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On Saving International Law from its Friends

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2017

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As Thurman Arnold pointed out some years ago in Symbols of Government, those who attack either men or institutions on counts of irrationality or ineffectiveness are immediately met by the rejection-reactions of those attacked.

Type
Editorial Comment
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1958

References

1 The writer owes this title to George Ward Stocking, thought to be the author of an article called “ On Saving the Sherman Act from its Friends.” However, Dr. Stocking sets the record straight in this way: He took the title for his presidential address to the Southern Economic Association, ‘ ‘ Saving Free Enterprise from its Friends,'’ 19 Southern Economic Journal, No. 4 (April, 1953), from an earlier paper of Thomas E. Sunderland, General Counsel of the Standard Oil Co. of Indiana, “Saving the Sherman Act from Its ‘Friends,’ “ 1950 Institute on Antitrust Laws and Price Regulations, South western Legal Foundation 211-224.

2 Including certain notable stylists and otherwise persuasive writers, who have the notion that there is an essential disutility to national interest to be found in international law. The classification of notable stylist Dean Acheson in this regard, in view of his latest book, is a subtle thing upon which this writer is not ready to take a position.

3 The discussion on return of German and Japanese assets at the last annual meeting of the Society afforded several interesting examples of “ good “ words and “ bad” words. For example, those in favor of return used the “ bad “ word “confiscation” to describe what had occurred when, during World War II, the Allied nations took into public ownership enemy assets. Those against return, somewhat uncomfortably, tried to explain that while they too were against “confiscation,” the analogy was to “eminent domain,” etc. Humpty Dumpty would have understood perfectly.

4 Italicized, because discourse does not always differentiate between: (1) the application of national law to foreign conduct if the actor is not within the territorial power of the state seeking to prescribe its rule for the conduct; (2) efforts of a state actually to enforce its law within the territory of another state; and (3) a broad or a narrow version of (1) above, involving expressions of opinion as to whether, and if so, under what circumstances, a state may apply its rule to conduct taking place outside its borders but having some effect (direct, indirect, slight, significant) within its borders or on its interests.

5 The current argument based on international law is summarized in DeVries, ‘ ‘ The International Responsibility of the United States for Vested German Assets,” 51 A.J.I.L. 18, 27 (1957). The inter-war debates, in which the late Professor Borchard participated with such vigor, will also be recalled. It is understood that a 1957 Press Release from the White House, announcing a plan for settlement of war damage claims against Germany and for return of vested assets, bases its new position, not on the requirements of international law, but on “ the historic American policy of maintaining the sanctity of private property.” See 37 Dept. of State Bulletin 306 (1957). Cf. note 3, above.

6 National Security and Foreign Policy in the Application of American Antitrust Laws to Commerce with Foreign Nations 8-9 (1957).

7 The Report then proceeds (pp. 9-18) to examine the various possible bases upon which the United States could claim to exercise jurisdiction to apply its antitrust laws to conduct outside the United States and finds bases of jurisdiction to be dubious in law or exercises of jurisdiction undesirable or unfair in policy. As to the situation in law, cf. Fugate, Foreign Commerce and the Antitrust Laws, Ch. 2 (1958). The Report cited above states in its preface that the director of the study, Professor Kingman Brewster, took no part in the preparation of the Report and that his study will be published as a book, which “ … will include Professor Brewster's own conclusions and recommendations, including his recommendations on the subject dealt with in this preliminary report.“

8 In the context of the nature of the struggle in World War II and with some recollection of the purely symbolic nature of the reparations settlement (at the insistence of the United States), that this argument is even made is little short of astonishing to the writer. Questions of doctrinal correctness aside, the only apparent reasons why there are not more violent reactions to the argument are (1) man's memory is only slightly longer than that of the gorilla; (2) the post-World-War I I settlement planning and its relationship to wartime operations and planning have never adequately been described.

9 Acknowledgment to Mr. Justice Frankfurter, writing in another context, hardly seems required.

10 Treaties and reciprocal legislation have for some countries carried reconciliations of conflicting bases of jurisdiction into other areas, such as, for example, military service in the armed services of one country by resident nationals of the other. The choice-of-law rules of the conflict of laws also operate over the wide range of private interests to reduce actual conflicts in the exercise of jurisdiction. Cf. Stevenson, , ‘’ The Relationship of Private International Law to Public International Law,'’ 52 Columbia Law Rev. 568 (1952)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Jessup, Transnational Law, Ch. 3 (1957).

11 See note 7 above. The American Law Institute's project for a re-study and restatement of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States has involved as yet unpublished research and analysis of Bases of Jurisdiction and of Conflicts of Jurisdiction. And see DeBevoise, ‘’ Treatment of Private Property of Foreign Nationals in Peace and War— Is a Code Desirable”, paper submitted to Oslo Conference, International Bar Association, July, 1956. On the enemy assets question the paper last cited excludes re-argument of the past and urges a look to the development of positive rules for the future.

12 Within the United States, the American Bar Association has appointed a new, special committee headed by the Honorable Thomas E. Dewey to re-examine the whole relationship of the Association to the field of international public law and the law of international organizations. The Executive Council of the American Society of International Law recently appointed a special committee to recommend measures by which the Society might contribute more effectively to the end of an increased respect for international law in the conduct of international relations. See also Henry E. Luce, “Peace Is the Work of Justice,” 30 Conn. Bar J. No. 4 (1956), and the refreshingly concrete proposals of American Bar Association President Rhyne in his address at the annual dinner of the Society, April 26, 1958.