The fifteenth year of the Permanent Court of International Justice has been notable for several reasons. Because of the entry into force on February 1, 1936, of the amendments to the Statute annexed to the Protocol of September 14, 1929, it marks the beginning of a new period in the history of the Court. A consequence of the amendments was the adoption of new Rules of Court on March 11, 1936, and some modifications were made in the Court's practice. The year also saw several changes in the Court's personnel; one judge died, one resigned, and three new judges were elected. Moreover, the action of various governments during the year with reference to the Court protocols is to be noted as significant for the future of the Court.

In April, 1917, when the Balfour mission visited the United States to arrange for American cooperation with the Allies, Frank L. Polk, Counsellor for the Department of State, jocosely said, “You will find that it will take us only two months to become as great criminals as you are.” Polk’s forecast has become common opinion, while American disclaimers of participation in crime are forgotten. The truth is that the United States continued to insist that certain Allied practices were illegal and refused to cooperate in them. On two separate occasions the Department of State informed members of the Balfour mission that the American attitude toward certain belligerent maritime measures remained unchanged. Mr. Lester H. Woolsey, then Law Adviser, later Solicitor, for the Department of State, wrote in a memorandum summarizing the attitude taken by American representatives in oral discussions with the British: “Great Britain has heretofore attained the objects set forth… through her exercise of belligerent maritime measures, depending upon the prize court to condemn property violating those measures. The United States regards certain of the measures in question as illegal; …” A few days later Mr. Woolsey, in discussing two proposals for bunker control suggested to him by the British, said:

The Convention of 1936 for the Suppression of the Illicit Traffic in Dangerous Drugs represents a further stage in the development of international criminal law.

If one were to fly along the Rio Grande downstream from the city of El Paso, Texas, one would see stretching ahead for almost one hundred miles the construction works of an artificial river channel designed to replace the tortuous and meandering course of the old river. The rectification of rivers for purposes of flood control and general stability is an interesting but not a novel application of hydraulic engineering. This particular rectification project, however, enjoys the distinction of involving an international stream. One need not suggest the number of complex questions which must inevitably arise between two States undertaking to modify in this way a common arcifinious frontier. The background and development of this international plan, together with the treaty formulated to provide for and regulate the execution of the project, constitute a most interesting and unique example of contemporary international cooperation.

The term “judicial assistance,” as used in international law, involves some still unanswered questions. Should it be used to embrace all the elements germane to the expedition of the business of courts of law, including not only procedural matters, but the execution of judgments and extradition; or relate exclusively to judicial assistance in civil proceedings? To avoid creating confusion by the use of a term suggestive of several meanings, in the following examination of the Soviet practice in this regard, the expression “cooperation in legal matters” is resorted to as an all-inclusive term.

Walther Schücking's career is a reassurance in our day that right in the long run—in his case in his lifetime—makes right, and that a martyr in his native country is a model to the outside world,—and in his case in his own country as well.