“They meant simply to declare the right, so that enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.

“They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere.”

The Test Ban Treaty of August 5, 1963, prohibits nuclear weapon tests or other nuclear explosions in the atmosphere, in outer space, or under water, i.e., in the environments where detection from outside the territory of the testing state is possible. Underground nuclear explosions are not prohibited as long as they do not cause radioactive debris to be present outside the territorial limits of the state under whose jurisdiction or control such explosions are conducted. The parties to the treaty also undertake to refrain from “causing, encouraging, or in any way participating in” the carrying out of explosions anywhere which have any of the prohibited effects. The treaty is, as President Kennedy pointed out in his message to the Senate, “the first concrete result of 18 years of effort by the United States to impose limits on the nuclear arms race.” Similarly Lord Home, as he then was, said as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of the United Kingdom, that the limited test ban in three environments was “a good thing in itself not only first, because it reduces the danger of pollution of the atmosphere, but, secondly, because it makes the first agreement of substance which we have been able to make with the Russians for a very long time.” Mr. Khrushchev, on his part, praised the treaty as a “document of great international significance” and said that “its conclusion means a major success for all people of goodwill who for many years have been actively fighting for the discontinuance of nuclear tests, for disarmament, for peace and international friendship.” It is stated in the Preamble to the treaty that the parties seek to achieve the discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time and are determined to continue negotiations to this end.

“Chicken War” is a quip for a long-festering controversy that in the summer of 1963 bristled with menace of a possible trade war between the United States and the European Economic Community. Actually, no outbreak of hostilities eventuated; for, in good time, basis for a détente was found. This entailed resort to a dispute-resolution machinery, made possible because of the existence of an organized international forum in which countries have gained experience in the tasks of harmonizing trade interests. How the controversy started, burgeoned and was disposed of illustrates the complications arising from the creation of the Common Market and the ways devised for coping with these and other complications afflicting international trade.

After two and one-half years of negotiation, an agreement settling claims of the United States against Bulgaria was signed at Sofia on July 2, 1963. Under its terms Bulgaria will pay a lump sum of $3,543,398 in settlement of the claims of United States nationals arising out of war damage, nationalization of property and certain financial debts. Together with the Rumanian lump-sum settlement of 1960, which it closely parallels, the Bulgarian agreement constitutes a unique development in postwar international claims practice, for it follows rather than precedes a unilateral adjudication of the claims by the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, a United States national claims commission acting pursuant to domestic claims legislation. Avoiding some of the problems of its predecessor, so ably considered in an article by a former Department of State attorney, the present agreement “merits analysis, not only for the benefit of private claimants involved, but also for a general understanding of technical, concrete experience in settling international disputes in a day when the chief talk revolves about grandiose schemes of the rule of law.”

The material for this section has been prepared by a committee consisting of HAROLD S. BURMAN, STANLEY L. COHEN, THOMAS T. F. HUANG, and SYLVIA E. NILSEN, under the chairmanship of RICHARD B. BILDER, all of the Office of the Legal Adviser, Department of State. Mr. ALFRED P. RUBIN, of the Office of the General Counsel, Department of Defense, and Mr. BRUNO A. RISTAU, of the Department of Justice, have provided the committee with relevant material originating in those two agencies.