At the “Shamrock Summit” on March 18, 1985, President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney exchanged instruments of ratification bringing the United States-Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty into force. The event ended 14 years of bilateral negotiations, culminating in a treaty that represents a balance of the fishing and conservation interests of four U.S. states, 24 U.S. treaty Indian tribes, one province and one territory.

South Asia is now poised for a nuclear arms race. Pakistan has learned how to make enriched uranium—the material that destroyed Hiroshima— and has been buying the electronic switches and hollow steel spheres used for implosion. It has tested, successfully, an implosion bomb with a dummy core. On the Indian side, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi has been saying that India could make an atomic bomb “in a matter of several weeks” and “could have done so for the past ten or eleven years.”

In contrast to the withholding practices of certain member states in respect of part of their assessed contributions to the budget of the United Nations, United States withholding began rather recently. U.S. withholding started in 1980 and, until 1985, applied only to specific programs and decisions. Previously, in 1978, the Legal Adviser of the Department of State had concluded in a memorandum of law that Article 17 of the UN Charter “impose[s] a legal obligation on members to pay the amount assessed to them by the General Assembly.” Referring to the U.S. written statement submitted to the International Court of Justice in Certain Expenses of the United Nations, he added: “Accordingly, the General Assembly’s adoption and apportionment of the Organization’s expenses create a binding international legal obligation on the part of State Members to pay their assessed shares.” In his view, there was apparently no possible exception to this obligation.

The American Journal of International Law welcomes short communications from its readers. It reserves the right to determine which letters should be published and to edit any letters printed. Letters should conform to the same format requirements as other manuscripts.

The AJIL Board of Editors is pleased to announce that the Francis Deák Prize for 1987 has been awarded to C. M. Chinkin for her article, Third-Party Intervention before the International Court of Justice, which appeared in the July 1986 issue at p. 495. Ms. Chinkin is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Sydney.

To that small band of faithful followers who are devoted to the unification of private international law, October 9 is a day to be commemorated with fetes and galas replete with jest and jollity. On that splendid day in 1986, the Senate of the United States by a vote of 98-0 gave its advice and consent to the ratification of four private law treaties:

By now everyone in the United States, certainly every lawyer, must be conscious of the tort liability crisis and the consequent liability insurance crisis. Private individuals, businesses, not-for-profit enterprises and even governmental units, from school boards to the federal Government, are finding that the damages they have to pay or their insurance costs are skyrocketing, sometimes catastrophically or even cripplingly; as a result, worthwhile events must be canceled and valuable facilities are idled. Although it may be thought that these mundane concerns cannot affect an international organization—even one, like the United Nations, based in the United States—that surely it can shelter itself with its immunity, this unfortunately is not so. Although the United Nations, like other intergovernmental organizations, does enjoy full jurisdictional immunity, based generally upon its Charter but more specifically on international treaties and even national legislation, there is somewhat less to this protection than meets the uninformed eye. Since their member states expect the organizations they establish to be good international citizens, they have prohibited them from hiding behind their functional immunity for the purpose of evading either contractor tort-related responsibilities. Indeed, they may only use their immunity in order to avoid litigation in a national court or some other inappropriate forum; but if they cannot resolve a dispute, for example with a tort claimant, they must offer some other suitable means of settling the matter, such as by arbitration.

On October 25, 1986, the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law decided to divest the Society’s investment portfolio of stocks in all corporations “with direct investments in South Africa.” This action, which was taken by the Council after considerable debate, superseded the Society’s former policy of investing only in corporations with a high ranking under the “Sullivan principles.” The Council’s action is worthy of note in light of recent divestment-related actions, but especially because the resolution of economic considerations was informed by wider issues of law, moral policy making and human rights.

The first session of the new United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was held in Geneva in March 1987. The Committee was established to assist the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in fulfilling its responsibilities for monitoring states parties’ compliance with their obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The Covenant is assuming increasing importance in view of the renewed emphasis by many UN member states on economic, social and cultural rights and because, with a total of 90 ratifications as of March 27, 1987, it now covers well over half of the total UN membership.

Meeting for 10 days in Geneva last September, a group of 15 experts convened by the International Labour Office recommended substantial changes in ILO Convention No. 107, which for nearly 30 years has been the only binding international instrument on the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples. Noting the importance placed on the right to self-determination by indigenous peoples, the experts concluded that the Convention’s original emphasis on integration “no longer reflects current thinking” and should be replaced by the principle of affording these peoples “as much control as possible over their own economic, social and cultural development.” The Organisation’s Board of Governors approved the experts’ report in November, and placed the revision on the agenda for the 1988 General Labour Conference.