The Security Council resolution of November 22, 1967, seems to provide for a satisfactory solution of the Middle East controversy, and it is difficult to see how there can be a satisfactory settlement except on the basis of the principles on which that resolution is based. The preamble of that resolution states three fundamental principles.

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (the Act) took effect on January 19, 1977, some six months after the entry into force of the European Convention on State Immunity (the Convention). Both instruments are of direct interest to the financial community since they dispel vestigial fictions concerning the public debt of foreign sovereigns and extend to the borrowings of foreign sovereigns the restrictive doctrine of immunity generally applicable to contracts concluded by foreign states.

In his world broadcast on September 27, 1938, immediately after his conversations at Godesberg with Chancellor Hitler, Prime Minister Chamberlain pointed out that he had gained the Czech Government’s consent to the Berchtesgaden proposals which “gave the substance of what Herr Hitler wanted,” and that he “was taken completely by surprise” when at Godesberg he “found that he [Hitler] insisted that the territory should be handed over to him immediately, and immediately occupied by German troops without previous arrangement for safeguarding the people within the territory who were not Germans or did not want to join the German Reich.” This attitude he found “unreasonable” but added that in spite of sympathy “with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbor we can not in all circumstances undertake to involve the whole British Empire in war simply on her account. If we have to fight it must be on a larger issue than that. I am myself a man of peace . . . but if I were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to dominate the world by fear of its force, I should feel that it must be resisted.”

The extraterritorial reach of national economic regulation, particularly of antitrust laws, is one of the most controversial topics in the international legal community, largely because that community has failed to develop jurisdictional principles that both accommodate the regulatory needs of regulating states and are discriminating enough to avoid impinging on the legitimate interests of other states. As a result, international conflicts related to the assertion of jurisdiction have greatly increased in both frequency and intensity.

The result of the conversations between the delegations of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, in the Autumn of 1944, is not a Charter for the international organization to be established after the war. It is only Proposals for such a Charter; these Proposals are, moreover, as Secretary of State Cordell Hull pointed out, neither complete nor final. They do not concern all subject matters to be regulated by the future Charter and do not present precise formulations of legal rules to be binding upon contracting parties. This work still remains to be done. Hence it may seem to be premature to compare the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals with the Covenant of the League of Nations. Such a comparison cannot do justice to the achievements at Dumbarton Oaks; it is justifiable only as an attempt to contribute some suggestions for the great task of drafting the definitive text of the future charter; it must not be taken as a conclusive criticism.

Law is the whole of the rules which regulate the relations of men. At the commencement of civilization and, even at the present day, primitive peoples and nations not in a complete state of civilization have clothed these rules with supernatural attributes; they have been represented as having been imposed upon mankind by a supernatural power; they have been given the effect of magic formulas, which, it is to be supposed, result in the chastisement and punishment of those who violate their dictates. Following the development of humanity step by step, three separate domains of law have been marked out: private law, or the law of men in the character of individuals; public or political law, or law as applied to men in their capacity as members of the state; and finally, the law of nations or international law, in other words, the law of states.

Philip Jessup’s life was richly varied. Scholar, practitioner, teacher, administrator, diplomat, judge, prolific writer—he moved from role to role, displaying in each his abundant gifts of character and intellect. Every new job, each fresh subject was a challenge met with zest and high spirits. As a scholar, he was drawn to the issues of the day. He never hesitated to take sides when he felt he had good grounds to do so. In his classes and writings, he was as concerned with practical action as with new ideas. Endowed with a commanding presence, a remarkably resonant voice and a talent for lucid and lively expression, Jessup had no difficulty in getting the attention of an audience. He used concepts sparingly, but effectively, and he avoided windy rhetoric. On the whole, he favored narrative exposition, particularly highlighting the aims and predicaments of the individual actors. People, it seems clear, were more real to him than the abstractions of law or political theory. He was a stickler for thorough and detailed research, as his judicial opinions and books show. Concrete, unique facts were important to him; he had to get them right. Historical detail and revealing quotations were used by him with telling effect.

Territorial disputes are commonplace in the history of international relations. The United States has had its share—the northeastern boundary with the British territories after the Revolutionary War, “54:40 or fight” in 1845–1846, the Alaskan boundary arbitration in 1903, and many others— including El Chamizal. This “thicket” or “brierpatch” was one in which the friendly relations between the United States and Mexico were entangled for almost a century. “The Chamizal conflict has not been a major factor in United States-Mexican relations, but has been a constant emotional irritant which has plagued both nations and had frequent reverberations throughout Latin America.”

It is apparent that an examination of the development of the Italo-Ethiopian dispute before the League of Nations which does not consciously take into consideration the political motives from which the conflict arose and by which its course was dictated must remain largely incomplete and to that extent misleading. In the present instance, however, the exclusion of such considerations is not only dictated by the necessity of compressing within reasonable limits an account which might otherwise unduly tax the patience of the reader, but is also suggested by the belief that an inquiry into the operation of the League before and during the crisis of that conflict might in and of itself prove desirable.1

One of the earliest examples of a sort of ratification is found in the treaty between Justinian and the Persian King, Chosroes, in 561 A. D. In this case the sovereigns agreed to accept that which their plenipotentiaries had promised and agreed upon. The French-Swiss alliance of May 28, 1777, was sanctioned by solemn oaths. It was the custom in earlier times to take hostages to insure ratification; this Grotius believed entirely proper. The oath gave way to a mere act or declaration of ratification.

Grotius likened a plenipotentiary to a mandatory, holding that all agreements reached by him were binding upon the sovereign from the time of signature, unless the secret instructions were transcended. Thus he regarded ratification as a mere form, not affecting the validity of the treaty. Likewise Martens, writing in 1789 at the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, believed that if a mandatory had not exceeded his secret instructions, all that he agreed to was binding upon the state represented, and that the law of nations required no particular ratification (ratification particulière). Pufendorf regarded treaties valid from signature and thought ratification superfluous.

The doctrine of the equality of states has undergone gradual modifications, especially in more recent times—since the establishment of the League of Nations. The great Powers have probably at all times dominated the political scene, particularly during the nineteenth century. But since there existed no international organization, this predominance did not express itself in legal, but only in political terms, although it may at times have assumed a quasilegal status, such as in regard to the lawmaking provisions of various treaties of the nineteenth century, sponsored mainly by the great Powers, which acquired the character of general international law. It was only when international organizations were established, based on legal principles, that the dominant position of the great Powers received legal sanction.

Collective action problems with public good characteristics such as climate change have important implications for international law. This note argues that behavioral insights from laboratory experiments, in which individuals engage in public goods games, can contribute to our understanding of how best to optimize the design of international legal regimes dealing with global public goods and common pool resources. Behavioral economics, to the extent it supplements or displaces rational-choice models in institutional design, may enable deeper and more sustained forms of international cooperation.