frequently, or even continuously, and hence calls for prompt and smooth adjustments of exchange rates more frequently than have occurred in the past. The Executive Directors, in that Report, reaffirmed the basic features of the Bretton Woods system and rejected three major alternative exchange rate systems which have been proposed in recent years: (a) a regime of fluctuating exchange rates; (b) a regime based on par values agreed with the Fund but allowing substantially wider margins than are now permitted by the Articles; and (c) a regime under which parities would be adjusted at fixed intervals on the basis of some predetermined formula which would be applied automatically. The Executive Directors also considered various proposals for adapting the par-value system, which they believe continues to be sound. Those that appeared to them to merit continuing study were a slight widening in the margins around parity, and permitting temporary deviations from the par-value obligations of members, i.e., moving to fluctuating rates, with appropriate safeguards.

In these days when the exchange rate provisions of the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund are being scrutinized, although in a spirit of continued approbation of the basic principles of what is called the par-value system or the Bretton Woods system, it may be useful to examine one of the most remarkable features of the agreement which was reached in July, 1944. The reference is to Article IV, Section 6, of the Articles of Agreement, which deals with what are called, in the title of the provision, "unauthorized changes" of par values. The provision is interesting not only because it establishes an important principle of the par-value system but also because it does this by means of a novel and ingenious legal technique.