The 35th session of the International Law Commission was held in Geneva from May 3 to July 22, 1983 under the chairmanship of Ambassador Laurel Francis. The Commission considered all seven substantive items on its agenda: state responsibility; jurisdictional immunities of states and their property; status of the diplomatic courier and the diplomatic bag not accompanied by diplomatic courier; the Draft Code of Offences against the Peace and Security of Mankind; the law of the non-navigational uses of international watercourses; international liability for injurious consequences arising out of acts not prohibited by international law; and relations between states and international organizations (second part of the topic). The Drafting Committee, which met a record 30 times, reported out a total of 15 articles concerning three of the above topics (jurisdictional immunities, state responsibility and the diplomatic courier and bag), all of which were provisionally adopted by the Commission. The entire session is dealt with in some detail in the Commission’s 1983 report to the General Assembly. Only the highlights will be covered here.

The recent trial in Pretoria of thirty-seven South West Africans on charges of “participation in terroristic activities” focused international attention yet again on the mandated territory of South West Africa. The trial, conviction and sentencing of the accused evoked protest and condemnation from the United Nations on the ground that, as a result of General Assembly Resolution 2145 (XXI), South Africa had lost jurisdiction over the territory and hence the competence to try the accused at all. On December 16, 1967, while the trial was in progress, the General Assembly, by 110 votes to two (Portugal and South Africa), condemned the “illegal arrest, deportation, and trial” of the accused, and on the eve of the judgment in the case on January 25, 1968, the Security Council in a unanimous resolution called upon the Government of South Africa “to discontinue forthwith this illegal trial and to release and repatriate the South West Africans concerned,” a call which was converted into a “demand” by a further unanimous resolution on March 14, 1968, after many of the accused had been sentenced to long periods of imprisonment. The South African Government, however, arguing that Resolution 2145 (XXI) was invalid and that it was fully competent in law to prosecute the accused for offenses committed in South West Africa, declined to accept these “calls” and “demands.”