The material in this section is arranged according to the system employed in the annual Digest of United States Practice in International Law, published by the Department of State.

Not having been privileged to study, or work more than fleetingly, with Philip Jessup, I write from a less informed and intimate perspective than his colleagues and, of course, his son. Not that Jessup was a distant figure, for he conveyed to all who knew him, or even encountered him, a warmth and sympathy that was exceptional. No man in the world of international law aroused more universal admiration and affection than did Philip Jessup.

Throughout his career, Philip C. Jessup was passionately committed to the use of law and diplomacy for the peaceful settlement of international disputes. He provided a generation of leadership in the wide and difficult endeavor that he characterized as “transnational law”—by which he meant to emphasize the importance of a wider storehouse of rules and avoidance of the dogmas and fictions associated with traditional international law.

When I first heard this account of my father’s early motivation to take up international law I cannot remember, but it surfaces again, I believe, in the Columbia University oral history. His experience in the trenches in France towards the end of the First World War was the key. He was in the infantry, carrying a light machine gun, and fought through a number of the terminal battles with the American Expeditionary Forces. Although he was shipped back at the end of the war as a West Point candidate, he mustered out at the earliest opportunity to resume civilian life and complete his undergraduate degree at Hamilton College.

The July ’86 issue of this Journal contains a brief appreciation of the honor done to this country and profession by the election of the U.S. member, Professor Herbert Reis, to the second vice-presidency of the United Nations Administrative Tribunal. We said, at that time, that the “election of Mr. Reis … is a significant recognition of his eminence as a legal scholar by the community of his peers.” Its significance is underscored by the difficulty any American has, nowadays, in being chosen for high office in any international group.

The material in this section is arranged according to the system employed in the annual Digest of United States Practice in International Law, published by the Department of State.

In its decision in The Paquete Habana, the United States Supreme Court wrote that customary international law is part of the law of the United States to be administered by the courts, “where there is no treaty and no controlling executive or legislative act or judicial decision.” The U.S. capture of the foreign fishing vessels in question was determined to have violated customary international law protecting enemy fishing vessels in time of war, and the Supreme Court ordered that compensatory damages were due. The remedy was ordered, notwithstanding the fact that the capture was undertaken to enforce a presidential proclamation establishing a naval blockade of Cuba. The arguments of the Solicitor General and the Assistant Attorney General supporting the capture went unheeded.