Following the issue of the Philippines Report, and as the diplomatic correspondence proceeded, which led to the International Commission, action after action was taken by the interested governments to control or stamp out the misuse of opium. The Chinese government was prompt, and her leaders and people enthusiastic. January, 1906, saw four of her great viceroys publish a manifesto on the subject. Part of it ran: “ As Great Britain is the friend of China, she will shortly be called to assist the Chinese government to stamp out the evil.” The Chinese government prohibited, without qualification, the use of opium in the Imperial colleges and schools, and in the recently created army.

In debates over the scope of the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), one historical document has played an especially prominent role. That document is a short opinion by U.S. Attorney General William Bradford, issued in the summer of 1795, concerning the involvement of U.S. citizens in an attack by a French fleet on a British colony in Sierra Leone. In the opinion, Bradford concluded that “[s]o far ... as the transactions complained of originated or took place in a foreign country, they are not within the cognizance of our courts; nor can the actors be legally prosecuted or punished for them by the United States.” He also expressed the view that the actors could be prosecuted for crimes on the high seas, while noting that “some doubt rests on this point” in light of the language of the relevant criminal statute. Finally, he stated—in an obvious reference to the ATS—that

The Bradford opinion contains one of the few early historical references to the ATS, so it not surprisingly has received a lot of attention. Numerous academic articles, judicial opinions, and litigation briefs have invoked the Bradford opinion, for a variety of propositions. Reliance on the opinion has increased since the Supreme Court’s 2004 decision in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, in which the Court cited the opinion in support of the proposition that the ATS provides jurisdiction over certain common law causes of action derived from the law of nations. As an illustration of its perceived significance, both sides discussed the opinion in the oral argument before the Supreme Court in the first hearing in the pending ATS case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co.

So much has been written regarding the origin of the Monroe Doctrine and on the supposed effects of the various causes contributing to its origin, toward its application at various times to different situations, that the only excuse that can be offered for discussing this phase of it must be to cover it from some fresh point of view.

The distinguished Peruvian diplomatist and author, Dr. Anibal Maúrtua, on page 20 of his book La Idea Panamericana y la cuestión de Arbitraje, published in Lima in 1901, refers to President Monroe’s message of December 2, 1823, announcing the Monroe Doctrine, as a “Pan-American Declaration.” The great Argentine international jurist, Carlos Calvo, called it “declaratory of complete American independence,” and the Peruvian author, Carlos Arenas y Loayza, states in his excellent monograph on the Monroe Doctrine, published in Lima in 1905, that “the Monroe Doctrine is linked with our past and with our present, and gives us the key of the future of these Republics, considered in relation to the events of our times and the indications of the future; which republics, extending over the same continent, form one sole body, are called on to have one and the same spirit and to work in accord, in edifying friendship for justice and peace on earth.”

The kinds or degrees of obligatory arbitration advocated in the two conferences were three in number, and may be called, respectively, universal, inclusive, and exclusive obligatory arbitration.

On April 1-4, 1997, the International Court of Justice visited the sites of the Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros Project in Slovakia and Hungary. This was the first site visit that the Court has undertaken in fulfillment of its judicial function and was therefore an occasion of particular interest to international jurists.

The Italo-Ethiopian dispute has, at the time of writing, been dealt with by six distinct procedures in addition to direct diplomatic communication between the parties

(1) Mediation by the League of Nations Council under Article 11, paragraph 2, of the Covenant pursuant to the application of Ethiopia on January 15,1935. Under this procedure the Council received numerous communications from Italy and Ethiopia, considered the question during its meetings on January 17, April 15, May 25, July 31-August 3 and September 4-5, and passed several resolutions with the object of facilitating arbitration of the Wal Wal incident.

An editorial on the Turkish Institute of International Law by Professor Philip Marshall Brown, President of the American Peace Society, appeared in the October 1943 issue of this JOURNAL. I had the pleasure of publishing in the ULUS newspaper on the 23rd of February, 1944, a translation of this editorial, which contained the expression of many good wishes for our Institute no less than for Turkey itself and I was rewarded by seeing that it aroused great interest and profound gratification in learned and political circles in Turkey. Needless to say, this favorable comment on its inauguration and work, written by an authority in the most progressive country in the world, was recorded with deep gratitude and pride by our Institute.