The rules concerning the relation of international law to internal law in Austria have undergone less change than those of many other European countries since the end of World War I. The relevant provisions of the Austrian Federal Constitution of October 1, 1920, were not affected by the subsequent constitutional reforms. These rules had been the subject of much theoretical discussion before a sizable body of constitutional usage and relevant jurisprudence had developed. The present article aims at examining and supplementing these theories in the light of current practice.

The United Kingdom, like the United States, tried after the last war to protect the interests of its citizens in the many Central and Eastern European countries in which first the means of production and not much later the means of distribution were “nationalized.” Its success in these endeavors was about as disappointing as that of the United States. Neither the United Kingdom nor the United States succeeded in protecting in these countries the individual rights of their citizens by means of diplomatic intervention. The disintegration of the conception of property rights in Europe has gone so far that no individual claimant seems to have been able to obtain full satisfaction. Only where timely economic countermeasures were taken against the confiscating states could compensation agreements be concluded which provide for some measure of compensation.

The agreement between the United Kingdom and Egypt signed at Cairo on October 19, 1954, replaces the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of August 26, 1936, which is thereby terminated. The earlier treaty provided for the establishment of a complex of military installations and supporting facilities along the Suez Canal, and its garrisoning by British troops. The 1954 agreement provides for the gradual evacuation of this garrison from the Suez Canal base, as these installations generally are known, by June 18, 1956. During the twenty-month evacuation period (October 19, 1954–June 18, 1956) the Egyptian military forces will assume gradual control of the base, and custody of designated base installations.

In a litigation between the United States and France and Morocco, the International Court of Justice had to determine not so long ago whether United States consular jurisdiction in the French Zone of the Protectorate of Morocco extended merely to disputes among nationals and protégés of the United States, as provided for in its treaty with Morocco of 1836, or to all cases in which an American citizen or protege is a defendant. The latter—extended—type of consular jurisdiction had accrued to the United States through the operation of most-favored-nation clauses contained in its treaties with Morocco.

The five issues of Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo which are here reviewed (Nos. 6, 7 and 8 of 1954, and Nos. 1 and 2 of 1955) contain a series of articles devoted to a discussion of the basic notions of international law. This discussion is related to the preparation of a new textbook for Soviet law schools the completion of which this year has been announced by the A. Ya. Vyshinsky Institute of Law, a branch of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.