In some respects, the thirteenth year of the activities of the Permanent Court of International Justice has been in keeping with the tradition associated with that number. Though three sessions of the Court have been held, during part of the year the judges have not been kept busy; and possibly because of general conditions prevailing in the world, the activities of governments with reference to the Court have proceeded at a somewhat slackened pace.

One who was present during a discussion at Paris by President Wilson, Lloyd George, and Clemenceau concerning the subject of Mandates has stated that it was quite evident each was employing this novel term in a different sense. So it is with the term codification: like the Monroe Doctrine, whether you are in favor of it or opposed to it, codification is variously understood and interpreted. The discussions of the subject in the League of Nations in recent years indicate a serious divergence of opinion, although everybody would seem to favor some form of codification.

Notices of withdrawal from the League of Nations during the year 1933 on the part of two States permanently represented on the Council, Japan and Germany, have turned attention once more to the provision for withdrawal in the Covenant of the League and to the necessity for interpretation of the scope and meaning of that provision.

The doctrine which is here being discussed has been stated as follows:

Jefferson’s importance as a political theorist tends to be overshadowed by his success as diplomat and statesman. The practical accomplishments of his forty years in public office often obscure the breadth and consistency of the philosophy behind all of his official conduct, and his tremendous influence in formulating and disseminating the principles on which the modern democratic state rests is too often forgotten. His genius consisted, not so much in the originality of his political ideas, as in his ability to select from the conflicting theories of his day all that could be practically applied, and to transmute a diverse intellectual heritage into a working philosophy of the state. Against the sovereign whose command is law, Jefferson sets up a legal theory seeking justice as well as order, and by which ruler and subject are alike bound. It is a theory which transcends national lines, recognizing that isolation, in any rigorous sense, means stagnation and death, both to the individual and to the state. So when Jefferson asks for “peace, commerce, and honest friendship, with all nations–entangling alliances with none,” only the second phrase is negative, and it means no more than it says. Peace and commerce are both relations external to the individual state; and both presuppose for their maintenance some form of international organization–some system of international law. Both Jefferson’s writings and his official acts testify to his belief that the intercourse of nations must be governed by some body of legal rules.