There is no question that there has been confusion about the precise meaning of the terms cease-fire, truce, and armistice. The oldest term is truce, which in the Middle Ages usually had a religious connotation as in the phrase “Truce of God.” Hugo Grotius used truce to mean an agreement by which warlike acts are for a time abstained from, though the state of war continues—“a period of rest in war, not a peace.” If hostilities were resumed after a truce, according to Grotius, there would be no need for a new declaration of war, since the state of war was “not dead, but sleeping.” Truces might be concluded by generals in command of forces or by officers of lower rank. In the absence of agreement to the contrary, it was lawful to rebuild walls or to recruit soldiers during a truce, but actual acts of war were forbidden, whether against persons or property: that is to say, “whatever is done by force against the enemy.” Also forbidden were the bribery of enemy garrisons and the seizure of places held by the enemy. If a truce was violated, the injured party was free to resume hostilities “even without declaring war.” Private acts did not constitute a violation, however, unless there was public command or approval.

The possibility of continued resistance by Japanese forces toward the end of 1945, contrary to the terms of the surrender agreement by the Japanese Government, again raised the problem of the status of guerrillas under the laws of war. This problem has arisen during almost every war in modern history. It arose at the conclusion of hostilities with Germany when there was speculation that some German forces would refuse to abide by the unconditional surrender.

At its 1994 session, the International Law Commission (ILC) completed the final adoption (“second reading”) of a complete set of thirty-three draft articles on the law of the non-navigational uses of international watercourses, together with a resolution on transboundary confined ground water. The Commission submitted the draft articles and the resolution to the General Assembly and recommended that a convention on international watercourses be elaborated by the Assembly or by an international conference of plenipotentiaries on the basis of the Commission’s draft.

A Joint Resolution was unanimously approved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States on July 6 and 8, 1959, respectively. It was proclaimed by the President on July 17 and he designated the week beginning July 19, 1959, as “Captive Nations Week” to be observed “with appropriate ceremonies and activities.” The resolution cited, among other things that “the enslavement of a substantial part of the world's population by Communist imperialism makes a mockery of the idea of peaceful coexistence between nations” that “since 1918 the imperialistic and aggressive policies of Russian Communism have resulted in the creation of a vast empire which poses a dire threat to the security of the United States and of all the free peoples of the world” that “the imperialistic policies of Communist Russia have led, through direct and indirect aggression, to the subjugation of the national independence” of twenty-two states; that “these submerged nations look to the United States, as the citadel of human freedom, for leadership in bringing about their liberation and independence” and the enjoyment of “religious freedom” and “individual liberties” that “it is vital to the national security of the United States that the desire for liberty and independence on the part of the peoples of these conquered nations should be steadfastly kept alive” that “the desire for liberty and independence by the overwhelming majority of the people of these submerged nations constitutes a powerful deterrent to war and one of the best hopes of a just and lasting peace” and that “it is fitting that we clearly manifest to such peoples through an appropriate and official means the historic fact that the people of the United States share with them their aspirations for the recovery of their freedom and independence.”

I was much struck, in reading the interesting editorial comment on the “ Interpretation of the General Pact for the Renunciation of War” in the April issue of this Journal by the observations made regarding the admissibility of extraneous evidence for the purpose of construing treaties. The learned writer expresses the view that the intent of the parties may be sought outside the text of the agreement, not only in specific reservations, but also in “ interpretations, clarifications, understandings, constructions, qualifications or actual conditions set forth during the negotiations prior to the ratification.” This position is assumed to have the clear sanction of international law and also to be intrinsically desirable. In venturing to make the following observations I am not moved by the effect of the application of this principle to the particular case of the Kellogg Pact. My own view is that, broadly speaking, the interpretations contained in the diplomatic correspondence are implicit in the text of the Pact itself and, therefore, it is not of much practical moment to determine their precise legal effect. But the broader question of the method of construction of treaties in general is, in my opinion, not only important, but one of the most vital in international law at the present time. It goes to the root of international life today, which is so largely and increasingly based upon conventional provisions, involving asit does the issue whether states are to be bound by the engagements they have embodied in a ratified written instrument, or by supposed intentions which may be sought elsewhere.

A growing number of incidents—particularly since 2009—highlight the South China Sea (SCS) as the preeminent venue for the People's Republic of China (PRC) maritime gray zone operations. “Gray zone operations” are, in essence, operations that are designed to exploit or create legal (and other) uncertainties for a military or strategic advantage. A prominent example is the way that China has used the so-called nine(ten)-dash line without fully explaining the legal basis for it. There are other examples, as well. China has deliberately cultivated uncertainty about the sovereign status of maritime militia vessels—and thus about whether and how the conduct of these vessels might be directly attributable to the PRC. It has harassed U.S. survey vessels seventy-five nautical miles (nm) south of Hainan Island in an effort to disrupt military survey operations that it claims are impermissible and has sunk a Philippine fishing vessel at Reed Bank in an effort to enforce Chinese claims to exclusive fisheries rights in this area. It has also asserted claims and enforcement rights in zones that clearly belong to other states—including actions against Indonesian fishing vessels in seas in the vicinity of the Natuna Islands, which are part of the Indonesian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) (and Continental Shelf). And it has conducted operations on the basis of inapplicable maritime zone rights, such as by asserting a territorial sea and thus the right to control innocent passage around low-tide elevations with artificial installations built upon them—such as with Mischief Reef. The list goes on.

A cartoon published last year in a Boston newspaper showed two passengers on an aeroplane, one turning to the other to say, “Uh-oh, the stewardesses have changed into their Cuban costumes.” Seventy-five successful hijackings of aircraft of United States and foreign registration in the past nineteen months have dampened this light-hearted approach to the subject. In recent months a bantering remark to a member of a flight crew as to the prospects for a side trip to Cuba has earned more than one passenger a delayed flight, a conversation with an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or an appearance in court on charges ranging from disturbing the peace to attempted aircraft piracy. For some passengers the hijacking of an aircraft may be a colorful interlude in the routine course of air travel; for the flight crew, the carrier, and the Federal Aviation Administration, it is a nightmare, a vicious form of Russian roulette in which the fate of the hijacker is inconsequential in comparison with the potential cost in lives of passengers and crew, not to speak of the value of the aircraft itself.

A new international forum has emerged in the last decade, with the function of reviewing the implementation of certain arms control agreements. Four agreements, negotiated between 1968 and 1978, provide for the convening of periodic conferences of states parties “to review the operation” of the treaty, including an examination of whether the purposes of the preambles and the provisions of the treaties are being realized. These conferences are completely divorced from the procedures for amendment of the treaties. Instead, they are concerned with the implementation and interpretation of the agreements. Conferences to revise multilateral agreements are rare events probably because of the natural concern that reopening the text of a treaty may cause the entire agreement to unravel. In contrast, conferences to review the operation of treaties have become a common part of the diplomatic environment. They constitute a new type of enforcement mechanism for international law, though their activities have virtually been ignored in the literature. This neglect may be due to the fact that while the agreements calling for review conferences date from the 1970s, most such conferences have only met in the 1980s.

[Ed. Note: Since World War II the administration of international monetary, financial, and commodity agreements has been performed by institutions operating on weighted voting principles, the weight dependent largely on the stake of various countries in the assetsdisposed of through the agreement. There is much discussion now concerning the adoption of such a system for the trade field, perhaps through amendment of the GATT, or in codesof trade liberalization among developed countries. Mr. Gold's article, relating the limitations and problems attendant upon the operation of the weighted voting system in the International Monetary Ftmd, is therefore particularly timely. Stanley D. Metzger.]

Before turning to consider the views of several of the leading writers who have discussed the theory and practice of the most-favored-nation clause, it will he well to get clearly in mind certain circumstances which have attended its use in different periods. A knowledge of the time when a treaty was made will be found to be absolutely essential in many cases if we wish to arrive at a proper interpretation of some of its clauses.

In the first place, and of primary importance, most-favored-nation treatment has now, and had in the eighteenth century, a different meaning in European policy from that which attached to it between 1825 and 1860. While European countries now give the clause a form and an interpretation corresponding approximately to that in vogue in the eighteenth century, the universalizing of favors, which, through the intricacy of modern treaty systems, that old form might be expected to entail, is largely modified by the mechanism of modern tariff policy.

International law needs to respond to the dual pressures for change brought on by rapid technological development and the promulgation of the “New International Economic Order.” While a number of major international negotiations have been mounted in recent years to respond to these pressures, all of them have failed to meet expectations. The value of international law in shaping and stabilizing international behavior will certainly diminish unless the performance of these international negotiations is improved or other methods for effectuating change are found. It is the purpose of this article to explore some of the procedures that the international community has used to respond to these pressures and to suggest areas for improvement or further exploration.

Leave aside the question whether the indication of provisional measures by the International Court of Justice in the Breard case was binding on the United States as a matter of international or domestic law. Scholars will continue to differ on this question; government decision makers will reach their own conclusions. Leave aside that the state of Virginia violated a solemn treaty obligation, a treaty that the Supreme Court is obliged to uphold as the supreme law of the land. Without denigrating the power of these arguments, a less contentious case can be made for the granting of a stay—a case based less on compulsion than on civility.

International law is the most rarefied of social sciences. Even so, it has scarcely any sense of its intellectual history. International law is finely articulated, oblique in its analysis, and respectful of its position as an arbiter of national competition and conflict. But aside from the casual citation to an ancient arbitration or the consultation of a famous publicist for an essential principle, little credence has been given to its historical development as either a collection of doctrines or a learned study. This article offers both an intellectual history of an international law doctrine and a tour d’horizon of the nature of discourse in our discipline.