Guidance of development in the British Commonwealth has involved the use of various legal means. In the field of international commercial relations perhaps none has been more striking than the adaptation of the familiar idea of most-favored-nation treatment.

One of the most frequently overstated concepts in American constitutional theory is the “separation” of powers. The Framers of the Constitution began with the proposition that concentration of power was to be avoided. They understood, on the other hand, that if governmental powers and responsibilities were actually set apart, each branch would exercise its powers in isolation from the other coordinate branches, to the detriment of cooperation and accommodation among them. Governance would be at best inefficient and at worst impossible.

The framework for the systematic registration and publication of international agreements on an intergovernmental level was set in Article 18 of the League of Nations Covenant, and later in Article 102 of the United Nations Charter. The purpose of treaty registration and publication is to give effect to the principle and policy of “open covenants”—enunciated as the first of President Wilson’s Fourteen Points—in lieu of secret diplomacy. In addition, these procedures serve to record “contemporary trends in substantive international law” for the benefit of judicial and government practitioners, scholars, and specialists in various fields.

The stagnation in the functioning of the International Court of Justice is only one of several indicators of the neglect by Members of the United Nations of the development and modernization of adjective law. There has been gratifying progress in the codification and progressive development of substantive law through the International Law Commission and other bodies, but substantive law without an adequate adjective law is bound to lack in effectiveness and uniform and predictable application.

The Universal Postal Union is one of the oldest of the existing interstate organizations. It has a continuous record of useful service to the international community, extending over a period of almost sixty years. It was first established as the Union Générale des Postes in 1874, and it has borne it present name since 1878. A study of its structure has raised many interesting points with reference to its membership, and has revealed innovations of which little account has been taken by writers on international law, but which may have significance for the theory and the practical development of international personality. On the other hand, certain ambiguities of the texts of the Postal Conventions may be pointed out, which might be conveniently avoided in future enactments.

The Israeli-Soviet oil arbitration in Moscow has evoked world-wide criticism for not being up to the standards of a fair and impartial proceeding. Not only do the results of the award, dated July 3, 1958, appear to be unsatisfactory, but the award also does not sufficiently deal with the legal questions submitted to the tribunal. The latter thereby missed the opportunity of contributing to the development of an important legal aspect of international transactions, namely, the application of the force majeure clause. This note will be primarily concerned with that point, as well as with some international law aspects arising out of the arbitration.

When the plan of consultative meetings of Foreign Ministers was first proposed at Buenos Aires in 1936, and later developed at Lima in 1938, few considered it as anything more than emergency procedure to meet situations in which prompt and decisive action might have to be taken. There was no thought that a new form of inter-American conferences was being created, that Foreign Ministers would come to the meetings attended by a corps of experts and assistants, that the range of the discussions would cover not afew restricted topics but practically the whole field of inter-American relations, provided only that the particular problem could be regarded as an “emergency” one in the broadest sense of that term. The original conception of a confidential gathering of Foreign Ministers began to break down at the first meeting at Panama in 1939; it broke down still further at the second meeting at Havana in 1940; and still further, indeed almost completely, at the third meeting at Rio de Janeiro in 1942.

In joining the North Atlantic Treaty the United States made a momentous decision in its foreign policy. This article undertakes to analyze the rôle of the United States Senate in this historic step and to summarize the more important issues encountered.

At the conclusion of the 1991 UN enforcement action against Iraq, the Security Council adopted a resolution setting the terms for a cease-fire. The resolution required, among other things, that Iraq “unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision,” of all chemical and biological weapons, all ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometers, and associated materials and facilities. Further, the resolution provided for the creation of a UN special commission to carry out “on-site inspection of Iraq's biological, chemical and missile capabilities,” and ordered Iraq to yield such weapons to the commission for “destruction, removal or rendering harmless.” Similar requirements were imposed with respect to the acquisition and development of nuclear weapons. While maintaining the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the Security Council allowed exports to Iraq of foodstuffs and medical supplies (on the condition that a UN sanctions committee had been notified) and also other commodities (if approved by the same committee). The Security Council decided that the sanctions regime would be lifted, however, once Iraq complied with its obligations on the destruction and monitoring of weapons of mass destruction.

Sixty-six aircraft of United States or foreign registration were hijacked from January 1, 1961 through 1968; 277 aircraft of U.S. or foreign registration were hijacked from January 1, 1969 through 1972; nine aircraft of foreign registration, and none of U.S. registration, were hijacked in the first eight months of 1973. Inherent in these figures is an evolution in the nature of the offense and an intensification of rigor in the national and international response to the offense, as well as the emergence of certain legal and political problems as yet unresolved. At the same time, the dramatic decline in hijacking between January and August 31, 1973 should be greeted with caution, not euphoria, lest there be a regression to the condition of national and international complacency about aircraft hijacking which obtained up to 1968.

In his concurring opinion in the recent tax treaty case United States v. Stuart, Justice Scalia reports that “I have been unable to discover a single case in which this Court has consulted the Senate debate, committee hearings or committee reports” to interpret a treaty. Even more sweepingly, he says that two 1988 opinions in a district court are the “first (and, as far as I am aware, the only) federal decisions relying upon pre-ratification Senate materials for the interpretation of a treaty.” He moves from there to conclude that the “Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States §314, Comment d (1986); id., §325, Reporter’s [sic] Note 5 … must be regarded as a proposal for change rather than a restatement of existing doctrine.” Those are the paragraphs in which the Restatement approves the use of such materials.