On September 25, 1990, Poland deposited a declaration with the Secretary-General of the United Nations accepting the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in accordance with Article 36, paragraph 2 of the Statute of the Court. It is the first country from Central or Eastern Europe to have done so and the fifty-second state now maintaining an effective declaration.

In the course of litigation against an ex-employee, Gould, Inc. (Gould) allegedly learned that its proprietary technical data had been improperly supplied to Mitsui Mining & Smelting Co., Ltd. (Mitsui) and Miyakoshi Machine Tools Co., Ltd. (Miyakoshi), which then used those trade secrets in a joint venture with Pechiney Ugine Kuhlmann, a French state-owned company, and its wholly owned subsidiary, Trefimetaux (Pechiney/Trefimetaux). Gould filed a civil lawsuit against Pechiney/Trefimetaux, together with Mitsui and Miyakoshi, in U.S. district court, alleging violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations provisions of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 (18 U.S.C. §1961-1968 (1988)) (RICO). Gould’s complaint also included claims of unfair competition and unjust enrichment based upon the defendants’ alleged misappropriation of trade secrets. On the motion of Pechiney/Trefimetaux, the district court held that the civil RICO claim should be dismissed because, as “foreign states” under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (28 U.S.C. §1330, 1602-1611 (1988)) (FSIA), Pechiney and Trefimetaux were immune from criminal indictment for the acts alleged to have formed the basis for the RICO violation.

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which met from January 28 to March 8, 1991, in the shadow of the gulf war, nevertheless completed what many observers considered its most productive session in recent history. The Commission took action on a record of nineteen country situations—creating new rapporteurs on Iraq and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait—began plans for a 1993 World Conference on Human Rights, and set up an intersessional working group to complete a draft declaration on disappearances. The most important long-term accomplishment of the Commission, however, was the creation of a five-member working group to investigate cases of arbitrary detention throughout the world.

After six years of study by its Committee on the Enforcement of Human Rights Law, the sixty-fourth Conference of the International Law Association, held in Queensland, Australia, from August 19 to 25, 1990, approved by consensus a set of standards to assist human rights bodies in monitoring states of emergency. These standards, designated the Queensland Guidelines for Bodies Monitoring Respect for Human Rights during States of Emergency, complement on the enforcement side the substantive norms found in the Paris Minimum Standards of Human Rights Norms in a State of Emergency, adopted by the ILA in 1984.

The readers of this Journal are familiar with the difficulties experienced in protecting human dignity in situations of internal violence that fall below the thresholds of applicability of international humanitarian instruments but within the margin of public emergency; the governments directly concerned often promote this interpretation of such situations, enabling them to invoke the derogations clauses of international human rights instruments. These difficulties are compounded by the inadequacy of the nonderogable provisions of human rights instruments, the weakness of international monitoring and control procedures, and the need to define the character of the conflict situations (the applicability of certain norms of humanitarian law depends on such characterization, which is usually difficult and contested). Experience indicates that in situations of internal violence, normal constitutional and other legal checks and balances are singularly ineffective. Efforts have already been made to address some of the abuses typical of these situations, but the abuses continue unabated.

Petitioner, the Libyan National Oil Corp. (NOC), filed the petition to confirm an arbitral award rendered in Paris against Libyan Sun Oil Co. (LSOC), a Delaware corporation. The petition was based on the UN Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (Convention). LSOC opposed the petition on the grounds that NOC was not entitled to access to U.S. courts because of the state of relations between the United States and Libya and that the Libyan Sanctions Regulations prevented NOC from maintaining its claim in the absence of a license from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. In addition, LSOC argued that confirmation of the award should be denied under various provisions of the Convention, including the “public policy” defense embodied in Article V(2)(b). The district court (per Latchum, J.) held that NOC had standing to bring the petitión and that the defenses set forth in the Convention were inapplicable. The award was thus confirmed.

This appears to be the first decision dealing with the recognition in the United States of a foreign judgment rendered against the government of a third country. At issue was the recognition of a default judgment rendered by the English High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, against the People’s Republic of the Congo (Congo). The facts leading to the English judgment were as follows. In 1984 the Congo issued to an English bank a promissory note in the amount of over $26 million corresponding to a Credit Facility Agreement (Credit Agreement) with the bank. At the same time, the National Union Fire Insurance Co. of Pittsburgh (NUFI) became the insurer of the Congo’s obligations under the note. When the Congo failed to make payment, NUFI paid in its stead and became subrogated to the rights of the lender.

On October 30, 1984, French divers located the wreck of the CSS Alabama in 180 feet of water about seven miles off the Normandy coast of Cherbourg. A Confederate raider, the Alabama sank after a battle with the USS Kearsarge on June 19, 1864. French researchers dove to the wreck in November 1987.

Dispatch, a new weekly record of the U.S. Department of State, compiles major foreign policy speeches and congressional testimony by senior U.S. officials, as well as treaty actions and ambassadorial appointments.

Every week, Dispatch publishes the most current information on U.S. foreign policy. In addition to speeches and congressional testimony, Dispatch carries policy summaries, fact sheets and feature articles, plus updates on events in the Middle East and on public and private sector assistance to Eastern and Central Europe.

Phillips Petroleum Co. Iran, a wholly owned subsidiary of Phillips Petroleum Co., brought a claim before the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal against the Islamic Republic of Iran and the National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC) seeking compensation for the alleged taking of its rights under a joint agreement for the exploration and exploitation of petroleum resources in the Persian Gulf. Chamber Two of the Tribunal concluded that the claimant had been deprived of its property interests during the Iranian Revolution by conduct attributable to the Government of Iran for which respondents were liable to provide compensation. Affirming earlier decisions that the 1955 Treaty of Amity between the United States and Iran requires payment of “just compensation” representing the full equivalent of the property taken, the Tribunal accepted “discounted cash flow” analysis as a central method of determining that value. After making significant adjustments to claimant’s calculations, and considering “all relevant circumstances,” the Tribunal awarded claimant $55 million as the value of the expropriated property, with simple interest at the rate of 10 percent per annum from the date of loss to the date of payment from the Security Account.

A recently concluded special session of the General Assembly adopted, for the first time by consensus, a blueprint for the coordination of national and international economic policies. Carefully worded without any reference to the “New International Economic Order,” the session’s declaration nonetheless echoed the NIEO and its principal instrument, the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States, which provided: “States should co-operate in facilitating more rational and equitable international economic relations and in encouraging structural changes in the context of a balanced world economy in harmony with the needs and interests of all countries, especially developing countries, and should take appropriate measures to this end.”

We are pleased to report that, on February 7, 1991, the International Court of Justice elected Judge Robert Yewdall Jennings to be its President and Judge Shigeru Oda to be its Vice-President. Both offices carry five-year terms. Given the growing role of the Court, these elections are a significant tribute to, and responsibility for, two outstanding scholars of international law. Both have published in this Journal and are Honorary Members of the Society.