The fundamental importance of the codification of the law of treaties by the International Law Commission and the Vienna Conference will gain increasing recognition as the rules and principles embodied in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties are applied in the practice of states and the jurisprudence of international tribunals. Inevitably the records of this great codification will be searched and researched, by scholars as well as by legal advisers, and for a variety of reasons: What is the function of a particular rule? What r61e was it designed to play in the relations of states and in the international legal community? What does it require in the way of performance or abstention? Is it a residual rule, binding upon states if no other solution is agreed on? Why was the rule given the particular formulation found in the Vienna Convention,and what alternative formulations were rejected? Since the entry into force of the Vienna Convention will be delayed until after thirty-five states have ratified or acceded to it (Article 84), what assessment of the general acceptability of a particular provision can be gained from a study of the drafting record or from the number of affirmative or negative votes or abstentions?

For almost a decade and one-half the Chinese participation question has challenged the United Nations. In its coming session the General Assembly will doubtlessly once again grapple with the question, but past debates do not promise rational solution. In brief summary, two claimants seek, or are proffered by others, to participate as the “State of China” in the General Assembly, the Security Council, and the Specialized Agencies. The Government of the Republic of China (Nationalist China) has held the seat since the founding of the United Nations. The People’s Republic of China (Communist China), however, commands resources of considerable magnitude, and events of recent years have enhanced its claim to participation.

The conventional law regarding fishing rights has had a long and complicated development. Beginning before the concepts of international law as we know them were at all defined, it has played its part in shaping that law and in influencing its development. Many of the earliest fishing treaties were concerned with insuring freedom from molestation while fishing. From that time when the sea was a place of “war of everyone against everyone” the conventional law regarding fishing rights passed through the period of the struggle between the rival claims of mare clausum and mare liberum and played a part in the solution of that controversy. It likewise has been significant in the development of the idea of territorial waters as we know it today. It has helped determine both the limits assigned to and the rights enjoyed within those limits. In any future development of maritime law it will undoubtedly play its part.

This article deals with Professor Sergei Borisovich Krylov’s (1888-1958) work as an example of the impact of Soviet theory and practice on international adjudication. Krylov’s statements and performance regarding this institution are examined in the light of his relationship with his state. By bringing out some of the factors that motivate an individual acting in a state-oriented society, further appraisals of the rôle and the effective limits of international adjudication, with Soviet participation, may be aided.

One of the most interesting and perplexing of the Hague Regulations of the Rules of Land Warfare of 1907 is Article 56 of Section III.., In the prevailing English version the article in question reads as follows:

Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 permits the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to investigate and impose sanctions on countries whose trade practices are found to be unfair to U.S. interests. It reaches beyond the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), to give the United States unilateral power to penalize countries that threaten American interests. Section 301 can be used to enforce United States rights under multilateral and bilateral trade agreements, as well as to remedy unreasonable, unjustifiable or discriminatory foreign trade practices that restrict or burden U.S. trade. It contains both mandatory and discretionary provisions and specific timetables for action by the USTR.

On June 2, 1948, the United States Senate gave its approval to the conclusion by the Executive of two treaties of friendship, commerce and navigation. These were the first two treaties of this type signed by the United States since the cessation of hostilities in the second World War. Each of them had been foreshadowed in earlier treaties. The Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation with China, signed November 4, 1946, ratifications of which were exchanged November 30, 1948, was to carry out the purpose which China and the United States had recorded in Article VII of their Treaty for the Relinquishment of Extraterritorial Rights in China and the Regulation of Related Matters, signed at Washington on January 11, 1943. That with Italy, signed February 2, 1948, is the type of instrument apparently envisaged in Article 82 of the Peace Treaty with Italy.

In November 2005, the U.S. media reported that the Central Intelligence Agency was operating secret detention facilities in a handful of foreign countries, including two in eastern Europe, and that detainees were often transferred between those facilities and states known to engage in torture. The news that terrorism suspects may have been denied their human rights in member states of the Council of Europe caused concern within the Council and triggered several responses. Within days of the media reports, the Council's Parliamentary Assembly appointed a rapporteur to investigate the extent to which member states were participating in the CIA program. The rapporteur, in turn, asked the Venice Commission to prepare a legal opinion on the member states’ related international obligations. On the basis of that opinion, and the rapporteur's finding that a fair number of member states had acquiesced or participated in the CIA program, the Parliamentary Assembly adopted a resolution and a recommendation intended to safeguard against such conduct in the future. Separately, the secretary general of the Council invoked his authority under Article 52 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to survey member states on relevant aspects of their domestic legal systems, including whether those systems contain controls on foreign state conduct deemed to infringe ECHR rights.