While the public’s attention has recently focused on the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) and its weapons inspection activities, the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC or Commission), another ad hoc UN body created pursuant to Security Council Resolution 687 in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf war, has been making steady progress in resolving the war reparation claims asserted against Iraq. Nonetheless, the UNCC is under increasing pressure to speed up the claims review process and complete its work expeditiously.

The origin of the right of angary is traceable to early Roman times, and a study of its origin and development throws much light on the right as it is understood today. Several writers on international law refer to the first chapter, 41st verse, of Saint Matthew’s Gospel, as showing a possible origin of the term angary. This verse reads:

The Greek word for compel or force is also cited, and it is clear that the idea of compelling some service was linked up with the early notion of angary.

The following passage from the Justinian Code (529 A.D.) shows the word angary in its noun form, and shows that all classes alike were subject to the law:

The present study is a comment upon the official position of Communist China on various problems related to its internal waters, the territorial sea, and the high seas through an examination of laws, regulations, and international agreements as well as other official pronouncements. It is based primarily on China’s peacetime attitudes, although occasionally it has been necessary to take into account conditions of hostilities.

The International Law Commission held its sixty-sixth session in Geneva from May 5 to June 6, and from July 7 to August 8, 2014, under the chairmanship of Kirill Gevorgian (Russian Federation). Notably, the Commission revisited on second reading its work concerning the expulsion of aliens so as to finalize thirty-one draft articles, along with commentaries. The general thrust of this project has been to acknowledge the sovereign right of a state to expel an alien from its territory and to identify or propose rules—protective of the rights of the alien—that the state must follow when doing so.

Germany v. N. Decision No. 2 WD 12.04. At <http://www.bverwg.de>.

Bundesverwaltungsgericht (German Federal Administrative Court), June 21, 2005.

On June 21, 2005, in Germany v. N, the Federal Administrative Court of Germany (Bundesverwaltungsgericht) acquitted a soldier charged with disobeying an order in violation of his military duty of obedience and loyal service. The soldier, a major in the Federal Armed Forces (Bundeswehr), had refused to participate in a military software project that he feared could support Operation Iraqi Freedom. The major based his refusal on his belief that the Iraqi war was illegal and that, as a result, he was permitted to refuse the order under his constitutional right of freedom of conscience.2 The court held that in view of the serious reservations that exist about the legality of Operation Iraqi Freedom and also about Germany's position in that conflict, the soldier's right to freedom of conscience required that he be offered alternative tasks unrelated to a war that he reasonably believed to be illegal.

The so-called “neutrality laws” of the United States are statutory provisions, a part of the penal law of the United States, and should be clearly distinguished from the obligations imposed upon the United States by interyt national law. They may be regarded as an instance of the enforcement of international law by municipal law in the United States, and originated in the endeavors of the administration of President Washington to discharge the duties owed by the American Government as a neutral nation during the war between England and France in 1793. They punish criminally the commission of acts forbidden by the law of nations. As was well said by the Joint State and Navy Neutrality Board in 1916, “The doer of the wrongful act is accountable only to the United States, while the United States is itself accountable to a foreign government for the commission of the act. In this respect the neutrality laws differ from ordinary penal statutes, because the prohibited acts affect the international relations of the United States in addition to any effect they may have upon domestic tranquillity and order.”