Dans l'organisation internationale de l'Europe occidentaie, l'autorité dite supranationale a fait son entrée. Cette notion de l'autorité supranationale reste encore vague et son interprétation n'est pas tout à fait claire. Jusqu'ici, l'exemple caractéristique est constitué par la Haute Autorité de la C. E. C. A. (Communauté européenne du charbon et de l'acier). La Haute Autorité est un organe qui n'est pas composé de représentants gouvernementaux, mais de fonctionnaires particuliers qui sont, en principe, indé;pendants des gouvernements nationaux. C'est en même temps un organe qui peut, dans les limites de ses fonctions, prendre des décisions ayant force obligatoire pour les états adhérents, même si ces décisions ne sont pas conformes à la volonté de ces états. En plus, la Haute Autorité peut, dans l'exécution de ses décisions, imposer directement son autorité aux sujets nationaux, sans l'intermédiaire des gouvernements.

It has been a time-honored custom after wars to re-examine public and also private international law—the jus minor gentium1 — endeavoring to improve international cooperation. For private international law, the area of such possibilities is not unlimited, at least as far as topics are concerned. The record of the Hague Conferences on Private International Law teaches this. On the other hand, geographical extension of improvements reached is a possibility which should not be ruled out.

The apparent inconsistency of the judgments of November 20, 1950 (the “Asylum case”) and of June 13, 1951 (the “Haya de la Torre case”) results from the distinction which, for procedural reasons, had to be made between both cases, although they were essentially one and the same case. Thus the Court, being bound by the rule that its decisions are final and without appeal, had in its last judgment to use a forced argumentation concealing the partial reversal of its first rigid arguments. Though maintaining its (the majority's) view on the limits of the right of diplomatic asylum: no prevention of the exercise of the national administration of justice, the Court in its final judgment unanimously recognized the Latin American practice (“for political expediency reasons”), according to which fugitive political criminals—even those to whom asylum has been granted “irregularly”—are not to be surrendered.