The late Sir Hersch Lauterpacht once expressed the view that “if international law is, in some ways, at the vanishing point of law, the law of war is, perhaps, even more conspicuously, at the vanishing point of international law”. This led him to the conclusion that the international lawyer must therefore do his duty, in the three particular areas to which he was then drawing the attention of his readers, “with determination though without complacency, and perhaps not always very hopefully”. The three spheres which Lauterpacht considered as meriting the attention of international lawyers at the time at which he wrote, 1953, were “further legal regulation of the humanitarian fringe of the problems involved in the use of new weapons of war, sustained exposition and clarification of the far-reaching provisions of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and the further clarification of matters not covered by the Geneva Conventions, including the implication of the principle that the law of war is binding not only upon States but also upon individuals”. This great jurist did not live to see the current endeavours that are being made to carry out a revision of the international law of war and the increasing attention that is being paid to the humanitarian content of that law, and even more specifically, to the quest for better and more effective means of implementation of that law.

It is a truism to say that the characteristics of a legal system, in the social and political not less than in the technical field, depend mainly on the nature of its sources of law. If we confine our attention to Roman law, we may state that its achievements, as well as its failures were the consequence of the ways by which it was formed and developed throughout its long history.

The importance of this statement is enhanced by the fact that the Roman attitude to sources of law was apparently different from that of most ancient and modern legal systems. In particular, customary rules are said to have had a greater part in the creation and development of Roman law than of other legal systems. It would be misleading, however, to presume that the sources of Roman law, and the role of custom among them, remained unchanged during the course of Roman history.

Accordingly, at the very outset two points emerge, which merit discussion: (1) What was the part of customary rules and statutes in the creation and development of Roman law; (2) Whether, or how far, their relation changed from one period to another.

The prohibition against multiple trials for the same matter is a basic principle of criminal law and long a principle deeply rooted in European tradition. Many jurisdictions consider it important enough to deserve inclusion in their constitutions. Nevertheless the relevant provisions have been applied in quite diverse patterns throughout the various common law jurisdictions, and within each of them have developed unsystematically. They have been the subject of severe criticism down to the present time.

Three main doctrines have been developed in the common law jurisdictions:

(a) Former trial: This is better known in England as autrefois acquit and autrefois convict, and in the United States as double jeopardy. A man can be tried only once for his criminal behaviour. Once a lawful verdict has been rendered he is protected against further prosecution for the same matter. Under autrefois acquit and autrefois convict a verdict must have been formerly pronounced in the matter which is charged in the subsequent indictment. Under double jeopardy it is enough that the defendant has been in jeopardy of conviction (for the same matter) in former proceedings.

The simultaneous application of the principles of universality and regionalism to the organization of international peace and security has naturally created the political and constitutional problems of how to secure a workable and appropriate relationship between universal and regional organizations. It is a paradox of the twentieth century that while world peace like war has tended to become indivisible, international organization of security remains tied to the principle of division and imperfect coordination of responsibility between universal and regional instrumentalities.

This article deals with the constitutional solutions adopted by the founders of the League of Nations and the United Nations to the problem of universal-regional relationship in international organization. Placing international constitution-making squarely within the context of the dynamic forces of international politics, the study identifies those political considerations bearing on the formulation of the constitutional relations between universal and regional organizations in both the League Covenant and the United Nations Charter. In addition, it emphasizes the important fact that the constitutional problems of international organization are inextricably related to the substantive problems of international politics.