It is commonplace to say that the Court has not lived up to the expectations expressed at its creation, although it could also be said that the governments in and out of the United Nations have not lived up to those expectations. In presenting the Statute of the Court to the Fourth Commission at the United Nations Conference on International Organization, the Rapporteur of its First Committee said that the Committee “ventures to foresee a significant role for the new Court in the international relations of the future.” He went on to say: “The judicial process will have a central place in the plans of the United Nations for the settlement of international disputes by peaceful means.”

The fundamental importance of the codification of the law of treaties by the International Law Commission and the Vienna Conference will gain increasing recognition as the rules and principles embodied in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties are applied in the practice of states and the jurisprudence of international tribunals. Inevitably the records of this great codification will be searched and researched, by scholars as well as by legal advisers, and for a variety of reasons: What is the function of a particular rule? What r61e was it designed to play in the relations of states and in the international legal community? What does it require in the way of performance or abstention? Is it a residual rule, binding upon states if no other solution is agreed on? Why was the rule given the particular formulation found in the Vienna Convention,and what alternative formulations were rejected? Since the entry into force of the Vienna Convention will be delayed until after thirty-five states have ratified or acceded to it (Article 84), what assessment of the general acceptability of a particular provision can be gained from a study of the drafting record or from the number of affirmative or negative votes or abstentions?

“I believe the United States has a strong interest in developing rules of international law that limit claimed rights to use armed force and encourage the peaceful resolution of disputes.”

John R. Stevenson, Legal Adviser, “United States Military Actions in Cambodia: Questions of International Law,” 62 Department of State Bulletin 765, 766 (1970).

Any examination of self-determination runs promptly into the difficulty that while the concept lends itself to simple formulation in words which have a ring of universal applicability and perhaps of revolutionary slogans, when the time comes to put it into operation it turns out to be a complex matter hedged in by limitations and caveats. In a different turn of phrase, what is stated in big print—as in the reiterated United Nations injunction: All peoples have the right to self-determination—is drastically modified by what follows in small print. Indeed, once the major original exercise of self-determination has been undertaken, the small print takes over and becomes the big print which establishes the new and far more restrictive guidelines.

A quarter of a century has now elapsed since the end of World War II. During that time concerted efforts have been made to bring to justice those responsible for the appalling atrocities committed in the name of the Nazi forces. While many of the principal authors of war crimes have been punished, some of them are known to be still at large. Either by managing to escape detection or by fleeing to a country of haven, they have successfully avoided prosecution and punishment. In other cases 1 judicial proceedings have not yet been completed against persons suspected of war crimes or crimes against humanity.

In its Judgment of February 5, 1970, in the Case Concerning the Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Company, Limited (New Application, 1962, Belgium v. Spain, Second Phase), the International Court of Justice, by a vote of 15 to 1, rejected, for lack of jus stanai, a Belgian claim of a right of diplomatic protection of alleged Belgian shareholders in a Canadian company allegedly victim of a series of denials of justice by Spanish authorities. Essentially, the Court’s decision denies the existence of any general rule of international law or of any special circumstances or considerations of equity which confer a right of diplomatic protection of national shareholders in a foreign company where the acts complained of were directed by authorities of a third state against the company rather than against any legal rights of the shareholders as such. The opinion of the Court is, for the most part, soundly reasoned and comes after thorough argument of the precedents and brilliant presentation of opposing contentions of law and fact by distinguished counsel. Attorneys may safely advise clients that the Court’s opinion sets forth the existing law and that any special protection of shareholders as such in a foreign company must be based on treaty stipulations or special agreements.

Rarely, if ever, has the relationship between the President’s authority as Commander-in-Chief and Congress’s power to declare war been thrown into such sharp relief as by the Cambodian incursion. The issue is quite simple: Was the President within his power under Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution in ordering United States ground troops into Cambodia on April 30, 1970? The Constitutional question stands alone, in this instance freed of the other issues which tended to divert debate over United States involvement in South Viet-Nam and recent Presidential actions elsewhere.

In 1963 the United Nations General Assembly established the Special Committee on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations1 and instructed it to consider the following principles

Whether or not we agree with the statement that international law is nothing but “international public morality” or, what amounts to the same thing, that international law is “primitive law” as compared with its municipal counterpart, we are more likely to agree on the question that Soviet doctrinal international law1 is nothing but a mirror reflection of official Soviet governmental and party policies. It is essentially a “fighting international law” 2 which has often proved a valuable weapon in the armory of Soviet foreign policy-makers. The zig-zag development of the Soviet doctrinal approach to the question of international personality in general, and in particular to the international legal status of international organizations, vividly demonstrates this fact. We propose to examine in greater detail just one aspect of the Soviet doctrine of international law—the concept of secondary subjects of international law.

The boundary dispute between India and Pakistan in the Rann of Kutch case is one of the major instances of international arbitration in the postwar period.

The object of the ad hoc Tribunal was to determine a sector of the boundary between India and Pakistan in the southwestern region of the Indian subcontinent between what in British times was Sind, now forming part of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and the State of Kutch and other Native Indian States, which now form part of the Province of Gujarat in the Republic of India. The length of the boundary eventually established by the Tribunal was about 255 miles. The disputed territory, the area of which has been estimated to be 3,500 square miles, consisted for the most part of a portion of a tract known as the Great Rann of Kutch, or the Rann.

Many interesting articles have already been published on the preparatory work for the United Nations Conference on the Law of Treaties, on the Conference itself, and, of course, on the Convention signed at Vienna on May 23, 1969. The American Journal of International Law has printed a number of them, among the most important being the excellent study by Ambassador Richard D. Kearney and Mr. Robert E. Dalton. The authors rightly referred to the Vienna Convention as the “Treaty on Treaties,” its object being to codify all, or nearly all, legal problems that may arise in connection with treaties, and the very definition of a “treaty,” as introduced by the convention, being much broader in scope than the traditional meaning of this term.

In appraising national security decisions, such as the recent decision to send United States combat forces into the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong border sanctuaries in Cambodia, it is useful to focus on three interrelated questions. First, is the decision consistent with national and international law? Second, is the decision consistent with the national interest? And third, are there other alternatives which are likely to be more satisfactory in implementing the national interest? Each of these questions represents an important perspective for appraisal. Although the answer to the first question is important for answering the second and third questions, international lawyers should resist the temptation to regard an affirmative answer to the legal question as equivalent to proof that a decision is the best option for national action. Conversely, international lawyers should also avoid the temptation to regard personal doubts about the efficacy of a particular option as equivalent to proof of the illegality of the option. An international legal perspective is a critical input in national security decisions and should have a major rôle in defining the national interest and in introducing and delimiting options for national action. On the other hand, efforts to overuse international law, whether by way of support or criticism of national action, serve only to obscure the vital rôle that an international legal perspective should play.

The General Assembly Resolution of December 17, 1970,1 has been widely acclaimed for its affirmation of the principles that

The length of time which has unfortunately (owing entirely to the procrastinations and backslidings of this reviewer) elapsed since the date when this (by any standards) most original and arresting work was first published in April, 1967, makes it scarcely necessary to supply that systematic description of its contents which, up to a point, any well-ordered review ought to seek to do,—for by this time all those who are interested in its subject matter will have read or at least looked through it. We shall therefore concentrate on those salient aspects of it which, even after the familiarity of three years has softened their outlines, still seem to stand out with special prominence.