Edwin M. Borchard, lawyer, scholar, teacher, public servant, and kindly humanitarian, died July 22, 1951, after a lingering illness. Born in New York, October 17, 1884, he received his LL.B. at New York Law School in 1905 and a Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1913. He was awarded honorary degrees of Doctor of Laws by the University of Berlin in 1925 and by the University of Budapest in 1935. He served as expert on international law to the American Agency, North Atlantic Coast Fisheries Arbitration at The Hague in 1910; as Law Librarian of Congress from 1911 to 1913 and from 1914 to 1916; as Assistant Solicitor, Department of State, 1913-1914; as chief counsel for Peru in the Tacna-Arica Arbitration; as special legal adviser to the Treasury Department; as technical adviser to theAmerican Delegation to The Hague Codification Conference of 1930; and as a member of the Pan American Committee of Experts for the Codification of International Law.

The nationalization of foreign-owned property presents problems which put a severe strain upon some of the accepted principles of international law. Chandler Anderson, one of the founding members of the American Society of International Law, pointed out nearly a quarter of a century ago that the principle which safeguards foreign-owned property from confiscation in time of peace “has become a part of the law of nations not merely because it represents a universally recognized standard ofjustice, but also because it is absolutely essential for the welfare of every nation, for without its protection no commercial, or financial international intercourse could safely be carried on.” Since that time, the practice of expropriating foreign property by "nationalization" has spread from Soviet Kussia to other countries constituting important parts of the free world strongly opposed to Communism.

Members of the American Society of International Law are by inference charged by the Constitution of their Society with doing all that is possible to promote the study and development of international law and the conduct of international affairs on the basis of law and justice. For this purpose it is not sufficient to study and advocate the development of the law itself or for its own sake. Much attention must be given, certainly much more than has been given in the past, to the second section of the mandate, partly because of its own importance and partly to provide the kind of international situation where the law can thrive and be effective— which in turn is calculated to promote peace and justice. Friends of international law cannot afford to evade even the most difficult and delicate issues in the field of international relations on the ground that they are purely political in character.

Two recent books illustrate current trends of thought as to the conduct of nations within the community of nations. They do not present new attitudes; they represent the long struggle between advancing law and the maintenance of the interest of individual units of society.

The problem of reservations to multilateral treaties signed at the close of international conferences is one that has long been a matter of concern to the regional Organization of the American States, as it is now to the Secretariat of the United Nations. How can we promote the general acceptance of international agreements and yet recognize that, after the text of the treaty has been agreed upon and signed by representatives of the executive department of a state, the popularly elected Congress, which in democratic constitutions must give its assent to the ratification of the treaty, may object to certain provisions of the treaty and refuse to approve the agreement without making exception of one or more objectionable articles?

The simplest answer would be to say that we simply cannot recognize any such intervention on the part of the legislative body. Once the treaty has been signed, the treaty must be ratified in the form signed or not ratified at all. But such a position would be needlessly extreme. What if the other signatories of the treaty find no objection to the proposed reservation, looking upon it as being no more than the expression of a national complex which the particular state may have with respect to possible effects of the treaty not contemplated by themselves, or in any case as not constituting any substantial obstacle to the attainment of the objectives of the treaty? In such a case the other signatories might readily agree to accept the proposed reservation under the belief that it is better to have the particular state cooperate in that restricted way than not at all; and if they are willing to do so, why not let them?

Recent critics of the Department of State have complained that “under its present leadership” the policy of the Department has been “ to go slow, play cautious, and be nice.” It is claimed that such a tactic is bound to be ineffectual in dealing with Moscow and Prague. Other critics have complained that the Department has failed to respond vigorously to the charges hurled at it by hostile politicians within the country; the Department seems, it is said, to have tried to avoid or evade or run away from controversy. It depends on public support for successful operations in many ways but does not try very hard to win that support. The second situation differs notably from the first, of course, being a case in domestic rather than international politics, but the choice involved is substantially the same in the art of group dynamics and constitutes an important problem, apart entirely from the substance of the questions at issue between the Department and its opponents, domestic or foreign.