In recent years, many nations have made claims of extended maritime jurisdiction or exclusive control for various purposes, and sometimes have claimed sovereignty over areas of sea far beyond the three-mile territorial sea traditionally claimed by many nations. A primary objective of many of these claims has been control over fishing in coastal waters, with the purpose of reserving for the exclusive use of fishermen of the coastal state the fish resources in the waters claimed, or of controlling the activities of foreign fishermen and possibly exacting fees for the privilege of continued fishing. The nature of most claims of authority to regulate the taking of fish in coastal waters is such as to exclude foreign fishermen, such claims having as their basic purpose unconditional right of exclusion. What rights exist for displaced fishermen exist as a matter of comity, i.e., friendship between friendly nations, and as such form no basis for claims of legal right to recompense (although the governments of fishermen who are expelled without a phase-out period may justifiably respond in like unfriendly manner, enacting restrictive tariffs or similar economic handicaps). Several countries have made provision in their own laws for recognition of “traditional” or “historic” fishing for foreign fishermen on a basis of reciprocity, i.e., their fishermen would have similar rights in the exclusive fisheries zone of the foreign nation whose fishermen were permitted to continue fishing. Most such laws have been very recent. The problem is not new, however. Problems of access to the North Atlantic fisheries embroiled the United States and Great Britain immediately after the Revolutionary War, and were not resolved until 1910 by action of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. Pelagic sealing inflamed relations between the United States and other nations in the late 19th century, requiring arbitration for settlement.

The Dumbarton Oaks proposals of October 7, 1944, reflect a development of ideas concerning international political and judicial organization in which the Section of International and Comparative Law of the American Bar Association has played a significant part. Its recommendations calling for the establishment of an international organization, including an improved system for settling justiciable disputes, have found their way into resolutions of the Association, composed of some thirty thousand lawyers. These resolutions preceded the joint projects of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and China for an international organization for the maintenance of peace and security.

The Advisory Committee on the Foreign Relations of the United States was appointed at the request of the Chief of the Historical Division of the Department of State.

This Note briefly analyzes the judicial work of the International Court of Justice from November 1994 until December 1995,’ deriving the Court’s current record from the updated General List, pleadings filed, orders and judgments given, and hearings held at the Peace Palace.

Grant v. South-West Trains, Ltd. Case C-249/96. 1998 All England Law Reports (EC) 193.

Court of Justice of the European Communities, February 17, 1998.

Are employers within the European Community (EC or Community) forbidden from discriminating against their employees on the basis of sexual orientation? More generally, does the prohibition of “discrimination based on sex” contained in Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome and the Community directive requiring equal pay for men and women (Equal Pay Directive) encompass discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation? In Grant v. South-West Trains, Ltd., the European Court of Justice (ECJ) answered both questions in the negative, rejecting a strongly worded recommendation of the Court's Advocate General.