In the Latter Part of the last decade, when it began to become apparent that vehicles or devices carrying nuclear weapons could be made to enter into outer space and orbit around the earth's contours, both the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union began to put forward proposals for restricting or prohibiting such operations.

The crucial year was 1957 — the year in which the Soviet Union launched its first sputnik in outer space. This scientific achievement, followed in 1961 by the advent of manned orbital satellites, made it apparent to the world at large and the lawyers among them that outer space could be utilized by man for his own purposes — and that these might not necessarily be peaceful ones.

Article 26 of the Mandate by which Great Britain administered Palestine required disputes between league members to be submitted to the Permanent Court if they “cannot be settled by negotiation.” In the Mavrommatis Palestine Concessions case, Great Britain contended that discussions with Greece, the complainant, had been so brief as not to amount to negotiations, insisting that in negotiations parties must at least define their positions and consider each other's views. Although intergovernmental exchanges had not reached this point, the Court held that prior discussions between Mavrommatis and British authorities had so defined the relevant issues that the Greek government could rely on these talks, in conjunction with its own protests, to satisfy the negotiations requirement.

Judge Moore, in dissent, believed that negotiations should be limited to intergovernmental discussions because issues raised by individuals cannot define the positions open to governments. Moreover, negotiations should proceed in an ordered, even rational manner.

Les Récentes Déclarations du ministre de l’Education du Québec, M. Paul Gérin-Lajoie, à l’effet que le Québec envisage la possibilité de participer aux travaux de certaines institutions spécialisées, méritent une attention toute particulière. D’abord, puisqu’il s’agit là d’une question d’une portée politique et juridique considérable tant à l’échelle canadienne qu’au niveau international, on ne peut décidément pas la négliger ou la passer sous silence. En second lieu, cette question donne un sens nouveau aux discussions en cours au Canada depuis 1937 sur la signature et la mise en œuvre des traités internationaux et oblige ainsi les principaux participants à examiner un aspect jusqu’ici inédit de ce long et coutumier débat.

The Contemporary “Great Debate” over the future of Canadian Confederation, whatever else it may have done, has at least shattered a number of comfortable old maxims as to the inevitable course and development of federal constitutions. “Bryce’s law” — or the asserted axiom that federalism is simply a transitory step on the way to political unity — has been exposed for what it really is, a generalization based too easily upon the experience of the essentially “Anglo-Saxon,” English-speaking federal systems with which Lord Bryce happened to be acquainted at the time he was writing. Even Dicey’s triadic critique long accepted as a truism in Empire and Commonwealth legal circles — that federalism inevitably means weak government, conservatism, and legalism — may be seriously doubted, as to its first two points at least, in the light of the strongly centripetal governmental trends in the main federal systems in modern times, and the concomitant association of that centralizing trend with political concepts of social and economic planning and community determination and direction of financial policy. It may be, as a French-Canadian jurist contended at a conference on Federalism held in Toronto in November 1964, that those English-speaking Canadian jurists who, in the 1930’s and the 1940’s, preached both the desirability and also the inexorability of the march to Ottawa were “plucking the Socialist fruit from the tree before it was fully ripe.” We are, in any case, indebted to French Canada for reminding us that theories of historical inevitability, when applied to social phenomena, must inevitably tend to break down if they ignore the crucial variable of the human factor. For while complex political-legal relationships and interactions often seem to be shaped and conditioned by intractable social and economic forces, in the end the dynamic element in the community power process must still be the free will of the main actors or participants in it. This is in essence William James’s point that truth is not an abstract quality inherent in an idea but something that happens to it in the unfolding of events. In constitutional law, what may have seemed right and proper and, if you wish, true for Canada in the 1930’s and the 1940’s may not necessarily be so today.

Voilà Près D’un Siècle qu‘est apparu dans les Etats fédéraux le problème de l’attribution du pouvoir de conclure des traités. Considéré par maints publicistes comme l’un des attributs essentiels de la souveraineté de l’Etat, le jus tractatuum doit-il ressortir uniquement aux organes centraux de la fédération ou peut-il appartenir également aux Etats-membres? Après avoir éludé cette question pendant trente ans, le Canada doit désormais, à son tour, tenter d’y apporter une réponse.

A l'époque où furent établies les premières fédérations modernes, les Etats-Unis et la Suisse, les traités portaient sur des objets qui intéressaient principalement les gouvernements centraux, tels que les alliances, le commerce et le tarif; en outre, les traités multilatéraux étaient peu fréquents et les “traités-lois” rarissimes. Néanmoins, la Constitution américaine de 1787, après avoir prescrit que les traités relevaient des organes fédéraux et interdit aux Etats de l'Union de “conclure aucun traité, alliance ou confédération,” ne leur défendit point de conclure des “accords ou pactes” avec les Puissances étrangères, à condition qu’ils aient obtenu l’autorisation du Congrès. De même, les cantons suisses conservèrent exceptionnellement, dans la Constitution de 1848, le droit de conclure des “traités” avec les Etats étrangers sur des objets concernant l’économie publique ainsi que les rapports de voisinage et de police, pourvu que ces accords ne contiennent rien de contraire à la Confédération. Nous aurons l’occasion d’étudier la portée de ces textes de loi par la suite; il suffit, pour l’instant, de noter que les constituants de ces premiers Etats fédéraux reconnurent la possibilité pour les Etats-membres d’établir des rapports conventionnels avec l’étranger dans certains domaines, toutes précautions étant prises, par ailleurs, pour que les accords ainsi conclus soient compatibles avec l’existence des liens fédératifs.

The Development of an International River Seldom proceeds at the same pace in the states through which it flows. The River Nile affords a good illustration of this: Egypt has for a long time substantially utilized its waters for irrigation; the Sudan has so far made moderate use of them, but is now embarking on a programme of agricultural expansion; and the states farther upstream, such as Ethiopia, Tanganyika, and Uganda, which supply the waters for the river, have scarcely begun to make use of them. The same story can be told of many other rivers.

This unequal development of a river can cause great political, economic, and legal difficulties. Sooner or later, the state which has been slow to develop the portion of the river in its territory will need more and more water for domestic and sanitary purposes, for agriculture, for hydro-electric power, for industry, and so forth. As long as it can satisfy its needs without making claims on the water on which other co-riparian states depend, there will be no quarrel; but it will be otherwise when it can no longer do so. Competition for the limited supply of water will then lead to conflict. The future economic growth of one state at the expense of others will often be involved; perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investment, as in the case of the Columbia River, or millions of lives, as in the case of the Indus, may be put in jeopardy.