The Soviet Union, since its inception in 1917, has been the world’s largest source of refugees and displaced persons. This in itself would be sufficient motive to examine the Soviet attitude towards this category of individuals, but apart from mere quantity, the question is of interest, too, for other reasons: Russian refugees were the cause and the first subjects of international legal attempts to solve the problem; Soviet policies toward them have been unusual at all times, resulting in some bold innovations in international law; and most refugees and displaced persons at present come from behind the Iron Curtain, thereby involving the Soviet Union and its satellites, whose policies are influenced by and modeled on the Soviet experience.

International law, its masters tell us, is “the vanishing point of jurisprudence.” So must be international politics, and all of international relations, for political theory. The recurrent and directing theme in political theory is the problem of order—how it is provided, maintained, altered, and so on. Order resides in orderly relations, that is, patterned and predictable relations, among people, but is abstracted from those relations as any arrangement of norms and institutions that distributes values among people. Among peoples, political theorists favor the alternative premise that anarchy, not order, reigns. By not existing, international order needs no explaining. Evidence to the contrary can be explained away as anomalous or ephemeral, and therefore not of theoretical interest. From this follows the dominance of concern for conflict and disorder and the paucity of theory in the study of international politics.

Nationalization of foreign property and deprivation of contractual rights have again achieved prominence through measures in Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, and, more recently, in Cuba. The end of certain regimes often brings with it changes in political and social conditions. And yet recognition of acquired rights is the principal basis of intercourse in economic relations, as recognized by the law of civilized nations. International law, far from being an outgrowth of only Western concepts, is indeed an expression of fundamental principles embodied in long established legal systems throughout the world. Islamic law, for instance, which is of real significance for one sixth of the world population, in the Middle East, Pakistan, Southeast Asia and parts of Africa, clearly embodies the universal maxim of the protection of acquired rights.

An anomalous situation arises where governments desire foreign investments while at the same time rights in property and contractual relations are threatened and even destroyed. The Brazilian Judge Levi Carneiro said in the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. Case:

The Conference for the Codification of International Law which met at The Hague from March 13 to April 12, 1930, was the first international conference specifically called for that purpose.

In 1924 the League of Nations set up a Committee of Experts for the progressive codification of international law. The task of that committee was to select and propose for the first conference on codification a certain number of subjects within the field of international law. Three subjects, namely, Nationality, Territorial Waters and The Responsibility of States for Damage Caused in Their Territory to the Person or Property of Foreigners, were finally agreed on as the subjects to be considered by the first conference.

International efforts to better conserve the marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) through a new international legally binding instrument1 are developing in a context of established norms and institutions. Existing regimes already address specific marine sectors (such as shipping), regions (such as fishing in the South East Atlantic), species (such as whales), and even underlying customary international law and territorial concepts (including the boundaries of the “high seas”2). States have agreed that they will not “undermine” these existing frameworks.3 We seek to contextualize this commitment within the fragmentation of international law and the interaction between regimes.4 We argue that international law-making should not be overly restricted by deference to existing competencies and mandates, which are fluid and asymmetrically supported. An inclusive and adaptive approach to existing and future institutions is vital in the ongoing quest for integrated and effective oceans governance.

A question which was much discussed in legal literature in the early years of the United Nations, and which has been cited as a classic example of the effect of subsequent practice upon a provision in a multilateral treaty, has recently been raised again. This concerns the interpretation of Article 27, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United Nations, which deals with voting in the Security Council on non-procedural matters. Both Portugal and South Africa last year reserved the position of their governments regarding the validity of Security Council Eesolution 221 of April 9, 1966, in the vote on which both France and the Soviet Union abstained. This is the resolution by which the Council, acting under Chapter VII of the Charter, called for certain measures to enforce an embargo on oil and petroleum products from reaching Southern Ehodesia through the port of Beira in Mozambique, and authorized the United Kingdom to prevent by the use of force, if necessary, the arrival at Beira of vessels reasonably believed to be carrying oil destined for Rhodesia.

In the fifteen years since the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) was enacted on September 18, 2001, the Taliban has been removed from power but not eliminated; Osama Bin Laden has been killed and the senior leaders of Al Qaeda as of 9/11 have been captured, killed, or driven underground, although Al Qaeda remains a threat; numerous Al Qaeda affiliates have sprung up around the globe, most notably in Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and Somalia; and most ominously, the Islamic State has arisen from the ashes of Al Qaeda in Iraq to become what the Director of National Intelligence has described as “the preeminent terrorist threat” against the United States “because of its self-described caliphate in Syria and Iraq, its branches and emerging branches in other countries, and its increasing ability to direct and inspire attacks against a wide range of targets around the world.”

Despite massive changes in the geographical scope of the conflict that began on 9/11, the strategy and tactics employed, and the identity of the enemy, the AUMF remains the principal legal foundation under U.S. domestic law for the president to use force against and detain members of terrorist organizations. The AUMF is already the longest operative congressional authorization of military force in U.S. history, and, as of fall 2016, there was no immediate prospect that Congress would move to repeal or update it. With the continued vibrancy of Al Qaeda, its associates, and the Taliban, and with the 2014 presidential extension of the AUMF to cover military operations against the Islamic State, the AUMF is likely to be the primary legal basis for American uses of force for the foreseeable future.

Regular readers of this Journal will be familiar with the idea of developing a set of minimum humanitarian standards to provide greater protection of human rights in situations of internal conflict. The idea was first put forward in 1983 by Professor Theodor Meron as both a necessary and an effective means of closing the gap in legal protection that exists in internal conflicts that fall outside the scope of applicability of international humanitarian law, and where human rights norms might be insufficient. The idea became more concrete in 1990 with the adoption of the Declaration on Minimum Humanitarian Standards in Turku/Åbo, Finland, now often referred to as the “Turku Declaration,” by a group of experts convened by the Institute for Human Rights at Abo Akademi University.

On October 12, 1984, a five-member Chamber of the International Court of Justice rendered its decision in the maritime boundary dispute between the United States and Canada in the Gulf of Maine area. The Chamber delimited the continental shelves and 200-nautical-mile fisheries zones by setting one line between the two countries off the East Coast of North America. The Chamber’s Judgment, which under Article 27 of the Statute of the Court is considered as if it were rendered by the full 15-member Court, is likely to attract considerable comment. We will resist the temptation to add our views to that substantive commentary, leaving analysis for the time being to others not so closely associated with the case.

The unanimous judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the Soering case, handed down on July 7, 1989, holds that Great Britain’s extradition of the applicant to the United States to stand trial for capital murder, an offense punishable under the applicable Virginia law by “death, or imprisonment for life,” would violate the prohibition against “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” in the European Convention on Human Rights. Aside from its effect on the future ability of the United States (and many other countries) to obtain the extradition from Council of Europe countries of persons charged with offenses carrying the death penalty, the judgment in Soering has implications of a far wider nature for international criminal law, the law of state responsibility, the jurisprudence of the European Convention, and international human rights law in general. Some of these implications are obvious and immediate; others are more speculative and long range. Like the proverbial pebble thrown in the pond, Soering will cause ripples for some time to come.

The current war has been marked by a drastic extension of the practice of taking hostages. Ever since antiquity such action has constituted a permissible expedient, as frequent in peacetime as during war. Only recently, however, has it become a major weapon of warfare. The contemporary experience of total war necessitates a revaluation of the law and practice in regard to hostages. German actions in this war have involved such marked disregard of international law as to bring into question the entire legal foundation of the taking of hostages.

On December 11, 1979, Anthony C. E. Quainton, Director of the U.S. State Department’s Office for Combatting Terrorism, responded to an inquiry about the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages, in particular its Article 12, by stating that the Convention “does not provide a loophole for members of national liberation movements or anyone else and does not supply a means by which any State Party to the Hostages Convention can escape the prosecute or extradite requirement.”

The Chinese nationality law recently passed is of considerable interest as illustrating the tendency of China to fall in line with modern countries in respect to law-making, and her attempt to remedy by her independent legislation a phase of the anomalous situation growing out of her seventy years' intercourse with the outer world. The law aims at two points, (1) to define the status of nationality and (2) to minimize the abuse of the lax naturalization laws of some foreign countries as applied in their colonies near China.

This year, 1913, is the fiftieth anniversary of a very important event in the history of international law ― the adoption and enforcement by the American Government of the code of rules governing the conduct of armies in the field, which is known to the American army as General Orders No. 100, of 1863. It happens that without any intention to create a coincidence the seventh annual meeting of the American Society of International Law is appointed and we are met here, exactly fifty years after the twenty-fourth day of April, 1863, when President Lincoln promulgated that famous order. It seems appropriate for this Society at this time to celebrate the event by paying honor to Francis Lieber, the author of the instructions embodied in the order.

Gender may have been one of the main reasons behind the rejection of the Peace Agreement in Colombia. A few hours after the narrow victory of those who opposed the deal, Senator and ex-president Álvaro Uribe Vélez gave a speech calling for the strengthening of religious family values. His words echoed an argument that gained traction in recent months in Colombia, particularly in the Evangelical Christian community: that the content of the Peace Accord dismantled traditional mores, such as the biological difference between man and woman, the importance of the heterosexual family, and the place of religion in public life.