The Permanent Court of International Justice was not active during its twentieth year. The institutional framework of the Court was maintained, the personnel of its bench was kept intact, its officials were at their posts, and certain funds were available for current expenses; but no sessions were held during the year, and no progress was made with the two pending cases. Nor were there any significant developments during the year with reference to the international instruments relating to the Court, the attention of Governments being completely engrossed in other fields.

On November 17, 1941, the President signed an Act repealing Sections 2, 3, and 6 of the Neutrality Act of 1939 and authorizing him during the unlimited national emergency proclaimed on May 27, 1941, to arm United States merchant vessels. The repealed provisions had required transfer of title of all goods before export to belligerents and had prohibited American ships from being armed, from trading with belligerent ports, and from passing through combat areas proclaimed by the President. With elimination of the arms embargo by the Act of November 4, 1939, practical elimination of the loan prohibition by the Lend-Lease Act of March 11, 1941, and elimination of the "cash and carry" and "combat area" provisions by the present Act, the experiment in a new type of neutrality which Congress originated in 1935 was practically ended.

Recent European events have brought with them some interesting questions of international law which have been discussed in French courts, especially during the war. In the following pages some of these decisions will be taken up regarding:

1. I. Russian expropriation measures in Eastern Poland, September, 1939.

2. II. Claims against owners of goods expropriated by the Spanish Government.

3. III. The nationality of corporations.

4. IV. The sequestration of enemy property.

5. V. Art. 17 of the Armistice Convention between France and Germany (prohibition of the transfer of securities from the occupied zone).

In a previous issue of this JOURNAL the writer has discussed the position of the British courts with respect to the cases which arose out of the requisition of merchant ships during the Spanish Civil War. It was there suggested that the decisions in these cases might throw some light upon the legal situation which would possibly be created as a result of the conflicting claims of rival governments, and of dispossessed owners, to ships which were without the national territory at the time their states of registry were occupied by Axis forces. The courts of the United States were not confronted with such a wide range of problems growing out of the Spanish conflict as were those of Great Britain. This was, perhaps, due in large part to the fact that the United States accorded no recognition to the régime of General Franco prior to recognizing it as the de jure government of all Spain. Questions relative to the status of an insurgent authority recognized as a local de facto government did not, therefore, arise. In one important case, however, legal problems relating to the immunity of foreign public vessels and to the validity of extraterritorial decrees of requisition were fully examined. As Professor Hyde has remarked, the case of The Navemar may not have produced a cause célèbre, but the series of adjudications which it inspired have resulted in the most significant contributions to the law concerning the status of foreign public vessels which have been made by the American courts since the period immediately following the close of the World War.

Many applications of international law receive but little attention from the general public. Unpublicized or little-publicized settlements involving relatively obscure persons and comparatively small amounts of money tend to be undramatic. They may seem of little importance during a period of major, kaleidoscopic developments in a worldwide conflict. But the fact remains that in numerous instances rules have become the bases for the disposition of practical questions which were of importance to the individuals immediately involved and of some concern to their respective governments. Collectively, these dispositions may help to attest the vitality of the principle of legality. At a time when the world situation puts in question the very fundamental elements of an international legal system, there may still be justification for drawing attention to the manner in which settlements of private claims against governments have been and are effected.

On August 9, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed that the International Load Lines Convention of 1930 was no longer binding on the United States "for the duration of the present emergency." He based this unilateral suspension of the treaty on "changed conditions" which, he said, had conferred on the United States "an unquestioned right and privilege under approved principles of international law" to declare the treaty inoperative. The President's proclamation was made on the advice of Acting Attorney General Francis Biddle who had informed the President that: "It is a well-established principle of international law, rebus sic stantibus, that a treaty ceases to be binding when the basic conditions upon which it was founded have essentially changed. Suspension of the convention in such circumstances is the unquestioned right of a state adversely affected by such essential change."