The International Court of Justice is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations and its judgments are usually considered highly persuasive as to propositions of international law. Thus, when the ICJ formulates a rule of international law giving binding force to a unilateral declaration of a state’s future intentions, statesmen may be expected to refer to that formulation for guidance whenever they consider the possibility of issuing a declaration of future policy. Moreover, the ability of the ICJ to support its formulation of a rule of international law in terms of the international legal order and legal logic affects the perceptions of statesmen as to the probity of the Court, as well as the willingness of states to refer real cases to it. The Judgment of the ICJ in the Nuclear Tests cases raised both these issues in a particularly pointed way.

On August 10, 1976, Greece addressed a communication to the President of the Security Council requesting an urgent meeting of the Council on the ground that “following recent repeated flagrant violations by Turkey of the sovereign rights of Greece in the continental shelf in the Aegean, a dangerous situation has been created threatening international peace and security.” On the same day, by unilateral application, Greece instituted proceedings in the International Court of Justice against Turkey in “a dispute concerning the delimitation of the continental shelf appertaining to Greece and Turkey in the Aegean Sea, and concerning the respective legal rights of those States to explore and exploit the continental shelf of the Aegean.” Also on the same day Greece filed a request for interim measures of protection asking the Court to direct that both Greece and Turkey

With the failure of the United Nations to control the use of force by states to the degree that many had wished for, the attention of many commenators shifted to what was hoped would be more fertile ground—the protection of human rights, self-determination, and other areas in which the organization might play a supranational role. In discussing the development of the supranational aspect of the organization, attention is invariably directed to Article 2(7) of the Charter which is, of course, the current symbol of sovereignty. Since most visionaries are frustrated by the concept of sovereignty, it is not surprising that this article has received little sympathy on the part of many who are more concerned with ends than means. Yet it is doubtful whether the concept may be dismissed summarily and, since it plays such a key role in so many of the allegedly developing fields of international law, one would do well to consider how Article 2(7), properly interpreted, affects the legal assumption on which supranationalism is based.

The techniques of ocean management are in a process of continuing and accelerating change as new countries emerge into independence and as new perspectives are adopted toward the control and use of the ocean environment. Two decades ago, as preparations were underway for the First Law of the Sea Conference, all of the ocean space, save for narrow bands of coastal waters, was conceived of as high seas, open to the use of all countries. Little attention was paid to the differences in marine interests and capabilities of the then nearly ninety independent coastal and land-locked states. The preeminence of the major maritime powers and their insistence on maximizing the freedom of the seas meant that few concessions to the special needs and concerns of the less-developed countries were even considered. Freedom of navigation, overflight, fishing, and scientific research beyond narrow territorial limits were major blocks upon which the law of the sea of the latter 1950’s was constructed.

During the past decade, a number of scholarly analyses of the United Nations ministate problem have appeared. This concern is understandable because the dilemma of ministate representation goes to the heart of the malaise increasingly gripping the world organization: How to square formal voting power with the realities of international politics? Indeed, no less of an authority than the late Secretary-General U Thant, in his final Annual Report, warned his reluctant audience that the ministate problem “is likely to become more acute in the years to come.”

On July 18, 1976, the Soviet naval vessel, Kiev, transited the Turkish Straits from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, with Turkish consent. Questions have been raised concerning the international legality of this transit, and in light of earlier reaction to an alleged violation by the Soviet Union of the rules on the passage of submarines through the Turkish Straits it seems appropriate to examine the facts and the governing law.

The material in this section is arranged according to the system employed in the annual Digest of United States Practice in International Law, published by the Department of State.