To provide for the settlement of certain claims of the government of the united states on its own behalf and on behalf of american nationals against foreign governments.

The matter of public international rules for the protection of private property rights has frequently received the attention of publicists, courts and treaty-makers. Some recent developments, bearing upon different aspects of the general subject, seem to attest its current and continuing importance. For example, the presentation to Congress of President Truman’s Point Four plan occasioned questions as to the guaranteeing of overseas investments of United States citizens. A few weeks later, at a meeting of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, a Belgian speaker and a representative of the International Chamber of Commerce emphasized the need for treating lenders according to certain standards of decency and fair play, and expressed the view that an economic climate encouraging to foreign investment was as far away as ever. On a somewhat broader plane, the appearance in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), but not in the more recently evolved International Covenant on Human Rights (1950), of provisions looking to the right of individuals to own property (“alone as well as in association with others”) and to be free from being arbitrarily deprived of it, raises questions as to whether the right of private property is not a basic “human” right.

In advancing a Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) analysis of customary international law (CIL) and its dominant doctrinal conceits, B.S. Chimni shows how the jurisprudence of custom has been co-constitutive with colonization and capitalism. He contends that CIL's most fundamental assumption—the “supposed distinction between ‘formal’ and ‘material’ sources of CIL”—privileges Western states while legitimizing CIL as a neutral and universal body of law. In dialogue with Chimni, this essay extends the conversation in two directions. First, I show that there are important resonances between Chimni's deconstruction of the distinction between “formal” and “material” sources of CIL, and a feminist critique of the public/private distinction in international law. Chimni describes his approach as postmodern. I argue that its analysis of the conceptual architecture of the dominant doctrine and its systematic exclusions is also, at its core, a feminist approach to international law. Second, and inspired by Chimni's critique, I explore insurgent jurisprudential traditions that challenge the hierarchies, inequalities, and biases in received doctrine regarding the sources of CIL. Chimni's decolonial approach acknowledges CIL's imperial past, and prepares the ground for democratizing and pluralizing sources by paying attention to a so-called opinio juris communis that incorporates the interests of those critical of, or oppressed by, the dominant world order. Building on this ground, I draw on the Panchsheel principles, first nations’ conceptions of sovereignty and citizenship, and practices of fugitive freedom by maroon communities to begin to supply content and form to a counterrepertoire of custom.

In October 2016, the United States accused Russia of hacking political organizations involved in the U.S. elections and leaking pilfered information to influence the outcome. In December, President Obama imposed sanctions for the hacking. This incident damaged President Obama's cybersecurity legacy. The “hack and leak” campaign targeted American self-government—a challenge to his administration's promotion of democracy in cyberspace. It created problems for the president's emphasis on international law and norms as “rules of the road” for cybersecurity. The episode exposed failures in his attempts to make deterrence an important instrument of U.S. cybersecurity.

For the past twenty-five years, the presumption against extraterritoriality has been the Supreme Court’s principal tool for determining the geographic scope of federal statutes. In 2010, Morrison v. National Australia Bank used the presumption to decide the scope of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act, which prohibits securities fraud. Morrison approached the question in two steps. First, it looked for a “clear indication of extraterritoriality” to rebut the presumption and found none. Second, it looked to see if application of the statute would be domestic or extraterritorial by examining the “focus” of the provision. Plaintiffs argued that applying Section 10(b) would be domestic because the alleged fraud occurred in the United States, although they had bought their shares in Australia. The Court disagreed, holding that application of Section 10(b) would be extraterritorial because “the focus of the Exchange Act is not upon the place where the deception originated, but upon purchases and sales of securities in the United States,” and in this case the transaction occurred abroad.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has exposed the capriciousness of state and corporate power over human rights online. Events since the invasion have demonstrated the coercive power of the state over online expression, privacy, and public protest. Russia's longtime “war against reality” has deepened in its repression and is dependent on the raw power of criminal law enforcement, surveillance by security forces, censorship by its media regulator, and legal and extralegal demands against internet platforms. Without drawing an equivalence, the European Union has imposed a comprehensive ban on Russian state-controlled media outlets, encouraged in part by the Ukrainian government, whose moral authority under the circumstances has been particularly strong. Notwithstanding state power over them, technology companies continue to be capable of causing or mitigating, if not preventing, human rights harms. Foreign companies and local partners have heroically maintained internet access in Ukraine and resisted Russian censorship and propaganda, the latter resulting in the blocking of key internet platforms by Russia. It is the latest chapter in the struggle among governments, companies, and individuals to control online space. But it is also an opportunity for reflection, for while the Kremlin has flouted its international obligations, governments and companies committed to human rights law cannot so behave. They should exercise their power over public space according to transparent rule of law standards of non-discrimination, legality, necessity, and legitimacy. A headlong rush to Russia-specific rules and enforcement, unmoored from public articulation of human rights standards, risks corroding the global normative framework for fundamental rights online.

States and non-state actors, such as business organizations and NGOs, have varying preferences among regulatory options in business and human rights. Some actors prefer soft law governance while others advocate for legally binding solutions at the national and international levels. In this essay, I explore some of the factors that may explain why state and non-state actors hold these diverse preferences. I conclude that while some of these preferences may be attributable to the unique advantages of soft law or hard law, other preferences likely depend on the effects produced by the interaction of both types of law within the broader regulatory landscape.

Interstate law is the law governing the relations between the members of a confederation of states with each other, in so far as these are opposed to each other as states. It is distinguished from international law because its subjects are not sovereigns, but belong to a governed body of a superordinate commonwealth. As opposed to federal state law it is characterized by having for its object not relations of supremacy and subordination between the federation and its members, but relations of coordination between the members of the federal state. Interstate law is an intermediary conception between the law of confederations and the law of nations.

The object of this article is to examine and evaluate the Fishermen's Protective Act, as reflecting the legal strategy of the United States in one particular area of its foreign relations law of importance to both the law of the sea and the law of international claims.

The interpretation of treaties is a part of the procedure of carrying out or realizing the act of contracting. This work would not be necessary if agreements between states were bare expressions of international good-will, like the arrangements of friendly monarchs to interchange visits. Because, however, treaties are deemed capable of realization and performance, the process is essential.

The method of interpretation consists in finding out the connection made by the parties to an agreement, between the terms of their contract and the objects to which it is to be applied. This involves two steps. One is to ascertain what has been called the “ standard of interpretation; ” that is, the sense in which various terms are employed. The other is to learn what are the sources of interpretation; this is, to find out where one may turn for evidence of that sense.

The fifty-fifth session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights took place in Geneva from March 22 to April 30, 1999, and was chaired by Ambassador Anne Anderson of Ireland. The Commission reviewed the state of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the world, adopting eighty-two resolutions, fifty-eight by consensus, and thirteen decisions.

More than thirty-two hundred participants represented fifty-three member and ninety-one observer states, over two hundred nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and some fiftyfive specialized agencies and other organizations. Secretary-General Kofi Annan underscored the priority he attaches to human rights by stating that “the promodon and defense of human rights is at the heart of every aspect of our work and every article of our Charter. ”

Upon signing the General Act at the close of the United Nations Conference on Freedom of Information, held at Geneva in March and April, 1948, General Carlos P. Romulo, its President, declared that some day that document might be regarded as the Magna Carta of freedom of thought and expression.1 While this view may be somewhat over-optimistic, undoubtedly the Conference showed a balance-sheet of substantial accomplishment. Opening in an atmosphere of deep pessimism contrasting with the brighter ambiance of 1946 when the idea of a conference was launched, the Conference closed with what may be called a victory of limited objectives.

Since there exists no international judicial system to adjudicate international claims in the ordinary course of events, individuals and business enterprises with grievances against a foreign country have looked, both jointly and severally, either to the “espousal” of their claims by their government—a discretionary act guaranteeing no ultimate redress—or, assuming their government has been able to negotiate a compromis with the foreign country involved, to the adjudication of their claims by an ad hoc international tribunal, almost always one without funds from which to pay awards once rendered. However, the volume and complexity of the claims spawned by World War II, the arrival of Marxist governments in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, and the emergence of an economically restless Third World have rendered the espousal process increasingly less effective; and efforts to establish ad hoc international tribunals have been almost uniformly unproductive during the past four decades (the Algerian Accords establishing the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal being the rare exception that proves the general proposition).

The extradition conventions of the United States, from the Jay treaty concluded with Great Britain November 19th, 1794, down to the present time have, with a single exception, contained the requirement that the surrender of a fugitive should be conditioned upon the production and presentation to the country of asylum of such evidence of criminality as would, according to the law of the place where the accused might be found, justify his apprehension and commitment for trial. This implies, therefore, that the conduct of the accused must have been such as to violate the criminal laws of the country of asylum. Only upon such a theory could he be there held for commitment and trial.

The history, operation and tasks of the International Law Commission (ILC) have often been described and its success in codifying general international law is well-known and widely acknowledged. The conduct of international relations today is unthinkable without such basic instruments, first drafted by the Commission, as the conventions on diplomatic and consular relations, the law of treaties and the law of the sea. Moreover, other ILC drafts that have not been adopted as treaties have had a long-term effect on the development of international law; for example, the Draft Declaration on the Rights and Duties of States, the Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nürnberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal, and the Model Rules on Arbitral Procedure.

The second sentence of Article 60 of the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice, reads: “ In the event of dispute as to the meaning or scope of the judgment, the Court shall construe it upon the request of any party.” The jurisdiction of the Court to construe its judgments is, therefore, obligatory. The Court shall give an interpretation of its judgment.whether the case decided was brought before it by unilateral application or special agreement.