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:

In an age in which trading activities of the state are increasing everywhere, in which the economic progress of underdeveloped countries has become the object of international and national concern, but in which, on the other hand, the rights and legitimate expectations of alien investors have in many countries suffered more frivolous and alarming setbacks than at any other time—in such an age the problem of the state’s international responsibility for losses arising out of contractual relations between states (or other international persons) and aliens is clearly of great actuality.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, a variety of proposals emerged for bringing the perpetrators tojustice. These proposals included the use of courts-martial, the creation of a special tribunal (whether under the auspices of the United Nations or otherwise), and prosecution in U.S. federal courts.1 On November 13, 2001, President George W. Bush issued a military order entitled "Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism" (Military Order).2 Pursuant to the Military Order, the United States may establish military commissions to prosecute terrorists for violations of the laws of war and "other applicable laws."

The creation of the independent Inspection Panel in 1993 by identical resolutions of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Association (World Bank or Bank) has been well analyzed elsewhere. What has not been noted is the actual practice of the Inspection Panel, as well as the evolving impact on international law of the cases brought before this innovative institution associated with the World Bank.

A good deal of the creative energy of international lawyers in recent years has been absorbed in the continuing Soviet-Western debate revolving around the special Soviet juridical concept of peaceful coexistence or, in its Western-style and United Nations-endorsed euphemism, the concept of friendly relations and co-operation among states with differing political and social systems. Whether in the United Nations Sixth (Legal) Committee, in the authoritative, if private, International Law Association, even in the World Federation of United Nations Associations' scientific seminars, or at times in the International Law Commission itself, the discussion over coexistence (friendly relations) has tended to be a straight Soviet-Western dialectical contest that has been concerned sometimes with hammering out minimum principles of Soviet-Western accommodation in the Cold War era, and sometimes seemingly with the making of propaganda points that would be helpful in carrying on future Soviet-Western dialogues or even more perhaps in carrying the ideological war to the neutralist, uncommitted countries. The apparent achievement of a reasonably firm or stable Soviet-Western detente, with a consequent increasing focus on extension and development of minimum principles of world public order on a basis of reciprocity and mutuality of interest as between the two main competing legal value systems has been amply commented on already. In a sense, the international law of the detente, constructed on a pragmatic basis of inter-systems agreement or consensus, and demonstrated empirically in the actual record of such de facto accommodations and give-and-take, represents a species of “new” international law.* At least, it represents a new gloss on the old customary international law, albeit a gloss that is specially concerned, in the special societal conditions of the contemporary world community, with considerations of security, of stability of settled expectations, and of certainty and the avoidance of surprise in inter-group (more accurately inter-systems) relations—the old “Watchman’s State” legal virtues.

Meeting for 10 days in Geneva last September, a group of 15 experts convened by the International Labour Office recommended substantial changes in ILO Convention No. 107, which for nearly 30 years has been the only binding international instrument on the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples. Noting the importance placed on the right to self-determination by indigenous peoples, the experts concluded that the Convention’s original emphasis on integration “no longer reflects current thinking” and should be replaced by the principle of affording these peoples “as much control as possible over their own economic, social and cultural development.” The Organisation’s Board of Governors approved the experts’ report in November, and placed the revision on the agenda for the 1988 General Labour Conference.

In two recent cases—Atkins v. Virginia and Lawrence v. Texas—amicus briefs urged the U.S. Supreme Court to use international materials to expand the scope of domestic constitutional rights. In a footnote in Atkins and three paragraphs in Lawrence, the Court may have signaled a willingness to listen. Some applaud the beginning of a positive trend. Others—notably Justice Antonin Scalia in dissent in the two cases—condemn the entire project as illegitimate.

Rather than seeking an immediate answer to the question whether international materials should be determinative of domestic rights, this essay makes an indirect approach by asking: if we are to undertake a serious project of using international materials in this way, what would that project look like? Identifying the nature of the project may suggest whether it is the sort of thing we want to undertake, and what the scope of its impact is likely to be.

Despite the growing interest in Chinese studies in this country, little, if any, attention has been paid to the study of Communist China’s view of international law. Some persons may feel that Communist China, as a Socialist country, cannot do other than to adhere to the Soviet concept of international law or that of Socialist countries in general. There may be some truth in this view, but it does not disclose the whole picture. Communist China does accept many principles of international law proclaimed or applied by the Soviet Union or by Soviet jurists, but in view of the growing differences of views between the two countries in handling many international problems and in conducting the international Communist movement, it is reasonable to infer that Communist China may have developed different views toward international law in some aspects. In this connection, it may be noted tha Wu Tê-feng, a prominent jurist in Communist China and President of the China Political Science and Law Association, not long ago severely criticized the Soviet concept of international law in a report delivered on October 8, 1964, to the general meeting of the Association.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has drafted its Statute, adopted its Rules of Procedure, negotiated its headquarters agreement, and so far dealt with its first case. It is timely, therefore, to describe the Court’s institutional framework and to analyze its jurisdiction. A more extensive study, of course, will have to await its developing case law.

Revolutionary acts and preparations are liable to punishment by the criminal law of the community against which they are directed, and belong as such to the domain of municipal law. They become a matter of direct importance to international law when the menaced state finds that the efficacy of its laws and the possibilities of peaceful internal development are being frustrated by revolutionary propaganda or by acts of rebellion coming from abroad. Such acts may, when brought to consummation within its territory, be punished with all the rigor of the law. But the probability of their suppression is diminished and the chances of their success are enhanced as a result of their being hatched out and prepared under cover of the territorial supremacy of another state. It happens thus that what one state believes to be its internationally recognized right of peaceful existence is put in danger in consequence of another state’s right to exclusive jurisdiction over its territory, a right, in turn, fully protected by international law.

From the days when the Romans first came to appreciate the economic value of prisoners of war as a source of labor, and began to use them as slaves instead of killing them on the field of battle.

In the 2022–2023 season, more than 104,000 tourists visited Antarctica. This represents an increase of more than 40 percent compared to the 2019–2020 pre-pandemic season. This Current Development discusses this trend and the limits of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties, which govern on the basis of consensus, in responding with regulatory action. Options for strengthening regulation in this area are also considered.

The International Law Commission of the United Nations is currently studying a topic entitled “International Liability for Injurious Consequences Arising out of Acts Not Prohibited by International Law” (hereinafter “international liability” or “topic”). That topic has proven to be as serpentine as its title suggests and consequently is difficult to define. It is generally understood as encompassing, in particular, harmful transnational environmental effects of internationally lawful activities. This aspect alone has made the topic increasingly important, as demands on resources have intensified, technological advances have given rise to threats of widespread and even catastrophic transboundary harm, and the international community has grown more interdependent in other ways.

Others, though content that treaties should be made in the mode proposed, are averse to their being the supreme law of the land. They insist, and profess to believe, that treaties like acts of assembly, should be repealable at pleasure. This idea seems to be new and peculiar to this country, but new errors, as well as new truths, often appear. These gentlemen would do well to reflect that a treaty is only another name for a bargain, and that it would be impossible to find a nation who would make any bargain with us, which should be binding on them absolutely, but on us only so long and so far as we may think proper to be bound by it.