The possibility of continued resistance by Japanese forces toward the end of 1945, contrary to the terms of the surrender agreement by the Japanese Government, again raised the problem of the status of guerrillas under the laws of war. This problem has arisen during almost every war in modern history. It arose at the conclusion of hostilities with Germany when there was speculation that some German forces would refuse to abide by the unconditional surrender.

This legislation constitutes belated recognition of the need for granting to international organizations of which the United States is a member, and to their personnel, a legal status which is adequate to ensure the effective performance of their functions and the fulfillment of their purposes. It will “not only protect the official character of public international organizations in this country,” as the Senate Committee on Finance has stated, “but it will also tend to strengthen the position of international organizations of which the United States is a member when they are located or carry on their activities in other countries.”

The Second World War inflicted countless sufferings and misfortunes on mankind. At the same time the war put to the test, in the sacrifice and heroism at the battlefronts and in the rear, many peoples and states, social forms and political systems, doctrines and theories.

In its reply to the identical notes sent by Secretary of State James F. Byrnes on February 9, 1946, to the Chinese and Soviet Governments concerning the disposition of Japanese external assets, the Government of China stated that the claim of the Soviet Government “that all Japanese enterprises in the Chinese Northeastern Provinces which had rendered services to the Japanese Army were regarded by the Soviet Union as war booty of Soviet forces” is considered by the Chinese Government “as far exceeding the scope of war booty as generally recognized by international law and international usage.”

Gaius and Charlemagne and President Truman seem to be working hand in hand across the centuries to bring about coördination of European inland waterways. Under the law of the Roman Empire such waterways, when constituting or crossing international boundaries, were free to use by all nations within the Empire. Since 1815, as we shall presently see, there have been successive organized attempts, mostly unsuccessful, to revive and apply this principle of freedom of navigation of the Roman Law on the Rhine, the Danube, and elsewhere. The United States, through President Truman, at the July–August Berlin (Potsdam) conference of the victorious allies, proposed that navigation over the internal waterways of Continental Europe be free to all nations under international control. More recently, in the latter weeks of 1945, grave obstacles and problems threaten the realization of the Truman proposal. The writer believes that if we visualize clearly the mechanism and workings of an international body vested with control of inland river navigation, we can better appraise the merits of that proposal.

At the Third Conference of the Inter-American Bar Association held in Mexico City during July–August, 1944, a sub-committee of the Committee on Post-War Problems proposed a draft resolution relative to the diplomatic protection of citizens abroad which, if ever officially accepted by the American Republics, would erase as between those countries all of the existing international law on the subject. The resolution urged, first of all, that “diplomatic protection of citizens abroad” be abolished in favor of an international protection of the rights of man.

The First Part of the First General Assembly of the United Nations was in session in London from January 10 to February 14, 1946. Meeting intermittently during this period also were the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council.

The Arab countries long ago aspired to form some kind of union and the movement towards that ideal came to be known as Pan-Arabism. The roots of the movement go back to the time when the various nationalities of the Ottoman Empire rose in revolt against Turkish domination and aimed at eventual separation from Ottoman sovereignty. Some of the Arab countries actually defied Turkish authority and were separated, at least for a definite period of time, from the Ottoman body politic: such were the Arabian Peninsula under the Wahhabis and Egypt under Mohammed Ali.

International coöperation in economic and social fields, a direct consequence of the amazing progress attained in the field of transportation and communications, has progressed during recent decades with remarkable speed. There were leagues and associations of states even in ancient times, and some of them were formed and maintained for economic as well as for political purposes, but modern economic and social cooperation extends to the most varied spheres of human activity and emphasizes more and more the interests of individuals as contrasted with those of states.1 It finds its most characteristic expression in the so-called public international unions, associations of sovereign states for the accomplishment of certain definite tasks in the economic and social field, but it is embodied also in the important work of private international associations. Organizations of the latter type have often been instrumental in bringing about important international regulations.

The publication, on November 6,1945, of a series of documents embodying the terms of the armistice arrangements successively entered into between the Italian Government and the American and British Commanders in the Mediterranean area makes possible an accurate, if necessarily belated, evaluation of their form, content, and import. The text serve as an interesting and accurate record of the degree and intensity of cohesion of the coalition which Italy then faced in the field, and afford an insight into the variform problems which an armistice with a naval power inevitably raises. Because the laying down of Italian arms constituted the first concrete implementation of the concept of unconditional surrender the two armistices in which it was embodied offer an illuminating indication of the juridical form and content of “unconditional surrender” in 1943 with which the surrender instruments and orders of 1945 can be compared.