Appellants sued President Reagan and other executive branch officials in the U.S. district court to enjoin U.S. military aid to the Nicaraguán resistance forces (contras), alleging that the aid violated the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, the United Nations Charter and customary international law. The district court, in an unpublished opinion, dismissed the complaint as presenting nonjusticiable political questions. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (per Mikva, J.), affirming the dismissal on different grounds, held that (1) the trial court’s blanket invocation of the political question doctrine was inappropriate; (2) the statute funding the contras prevails over any earlier obligations under treaties or customary international law; (3) individuals have no private right of action to enforce decisions of the International Court of Justice; (4) adherence to an ICJ judgment rendered under a disputed assertion of compulsory jurisdiction is not required as a matter of jus cogens; and (5) plaintiffs had failed to show that U.S. government support of the contras caused their injuries or was so arbitrary and unreasonable as to violate their Fifth Amendment rights.

In a communication to the Congress of the Confederation, February 20, 1787, the Netherlands minister protested against an Act of the legislature of the State of Virginia, which exempted French brandies imported in French and American vessels from certain duties to which like commodities imported in vessels of the Netherlands were left liable, as in contravention of the most-favored-nation clause in Article II of the treaty of 1782. This article provided that the subjects of the Netherlands should pay in the ports of the United States no other or greater duties or imposts of whatever nature or denomination than those which the nations the most favored were or should be obliged to pay; and that they should enjoy all the rights, liberties, privileges, immunities and exemptions in trade, navigation and commerce which the most favored nations did or should enjoy. The article contained no express qualification that the favor or privilege should be extended freely if freely given or for an equivalent if conditional.

At its Twenty-Fifth Session the International Law Commission determined to allot some of its limited time to each of the active subjects on its agenda. The decision was the child of necessity. The Draft Articles on the Representation of States in Their Relations with International Organizations had taken up most of the Commissions sessions in 1969, 1970, and 1971, and the Twenty-Fourth Session in 1972 had, under forced draft, produced the draft articles on the Succession of States to Treaties and on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Diplomatic Agents and Other Internationally Protected Persons. The inevitable byproduct was a mounting pressure, both within the Commission and from the General Assembly, for intensive examination of the draft articles and commentaries on State Responsibility, Succession of States in Matters Other Than Treaties, the Most-Favored-Nation Clause, and the Report on Treaties Concluded Between States and International Organizations.

On October 18, 1972 the United States and the Soviet Union completed the negotiation of a comprehensive series of arrangements covering trade between the two countries. A Trade Agreement, consisting of nine articles and three annexes, and complemented by several exchanges of letters, establishes a new legal framework for the development of US-USSR trade.

Since June 1932, the Bolivian and Paraguayan armies have been fighting in the Chaco.