The technological advances of the space age have opened the door toward the increasing utilization of the so-called “geostationary orbit” by satellites for telecommunication, broadcasting, and meteorological and other services. More recently, the possible utilization of the geostationary orbit by satellites to transmit solar energy to the earth has been seriously considered. The growing importance of the geostationary orbit reflected in these actual and potential uses, coupled with recent claims of sovereignty advanced by equatorial countries with respect to segments of the orbit, calls for an analysis of its international legal status and for a review of some of the U.S. policy issues.

Every state has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory. Consequently, no aircraft is normally entitled to enter the airspace above the territory of a foreign state without the latter’s permission Does this principle—very firmly established in international law since World War I—mean that any aircraft entering without such permission 1 is completely at the mercy of the territorial sovereign ? Or does international law impose some restraints upon the latter in this matter?

The able American Ambassador to France, Charles E. Bohlen, has declared before a Senate Committee that the withdrawal of France from the NATO integrated commands was “probably the most serious event in European history since the end of the war.” In weighing this assessment, one might well keep in mind de Tocqueville’s reminder that “what we call essential institutions are often only the institutions to which we are accustomed.” Yet there is little question that the French move was a significant development in postwar Europe. The purpose of this article is to explore some implications of this development for the international system and for the international legal order.

Only a few hours after ordering the U.S. military forces to Panama on December 20, 1989, President Bush explained that General Manuel Noriega had declared “a state of war with the United States and publicly threatened the lives of Americans in Panama.” This, he said, had been followed by the murder of an unarmed American serviceman by Noriega’s forces and beatings and harassment of others. He added that, as General Noriega’s “reckless threats and attacks upon Americans in Panama” had created an “imminent danger to the 35,000 American citizens in Panama,” he as President was obligated “to safeguard the lives of American citizens.”

A century after they met to conclude a secret agreement dividing Ottoman territories into British and French zones of influence, Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot have been back in the news. Images of an ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) bulldozer rolling over a small section of the frontier between Syria and Iraq in order to destroy the “Sykes-Picot” border shone a spotlight on the agreement. Western commentators reflecting on the centenary of the agreement have tended to share the view that colonial borders bear a share of responsibility for the ills of the region. The underlying argument is that the “artificial” boundaries drawn by European colonial powers produced faultlines that have driven subsequent conflicts.

In determining the location of a boundary, international as well as national tribunals have in the past been reluctant to place much evidentiary value on maps, regardless of their number or designation.

In late 2018, the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security suggested that “cyber-attacks now exceed the risk of physical attacks.” Yet the law has not kept pace with this reality. In particular, identifying who is responsible for a cyberattack makes it difficult to regulate this conduct. A state often cannot practically respond to a threat unless it knows from where the threat emanates and potentially who is responsible. Attribution of cyber conduct is critical from a legal perspective because the unlawful act must be attributable to another state for state responsibility to be engaged.

The West Bank and the Settlements, again? Readers may have had enough of this subject. But these are exceptional times. The adoption by the Security Council of Resolution 2334 on December 23, 2016, the unprecedented speech by Secretary Kerry delivered shortly thereafter, and the immediate rejection of both by Prime Minister Netanyahu, combined with the approach of the fiftieth anniversary of the Six-Day War in June 2017 and the continued march toward an inexorable demographic change in the West Bank, not to mention the nomination as U.S. Ambassador to Israel of a person reportedly supporting an active settlement policy and annexation: the confluence of these events demands our renewed attention. And while these developments undoubtedly have powerful political dimensions, they also call upon those of us who care about international law to speak up in support of its requirements and application.

The seventh session of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea met in Geneva from March 28 to May 19, 1978, and resumed in New York from August 21 to September 15, 1978.

The question of the legal validity of the acts and decisions adopted by international organizations in excess of their authority has attracted the attention of international lawyers, as well as international courts and tribunals, in recent years. However, no general principles or criteria for determining such validity have as yet been formulated by the international community. In the meantime, the question has continued to give rise to controversy within and outside international organizations and to gain in importance, because of persistent procedural irregularities and the increasing tendency of some of the organizations to take measures that are not expressly provided for in their constitutive instruments but that they consider necessary or essential for the effective discharge of their mandates.

The result of the application of equitable principles must be equitable. … It is … the result which is predominant; the principles are subordinate to the goal.

With the arrival of the British Army in August 1969, in aid of the civil power, intercommunal strife in Northern Ireland entered a new phase, which saw the regeneration of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the emergence of a guerrilla conflict between the IRA and British Army. In the first half of 1971, 8 civilians, 10 soldiers, and 2 members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) had been killed; 454 civilians, 110 soldiers, and 71 policemen had been injured. In July 1971 alone, traditionally a period of acute tension, there had been 86 explosions, 2 soldiers had been shot dead, and 21 persons injured. It was this rising tide of violence that set the scene for the introduction of internment without trial on August 9, 1971.

The phrase “ outlawry of war” has come into current usage during the past few years. It has appeared in a resolution submitted to the United States Senate,1 in speeches by Presidents of the United States2 and in a draft treaty submitted by the Council of the League of Nations to its members.3 As giving focus to a widespread popular demand for the elimination of war, the phrase doubtless has propaganda value, but some of its legal implications seem to invite examination. Thus, if we are called on to “ outlaw war,” that is, applying Bouvier's definition, to put war out of the protection of the law, we must assume that war is now within the protection of the law, that it is legal to make war. In fact, in Senator Borah's resolution of February 13, 1923,4 we read in the preamble: