On October 27, 1981, a Soviet submarine 137 surfaced in Swedish internal waters, well inside the military protection area of the naval base of Karlskrona. The submarine had grounded on a shoal and was unable to move without assistance. The Swedish Government refused a request from the USSR to salvage the ship itself and demanded that, in return for assistance by Swedish vessels, the commander submit to interrogation by Swedish authorities. The Soviet Union acceded to this by a formal agreement. The submarine was eventually escorted out of Swedish territorial waters.

The Second International Peace Conference, like its predecessor of 1899, endeavored to humanize the hardships necessarily incident to war and to substitute for a resort to arms a pacific settlement of international grievances, which, if unsettled, might lead to war or make the maintenance of pacific relations difficult and problematical. The conference of 1907, no more than its immediate predecessor, satisfied the leaders of humanitarian thought. War was not abolished, nor was peace legislated into existence. Universal disarmament was as unacceptable in 1907 as in 1899, and some few nations were still unwilling to bind themselves to refer all international disputes not involving independence, vital interests, or national honor to a court of arbitration.

Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino is a seminal decision, interpreting significantly the role of a domestic court in an international law case. At the same time, it avoids reaching definitive results. Very little is settled once and for all by the Supreme Court. This realization prompts caution. Sabbatino will not yield an authoritative interpretation, except, perhaps, as a consequence of subsequent Supreme Court decisions. A commentator must be content, therefore, with the less dramatic claims of provisional and partial analysis. Those that claim more are misleading us. The complexity of Sabbatino is almost certain to poison hordes of over-clarifiers who are descending upon this major judicial decision as vultures upon a freshly dead carcass.

A recently concluded special session of the General Assembly adopted, for the first time by consensus, a blueprint for the coordination of national and international economic policies. Carefully worded without any reference to the “New International Economic Order,” the session’s declaration nonetheless echoed the NIEO and its principal instrument, the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States, which provided: “States should co-operate in facilitating more rational and equitable international economic relations and in encouraging structural changes in the context of a balanced world economy in harmony with the needs and interests of all countries, especially developing countries, and should take appropriate measures to this end.”

Since the United Nations Emergency Force moved in and occupied the heights overlooking the Straits of Tiran, the Gulf of Aqaba has been quiet. Ships, including Israel flag ships, move freely in and out. The right of passage claimed by Israel and other states was discussed in the Security Council in 1954, in the International Law Commission in 1956, in the General Assembly in 1956-57, and again at the Geneva Conference on the Law of the Sea February 24-April 27, 1958, and will be analyzed here. It should be stated at the outset that Israel's boundaries, including the strip at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba, are not an issue here. Nor is the Arab claim that a state of war continues to exist pertinent in determining the legal status of the Gulf and the Straits, although it obviously has some bearing on the availability to Israel of the right of “innocent” passage.

On January 1, 1976, some 2,700 articles from 137 developing countries and territories became eligible to enter the United States free of import duties. By this overnight elimination of tariffs that had ranged as high as 28 percent, on articles as diverse as sausage and spacecraft, from countries as different as Brazil and Bangladesh, the United States became the twenty-third and most recent industrialized country to implement a “Generalized System of Preferences” (GSP), permitting imports from developing countries to enter at lower rates of duty than those applicable to the same products from industrialized countries.

The major thrust of contemporary international law is to restrict coercion in international relations as a modality of major change. The use of force as an instrument of change has always been wasteful, disruptive, and tragic. In the nuclear era the renunciation of force as a method of settlement of disputes has become an imperative. These necessities have resulted in a widely accepted distinction between lawful and unlawful uses of force in international relations which is embodied in the United Nations Charter. Force pursuant to the right of individual or collective defense or expressly authorized by the centralized peacekeeping machinery of the United Nations is lawful. Essentially all other major uses of force in international relations are unlawful. These fundamental proscriptions are designed to protect self-determination of the peoples of the world and to achieve at least minimum world public order. As such, they reflect the basic expectations of the international community. Since they are aimed at prohibiting the unilateral use of force as a modality of major change, they have consistently authorized the use of force in individual or collective defense at least “until the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.” This defensive right is, at least at the present level of effectiveness of international peacekeeping machinery, necessary to the prevention of unilateral use of force as an instrument of change. The fundamental distinction between unlawful unilateral force to achieve major change and lawful force in individual or collective defense against such coercion is the structural steel for assessment of the lawfulness of the present military assistance to the Republic of Viet-Nam.

Thoughtful exponents of the impartial judicial method for settling disputes among nations generally have been careful to avoid overstating its potentialities. Lauterpacht, Lissitzyn, and others have emphasized that the growth of impartial adjudication has been, and doubtless will continue to be, hampered by many obstacles. It has long been known, for example, that the “political” nature of many disputes makes them non-justiciable, since many nations are unwilling to entrust them to the judicial process through fear of losing.

Addressing accountability for human rights atrocities takes on particular significance in postconflict situations. To the extent that mechanisms for accountability facilitate the pursuit of justice against individual perpetrators, the reform of institutions staffed by perpetrators, and the initiation of reconciliation processes, identifying those who committed atrocities is a fundamental aspect of a peacekeeping mission.

The international community has established tribunals to try those who committed atrocities and will not be tried in domestic courts. Such tribunals, however, limit the scope of prosecutions to high-ranking officials, and do not command sufficient resources to pursue the multitude of individuals who participated in atrocities. Domestic courts have jurisdiction to try individuals who participated in atrocities, but judicial systems in postconflict. countries find themselves in disarray and generally unable to cope with sensitive cases, because of both the subject matter and the potential number of cases.

It appears at first sight almost incredible that a secret ballot under the majority rule could result in more candidates mustering the required majority of votes than there are places to be filled. But this actually happened four times in the Security Council during the election of judges to the International Court of Justice.