The conquest of space has barely begun. Yet the law of space, instead of lagging behind the astronauts as some lawyers fear, is threatening to outfly the attraction of the earth’s gravity. Before legal speculation reaches escape velocity, we should perhaps remind ourselves of the specific problems that may confront us soon, the earthly origin of much of our law, and the earthly ways in which for some time we shall have to continue to think about law in outer space.

Some time in 1907, Mr. Blihu Root, then Secretary of State, asked Mr. Chandler P. Anderson, his special counsel on Canadian matters, “how far, if at all, this Government is restrained by treaty provisions or by international law or by comity of nations from authorizing the diversion of waters from Birch Lake basin, as proposed by the Minnesota Canal and Power Company.”

Guidance of development in the British Commonwealth has involved the use of various legal means. In the field of international commercial relations perhaps none has been more striking than the adaptation of the familiar idea of most-favored-nation treatment.

1. In the course of the last decade, students of legal and economic questions have been attempting to throw some light on the problem of nationalizations in the Soviet satellite countries in general, and in Bulgaria in particular.

The state traders of Eastern Europe are arguing that the principle of equality of states enshrined in the United Nations Charter must be extended to international commercial intercourse to prevent discrimination. This was the theme of the opening session of a recent conference of scholars gathered in Rome to consider the impact of state trading upon the law governing commercial relations of states.

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.

On October 1, 1957, the General Assembly of the United Nations decided without objection to inscribe on the agenda of its twelfth session a proposal of the Soviet Union requesting a declaration relative to the principles of peaceful co-existence.

The Advisory Committee on the Foreign Relations of the United States was appointed at the request of the Chief of the Historical Division of the Department of State.

In 1951 the first Hispano-Luso-American Congress took place at Madrid. There was also created the Hispano-Luso-American Institute of International Law.

The Institute of International Law has announced the subject for the Samuel Pufendorf Prize (1200 Swiss francs) to be awarded in 1960. The subject chosen is: ’The Position of Third States with Regard to the European Coal and Steel Community.”

The American Society of International Law held its 52nd annual meeting at the Statler Hilton Hotel in Washington, D. C., April 24–26, 1958. The meeting was attended by approximately 300 persons. The general theme was “International Law and the Political Process.”