James Wilford Garner has given us a profound, detailed and highly valuable Report on The Law of Treaties. This report contains, it is true, a rule concerning the validity of a treaty which is in conflict with an earlier treaty. On the other hand, there is no consideration, as far as this writer can see, of treaties which are in conflict with general international law, a problem which has been discussed many times.

The Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace began its sessions on December 1, and came to a close on December 23,1936. During a period of less than three weeks of working time its activities might be said to have established a world's record in scope and intensity, except that records in such matters are more to be avoided than emulated if the activities of the Conference are to be logically integrated and if the participants are to live to serve any useful purpose in the future.

The fifteenth year of the Permanent Court of International Justice has been notable for several reasons. Because of the entry into force on February 1, 1936, of the amendments to the Statute annexed to the Protocol of September 14, 1929, it marks the beginning of a new period in the history of the Court. A consequence of the amendments was the adoption of new Rules of Court on March 11, 1936, and some modifications were made in the Court's practice. The year also saw several changes in the Court's personnel; one judge died, one resigned, and three new judges were elected. Moreover, the action of various governments during the year with reference to the Court protocols is to be noted as significant for the future of the Court.

By a joint resolution passed on April 30 Congress reënacted, with modifications in some cases, and made permanent the essential provisions of the temporary resolution of August 31,1935 (as amended February 29,1936), which by its own terms expired on May 1, 1937. With the exception of the new Section 6 dealing with restrictions on the exportation and transportation of commodities other than arms, ammunition and implements of war, the duration of which by its own terms is limited to two years, the present resolution is therefore intended to lay down a permanent neutrality policy for the United States.

Insurrections and civil wars in Spanish territories during the past century have uniformly been productive of international complications and problems of international law. The present disturbance in Spain has been no exception to the rule. It is not strange perhaps that these crises have had such results considering the strategic locations and economic values of the Spanish domains, the maritime frontiers, the sizable merchant marine and navy, and the passionate and reckless manner in which arms have always been employed.

Few problems raised by the Spanish civil war are more interesting than those growing out of the fact that a state of war, in the legal sense, does not exist; belligerent rights have been accorded to neither of the contestants by third Powers. Consequently, on January 8 of this year, Germany turned over to the rebel authorities two Spanish loyalist vessels captured in retaliation to an “act of piracy”—an indictment earned by the loyalist government for its seizure of the German freighter, Palos. One may feel justifiably surprised that a government almost universally recognized as legitimate can be charged with piratical activities. Further reflection reveals that the Spanish situation presents many more questions concerning the rights and duties of the contestants as against third parties. In the absence of the recognition of belligerency, what are the rights of loyalist and rebel ships on the high seas? In the territorial waters of Spain? May the fascist or socialistic factions establish blockades? What are the powers and validity of their prize courts? Who is answerable for the illegal acts of the rebels should they lose—or be victorious? What claims will the Spanish Government have as against third Powers should one or the other prove successful? May the loyalist authorities by simple decree close to neutral trade the ports held by the insurgents? Moreover, how would all of these matters be affected if the maritime Powers of the world were to recognize the existence of a state of war, i.e., belligerency, in Spain? And, finally, in view of the magnitude and duration of the struggle, is there any justification for withholding such recognition?

In April, 1917, when the Balfour mission visited the United States to arrange for American cooperation with the Allies, Frank L. Polk, Counsellor for the Department of State, jocosely said, “You will find that it will take us only two months to become as great criminals as you are.” Polk’s forecast has become common opinion, while American disclaimers of participation in crime are forgotten. The truth is that the United States continued to insist that certain Allied practices were illegal and refused to cooperate in them. On two separate occasions the Department of State informed members of the Balfour mission that the American attitude toward certain belligerent maritime measures remained unchanged. Mr. Lester H. Woolsey, then Law Adviser, later Solicitor, for the Department of State, wrote in a memorandum summarizing the attitude taken by American representatives in oral discussions with the British: “Great Britain has heretofore attained the objects set forth… through her exercise of belligerent maritime measures, depending upon the prize court to condemn property violating those measures. The United States regards certain of the measures in question as illegal; …” A few days later Mr. Woolsey, in discussing two proposals for bunker control suggested to him by the British, said:

One of the most striking features of the present Spanish civil war has been the evolution, and devolution, of the international accord for non-intervention in Spain, and the observation and patrol system set up in connection therewith. The purpose motivating the accord was the desire to prevent Europe from becoming so bound up with and so divided over the ideological aspects of the conflict that the fighting would lead to a general European war. If the devices have not succeeded altogether in stopping the entrance of supplies and men into Spain; if they have glossed over or provided a screen behind which violations of pledged undertakings have occurred; if they have become popular laughing-stock, and have allowed unfortunate Spain to become a military laboratory for the testing of weapons and strategy, they have, nevertheless, been instrumental, along with other things perhaps, in averting for at least the first year of the Spanish war an extension of hostilities to other territories. Care need well be exercised lest the entire scheme be dropped, for Spanish civil wars have always been long drawn-out affairs lasting several years, and it should not be supposed that the general crisis is over, or that the mere granting of belligerent rights to the contestants will diminish the dangers.

It is not surprising that works on aggression have abounded during the past several years. As the author of a recent noteworthy contribution to the subject has said: “The problem of aggression is … intimately connected with that of international security.” Our present-day society, which seeks above all to stabilize its precarious security, is therefore compelled to preoccupy itself with the problem of aggression. It may, perhaps, seem unprofitable to add to the numerous pages which have already been devoted to this problem. We propose to do so only because we believe that we have established the existence of serious gaps in the doctrine of the subject, and, what is of greater importance, in its practice. Everyone admits, more or less explicitly, that the problem of aggression is inseparable from that of the prevention of war. However, when it is a question of defining the relations of the two or of showing how the solution of the former influences the practical construction of the latter, we find either a complete silence or fragmentary and empirical solutions which lack even the merit of leading to satisfactory positive results.