The General Act for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, signed at Geneva, September 26, 1928, is intended to provide for the final settlement of every dispute, of whatever nature it may be. Chapter II is evoted to legal disputes, while Chapter III, Articles 21-28, lays down rules concerning the settlement of non-legal disputes. This idea of a recourse to arbitration for the settlement of purely political conflicts, which Chapter III puts forward, may appear to be inconsistent with a long evolution which has tended to emphasize the judicial character of arbitration. It is true that occasionally states have submitted such conflicts to an arbitral tribunal, but it is for the first time that a provision to this effect has been inserted in a multipartitetreaty. A treaty of this kind has a legislative character and exercises a great influence upon the development of international law. The importance of the General Act is all the greater since some twenty states, including three great Powers, have already ratified it. This treaty, which may be compared only to the Hague Convention,could largely contribute to a revision of the common conception of arbitration. Does it attempt to do so, or is it rather intended to leave this conception unchanged and to create a new method of pacific settlement? In either case, how should the new conception of arbitration be defined? Since purely political disputes cannot be settled by the application of a rule of law, are the powers of the tribunal unlimited? These questions deserve closer consideration, especially since the relevant provisions of Chapter III of the General Act have already inspired certain opinions which, it is believed, are not only contrary to the true meaning of this treaty, but also,if generally adopted, would destroy the very foundations of international arbitration. Now, one of the essential ideas underlying the General Act is not to impair in the least what has already proved useful, but to develop the existing means for the pacific settlement of disputes. Chapter III constitutes an important step forward. Its evolutionary character and its exact meaning can best be realized in the light of the practice of statesand of the jurisprudence of arbitral tribunals.

The Constitution wholeheartedly accepted Montesquieu’s theory of the separation of the powers of government into three departments, and the courts have maintained as a fundamental principle of constitutional law that no department shall exercise powers properly belonging to either of the others. The treaty-making power is established in Article II of the Constitution dealing with the executive, and consequently treaty-making has been ordinarily considered one power of the executive department. It is, however, stated that “the executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America,” whereas the treaty-making power is vested in the President acting “by and with the advice and consent of the Senate — provided two-thirds of the senators present concur.” Furthermore “treaties made … under the authority of the United States” are “the supreme law of the land.” Thus, both by composition and function the treaty-making power appears to be fully as much legislative as executive, a situation emphasized by Hamilton in the Federalist.

The term “ intervention” has had many applications during the course of its long history. Every treatise on international law written before the World War contained an extensive discussion, whether to approve or to condemn, of the various forms of intervention. Even after the general adoption of the guarantee contained in Article 10 of the Covenant of the League of Nations one of our distinguished American scholars felt justified in constructing a treatise on international law with intervention as the keystone of the arch. Condemnation of the alleged right of intervention came to be the dominant note in the foreign policy of a number of the Latin American governments during the nineteen twenties, when the measures taken by the United States to protect American interests in the Caribbean appeared to them to threaten the sovereignty and independence of their countries. It is one of the curious reversals of history that no sooner had Article 8 of the Montevideo Convention laid the specter of intervention, primarily with the record of the United States in view, than intervention of a new kind made its appearance in Latin America. This time the United States, as a member of the inter-American community, was called upon to cooperate in its condemnation.

Prosecutor v. Delalic. No. IT-96-21-T.

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Nov. 16, 1998.

On November 16,1998, a trial chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) issued its judgment in the Čelebići case against four defendants. The chamber found the de facto commander of the Čelebići prison camp liable under the principle of command responsibility for various acts of torture and illtreatment at the camp. It also found two other accused guilty of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and violations of the laws or customs of war for their actions at the camp. A fourth accused, indicted only under the principle of command responsibility, was found not guilty on all counts owing to the lack of a superior-subordinate relationship. Those accused convicted of multiple offenses were ordered to serve their sentences concurrently.

Henry Adams said in his Life of Gallatin that of all the portions of our national history, “none is more often or more carefully discussed than Jay’s Treaty.” All general histories and biographies of the period contain ample references to the treaty and the controversies over it. The same is true of many contemporary letters and memoirs. Several monographs of merit have been published concerning the treaty, the most complete dealing with the treaty negotiations, by Dr. Samuel Flagg Bemis. Judge John Bassett Moore has recently brought out seven valuable volumes dealing with the arbitrations which resulted from the treaty.

The antithesis between a static and a dynamic law of nations, as used in this article, means the distinction between a law of nations primarily occupied with the static purpose of preserving the status quo, containing no rules for its own modification by a peaceful and orderly process, and a law of nations providing rules for its own change. Of course, even a static law will never be able to stop the historical development in a world governed by the supreme rule of change, but this dynamic development will be brought about in many instances by the violation of the static law, by violent methods—revolution in internal, war in international law. On the other hand, no juridical order can be exclusively dynamic, for the maintenance of the law in force is a necessary condition for juridical security. The dynamic law will repose on a balance between static rules making for security, and dynamic rules providing for the necessary change by peaceful methods in conformity with the law which is to be changed. The change here will not be the outcome of a revolution, but of an evolution, brought about in virtue of the juridical order itself.

As these words are written, the use of armed force to liberate Kuwait, and all the suffering and waste such use implies, becomes more likely. Given the primacy of the peaceful settlement of disputes in international law, I consider in this brief essay how the rule of law could play a role in this crisis. The UN Security Council’s call for the collection of information regarding possible war crimes by Iraqi officials and possible claims for damages arising out of the invasion was a welcome innovative effort, although it has yet to have any perceptible effect. That move, however, did not fully embrace the rule of law as a solution or make clear to Iraq the force that the rule of law can bring to bear. If the Security Council made an effort to implement the rule of law more forcefully, in my view it would greatly diminish the felt need to use armed force against Iraq.

The sinking of the Israeli destroyer Eilat by Styx missiles from a naval platform during the 1967 hostilities between Israel and the United Arab Republic demonstrated that missile technology was sufficiently developed for this weapon to be effectively deployed. The appearance of the missile in naval armament has raised old questions of international law in a new form, and it seems appropriate that they should be discussed as an aspect of the search for a system of legal controls to limit the use of the sea for strategic and political purposes. The aim of this paper is to examine the question of protection of the innocent from injury both inside and outside the target area, and in times of war and local, limited hostilities.

Notices of withdrawal from the League of Nations during the year 1933 on the part of two States permanently represented on the Council, Japan and Germany, have turned attention once more to the provision for withdrawal in the Covenant of the League and to the necessity for interpretation of the scope and meaning of that provision.

A burgeoning literature addresses the links between the World Trade Organization and ostensibly “nontrade” issues, including corruption and bribery, health care (such as tobacco control), human rights generally or labor rights in particular, diverse environmental concerns, issues of “culture,” and even the fight against terrorism. Current WTO scholarship, at least that published in the United States, seems to be obsessed with exploring the outer boundaries of the trade regime. In the face of a vast array of potential recipes for linkage to particular nontrade issues, as well as cautionary tales against such linkage, what is to be gained from revisiting these questions?