The establishment of maritime boundaries between neighboring states is a matter of increasing interest and concern in international relations. Although states have had to deal with territorial sea and other maritime boundaries in years past, the extension of fisheries jurisdiction and claimed economic zones out to 200 nautical miles and the rapid advance in the technology of hydrocarbon development on the continental shelf have created a problem of totally new dimensions. These developments have given rise to many new boundaries between opposite and adjacent states which require delimitation and have made many potential boundaries more important to the states concerned.

On December 11, 1977, the Swiss Government opened for signature two Protocols to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 on the Protection of War Victims. Forty-four governments signed either one or both Protocols on that day, and, by September 1979, 62 governments had signed one or both Protocols. The Protocols entered into force on December 7, 1978, and by October 1980, were in force for 15 states. One of these Protocols develops the law applicable in international armed conflicts, and the other expands the protections currently accorded to the victims of noninternational armed conflicts by Article 3 common to the 1949 Conventions. Together the Protocols represent many years of effort, first by the International Committee of the Red Cross, and more recently by more than one hundred governments assembled in conference. During more than 8 months of conference sessions over 4 years, these governments struggled to correct the perceived deficiencies in the law and to develop and articulate new rules to improve the protections available to the victims of armed conflicts. Each government drew on its own experiences, and the result may reasonably be thought to be the composite reaction by the international community to the perceived inhumanities of wars during the past quarter century. Since we shall probably have to wait at least another quarter century before new efforts are made to develop the law further, it would seem appropriate to begin to analyze the two new Protocols and to draw some conclusions about them. This article, written by an active participant in the Geneva conference, attempts to contribute to this process by analyzing a few of the more significant developments in the law contained in Protocol I, that is, the Protocol dealing with international armed conflicts.

Agreements providing for the arbitral settlement of disputes arising out of contracts between foreign sovereigns and private contracting parties have become a permanent feature of transnational commerce.

This particular favor for the arbitral, as opposed to the judicial, settlement of state contract disputes is attributable to a number of reasons, some of which are conventional and others the consequence of contemporary developments. Traditionally, arbitration has proved attractive because of the special expertise that it may provide and lack of publicity, which may increase the willingness of the losing party to comply with the award.

The extent to which foreign sovereigns are entitled to immunity in municipal courts has attracted a vast literature, in recent years especially. The majority view now seems to be that immunity need not extend to commercial transactions entered into by the state, although the precise scope of this “exception” remains unsettled, and the role of international law in “extending” or “withholding” immunity has not yet, perhaps, been clearly analyzed. Indeed, it has been denied that there is any international law rule at all on the subject, a view that would presumably leave each state free to formulate, or negotiate, its own rule.

After American diplomatic and consular personnel in Iran were taken hostage in that country, the United States Treasury on November 14, 1979 promulgated the Iranian Assets Control Regulations. The regulations were of a sweeping character and, among other things, prohibited the Government of Iran, Iranian governmental entities, and Iran’s central bank from transferring or withdrawing dollar-denominated deposits held with foreign branches and subsidiaries of U.S. commercial banks (as well as deposits with domestic offices) without authorization by the Treasury. Iran’s central bank, Bank Markazi Iran, instituted suits in London and Paris to obtain court orders for withdrawal of its funds, notwithstanding the U.S. “freeze.” Those suits were essentially mooted by the Algeria-United States-Iran declarations and agreements of January 19 and 20, 1981, which provided for transfer of these funds as part of the arrangement to release the American hostages held by the Iranian authorities. While the litigation in London and Paris is now inactive, it raised issues that deserve thought because they are not necessarily unique and may arise again in other situations.

For the first time the International Court of Justice has squarely faced and ruled upon the right of a third state to intervene in a case to which two other states are parties. The litigation was the Case Concerning the Continental Shelf (Tunisia/Libyan Arab Jamahiriya), Application of Malta for Permission to Intervene, Judgment of April 14, 1981. The Court unanimously denied permission to intervene, but three judges appended separate opinions which contain matters of considerable interest.