At the beginning of the 14th century, the great poet Dante published an imaginative proposal for world order. His experience had led him to believe that the multiplicity of cities, states, and kingdoms was the source of great discord and strife. They were depriving mankind of that tranquility which was necessary for the full development of its intellectual powers. There was a need for a single impartial ruler who, standing above the contentiousness of lesser governments, could bring about a regime of universal justice and peace. In the De monarchia the holder of universal authority was to be the Roman emperor. The genius of the Romans devised the most effective forms of government that the world had ever known. As the Roman Catholic Church had universal authority in matters spiritual, the Holy Roman emperor should exercise a supreme, global authority to which all the various kingdoms and republics would be politically subordinate.

The “Hostages” case was surely one of the most remarkable ever to be presented to the World Court for a decision. And among its remarkable features, none is more striking than that prior to delivery of the Court’s Judgment the United States attempted to rescue the hostages by force. This attempt to accomplish by force what the United States had sought to achieve through the judicial process raised profound issues regarding the relationship between the use of force and adjudication, the purpose and effect of interim measures of protection, and the role of the Court in the contemporary international order. This article will analyze these issues in the light of the Court’s treatment of the rescue attempt.

The Gulf of Aqaba is a long, narrow body of water on the eastern side of the Sinai Peninsula. The western shore is Egyptian, the eastern shore is Saudi Arabian, and the head of the Gulf is Israeli and Jordanian territory. The islands of Tiran and Sanafir front the entrance and have been under Egyptian occupation since 1950. Saudi Arabia, however, maintains the claim that the two islands are Saudi Arabian territory. The length of the Gulf is about 96 miles; the breadth at the entrance to the Gulf is 5¾ miles; at its widest the Gulf measures 14½ miles. The entrance to the Gulf is through the Strait of Tiran (about 3 miles wide), between Tiran Island and the Egyptian coast. There are two passages in the Strait; Enterprise Passage and Grafton Passage, 1,300 and 950 yards wide, respectively. Enterprise Passage, which lies close to the Sinai Peninsula coast, is the principal navigation channel into the Gulf, and the only channel that can be navigated safely by vessels of substantial size. On the coastline, Egypt and Saudi Arabia each have over 100 miles of territory; also Jordanian territory encompasses about 3½ miles and the territory of Israel about 6 miles.

Despite the increasing significance of customary law in the delimitation of sea boundaries between states, the principles that evolved during the three centuries prior to World War II have generally been ignored. Although a comprehensive study in this field is needed, the studies that exist begin either with the Truman Proclamation of 1945 or the discussions of the International Law Commission in the early 1950’s. The Commission itself declared that there was no law on the matter and attempted to legislate rules in the interest of the progressive development of international law. This hasty and ambitious attempt left a gap between the conventional law and customary law, which later resulted in many disputes.