1. On 7th November, 1957, nearly two weeks before the debate on Western New Guinea (“West Irian”) opened in the (twelfth) General Assembly of the United Nations, President Sukarno declared in a speech: “So far we have waged the struggle for the freedom of West Irian in the United Nations. But if the U.N. is unable to help us, we shall resort to means which will startle the world.” What these means were was soon to become apparent, after the resolution on New Guinea sponsored by Indonesia and 18 other countries had failed to obtain a two thirds-majority—or even, indeed, an absolute majority—in the vote in the General Assembly on 29th November, 1957.

The Netherlands are a party to the Hague Convention of 1902 on marriage and to the Geneva Convention of 1954 relating to the status of refugees. Hungary is a party to the former, but not to the latter. The Hague Convention declares that the capacity to marry of the parties is generally determined by their personal law (i.c. the law of their nationality), whereas the Geneva Convention provides that tile personal status of refugees shall be governed by the law of their domicile (or residence); this status includes the capacity to marry.

Now if Hungarian refugees, living in Holland, wish to marry there these rules may lead to opposed results: in some cases the Hungarians do not comply with the provisions of Hungarian internal law although they fulfil the requirements of Dutch internal law. Which conflicts rule has to be applied? That of the Hague Convention or that of the Geneva Convention?

The author demonstrates that neither Dutch law nor the law of nations contains rules providing for a solution of this conflict of treaty-rules. He concludes that Dutch authorities should act in favorem matrimonii and apply the law admitting the marriage.

1. La Convention sur la loi applicable aux obligations alimentaires envers les enfants apporte une solution originale tant par le point de rattachement qu'elle consacre — la résidence habituelle — que par le fait qu'elle isole l'obligation alimentaire de toute autre question pour la soumettre à un régime propre. Des voix autorisées ont commenté et justifié les solutions choisies. Notre but est plus modeste, nous voudrions démontrer, d'une part que la Convention instaure réellement un régime uniforme en ce sens que la détermination de la loi compétente et la délimitation de son domaine sont largement à l'abri de divergences entraînées par des qualifications nationales, et d'autre part que l'isolement de la question alimentaire ne doit pas entraîner de difficultés dans l'application de la loi déclarée compétente, même si cette loi relie étroitement l'obligation alimentaire à la filiation. Enfin nous recherchons l'incidence d'un état de filiation déjà établi sur l'action alimentaire.

In recent years, the problem of determining correctly the extraterritorial effect of the Sherman Act has gained considerable importance. Since the end of World War II, the United States Justice Department has been active and successful in its endeavors to have American and foreign businessmen operating abroad exposed to the impact of the American antitrust laws. Recent judicial pronouncements have left the feelings of the persons concerned as well as the law in a state of turmoil. If anything in the antitrust field is certain, the businessman's position in foreign commerce is definitely uncertain.

The impending tenth anniversary of the ratification of the United Nations' Charter in 1955 gave rise to a great deal of activity both inside and outside the organization preparatory to a statutory review of the Charter.

The direct occasion for this were the provisions of Article 109, par. 3, which authorize the General Assembly to convene a review conference by a simple majority vote, if within the first ten years of its existence such a conference has not been held, a situation which indeed obtained.

Extensive preparatory work on the technical level was undertaken by many governments and notably by the Secretariat in their Repertoire of Practice of the Security Council and Repertory of Practice of United Nations Organs; on the other hand political preparations, essential since the results of any review are subject to the “veto”, were sadly neglected.

Indicative of this situation was the announcement early in the debate by one of the permanent members of the Security Council (the U.S.A.) that they were disinterested in a technical review of the Charter, and that their main objective was the amending of Article 27 (3) in the sense that the admission of new members would seize to be subject to the “veto”. This proposition was, as could have been expected, wholly unacceptable to the Soviet-Union and their allies. Under these circumstances several members, especially from the Scandinavian countries, were quite willing to suspend the proceedings until a better political climate would prevail.

Yet the unique feature of Article 109 (3) which obviously could never again be applied continued to fascinate a majority of members. Finally in Resolution 992 (X) an ingeneous solution was found, by which a decision in principle to hold the Review Conference ex Article 109 (3) was made, while at the same time the actual date of the Conference was deferred for at least another two years. Both the political wisdom and the legality of this Resolution have been questioned, in the view of the author on good grounds.

Whatever the concrete results of these deliberations held during the Tenth Assembly in plenary sessions, some indications have at least been given which parts of the Charter in the view of member states could bear review. In addition to Articles 2 (7) and 27 (3) which are of course the basic points of the power relationship within the organization, and which for that matter are most unlikely ever to be changed, the incorporation of the Uniting for Peace Resolution, 377 (V) and the elimination of the term “enemy states” in Articles 53, 77 and 107 were advocated. It is perhaps an ironical commentary on the situation that one of the most forceful speeches in this debate was the one recommending a thorough overhaul of the whole of Chapter XVIII, the amendment procedure itself.

Meanwhile nothing illustrates better the present bleak outlook for charter review than the proposals introduced in 1956 to amend Articles 23 and 61 of the Charter and Article 2 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, with a view of increasing the membership of the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council and the Court under the provisions of Article 108, proposed by the Latin-American states and Spain. These proposals are motivated mainly by the progressively less satisfactory distribution of the non-permanent seats on the Security Council, which in turn is based on a “gentlemen's agreement” concluded in London in 1946, but on whose continued validity the Western and Eastern powers hold divergent views. This situation has become more urgent since the recent admission of a great number of Asian and African states for whom, even if the gentleman's agreement were observed to the letter, no place would seem to be available on that Council.

The belief prevails that unless the Councils be enlarged, eventually the Latin-American representation is bound to be decreased, which explains the initiative taken by that group.

Progress on these proposals has been thwarted by the Soviet-Union on the one hand by the injection of the China representation issue, and on the other by the insistence on ironclad guarantees on behalf of their Eastern European allies. The plans so far advanced have, however, also been deemed unsatisfactory by several non-European members, notably those from Africa.

Neither the eleventh nor the twelfth Assembly have been able to find a compromise agreeable to all the interested parties, and thus these proposals like those for a Charter Review Conference are being held over for future sessions.

Cette étude se borne, au moment où le Maroc, désormais indépendant, subit une profonde transformation dans tous les domaines, à donner un bref aperçu de l'état antérieur des institutions judiciaires marocaines dans les trois zones de l'Empire chérifien et à envisager l'influence du réveil du nationalisme sur le régime judiciaire du pays. Car le Maroc, dégagé des liens de dépendance du Protectorat de 1912 en du Statut de Tanger de 1923, ne tarde pas à prendre place parmi les Etats souverains et l'on sait que le premier attribut de la souveraineté est le droit d'administrer la justice. Il est donc normal que le Maroc, jaloux de cette légitime prérogative de sa jeune souveraineté, ne manque pas de chercher à effacer tout ce qui pourrait rappeler le souvenir du réantérieur de dépendance auquel il a été soumis, en s'opposant à la présence des tribunaux étrangers sur son territoire. Il apparaǐt ainsi que ce problème a un aspect politique non négligeable; mais nous pensons qu'il est d'élémentaire prudence, au moment où le régime politique du Royaume se transforme et cherche sa voie, de nous abstenir de nous aventurer sur un terrain aussi mouvant et aussi glissant. Cela, toutefois, ne peut nous empěcher de rechercher, en toute objectivité d'ailleurs, les indices de la réorganisation de la justice au Maroc regardant les garanties qu'elle pourra assurer aux ressortissants étrangers après la suppression des juridictions étrangères ou mixtes.