The highlights of the thirty-second year of the International Court of Justice are to be found in the judgment on the merits of the Ambatielos Case, in the judgment of the Minquiers and Ecrehos Case, and in the judgment on the preliminary objection advanced by Guatemala in the Nottebohm Case.

The rôle of the individual in international law has for some time past been the subject of searching analysis by distinguished theorists. Recently the traditional doctrine that individuals are its objects only has been forcefully attacked by Professor Lauterpacht. It is intended to describe in this article certain developments on the international plane which affect the position of a specific group of individuals, the refugees.

The generally accepted view that the three-mile limit originated from the cannon-shot rule, has recently been challenged by Mr. Wyndham Walker in an article on “Territorial Waters: the Cannon Shot Rule.”

It is generally agreed that the establishment of the Permanent Court of International Justice brought about a decisive advance in the development of arbitration. It not only made possible the elimination of the occasional element of arbitration by substituting for it a permanent institution capable of creating a real case law, but it also removed a difficulty which until then had been insuperable, viz., the question of the composition of an arbitral tribunal.

At first sight, the terms “sovereignty” and “international co-operation” as bracketed together in the title, may seem to imply the contrast, if not conflict, between an individual state's sovereign self-determination and the co-operation, for mutual benefits derived therefrom, between several sovereign states.

It would appear that the treaty-making procedure, long considered too cumbersome and too difficult, has suddenly become too easy. Almost from the beginning, the system whereby one-third plus one of the Senate membership can block any treaty, has been denounced as “undemocratic,” and as “government by minority.” In fact, as late as 1945 the House of Representatives approved a Constitutional Amendment to permit the approval of any treaty by a mere majority vote of the two Houses.

The Sovereign Military Order of St. John of Jerusalem (of Malta)–a charitable organization dating back to about a thousand years ago, and still in existence –received Papal recognition as an autonomous organization in 1113, having previously been admitted as such by the King of Jerusalem. Shortly afterwards, the Order was granted its first supranational statute. From that viewpoint the institution, the principal aim of which was, and still continues to be, to assist the sick and the poor on an international basis, can be regarded as the oldest–after the Holy See— international organization recorded in history. Does not the XIVth-century chronicle of the Masters of the Order refer to "our lords, the sick," their motto for centuries having been "Infirmes et infirmas benigne reci, pere"? In this respect the Order of St. John can be regarded as the forerunner of the Bed Cross with the object of giving assistance through charity to human beings; from the outset the members of the Order founded innumerable institutions and hospitals, including those in the field, and, during military campaigns in more recent times, sanitary trains and hospital ships.

When hostilities with Germany were brought to an end by means of unconditional surrender in 1945 and the Nazi Government disintegrated, authority to determine Germany’s existing and future treaty relations was assumed by the military occupants.

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.