This paper attempts to examine the consensus procedure of the Security Council since its expansion in 1965. As a method of reaching decisions within the Council, consensus is a relatively new development. Primarily the result of a phenomenal increase in membership, the consensus procedure has come to be increasingly employed in various organs of the United Nations over the past few years. While not a radical break with the past practice of the Council, the consensus procedure does suggest a greater reliance on the methods of diplomatic negotiation and compromise in an increasingly heterogeneous United Nations.

Lors de sa dixième session, tenue en octobre 1964, la Conférence de La Haye de droit international privé décida de charger la Commission d'Etat néerlandaise pour la codification du droit international privé, ainsi que le Bureau permanent de la Conférence, “d'examiner l'opportunite” de placer la question de la compétence juridictionnelle et legislative en matière d'actes illicites (délits et quasi-délits) à l'ordre du jour de la 1 Ième session ou d'une des sessions suivantes” (Acte final, partie B, sous IV, 1a).

La onzième session de la Conférence de La Haye de droit international privé a siégé du 7 au 26 octobre 1968. Elle a rassemblé les délégués de vingt-cinq pays. Le nombre des Etats membres augmente sans cesse. Depuis la dixième session de 1964 en effet, la Tchécoslovaquie a adhéré au Statut de la Conférence. Ce pays n'est pas un nouveau venu, car il avait participé aux travaux des sessions d'avant le deuxième conflit mondial. Ce retour n'en est pas moins significatif pour la Conférence d'une ouverture à l'Est qui avait été inaugurée avec l'adhésion de la Yougoslavie en 1958. Un autre signe des temps est l'arrivée du Canada qui vient renforcer encore la représentation de la Common Law et du groupe anglophone au sein de la Conférence. Les pays d'outre-mer enfin, même très éloignés, sont de plus en plus attirés par la Conférence. L'Indonésie a envoyé des observateurs à la onzième session et il etait prévu que le Brésil en fît autant. Ce développement montre d'une part que le caractère vénérable de la Conférence ne nuit aucunement a son dynamisme et souligne d'autre part les difficultés de l'uniformisation qu'elle cherche a promouvoir. On sait bien que la diversité des problèmes croit avec le nombre des Etats qui cherchent à les résoudre. La représentation au sein de la Conférence devient trop diverse pour que la nécessité du compromis ne l'emporte pas très souvent sur l'intérêt de l'unification. Mais malgré les dangers qu'elle comporte, l'extension de la Conférence donne pourtant un intérêt nouveau à son entreprise d'unification du droit international privé. Elle constitue en effet la plus importante, si ce n'est la seule tentative de concilier des systèmes aussi différents que ceux de la Common Law et du continent, de la Norvège et du Japon. Si méritoires que soient les ententes entre groupes régionaux d'Etats, elles ne concilient jamais que des systèmes déjà très voisins les uns des autres. L'œuvre de La Haye est plus ambitieuse car elle s'efforce de rapprocher des conceptions fondamentalement differentes. II n'est pas de conventions qui n'aient donné lieu à des discussions épiques entre les tenants de la nationalité et ceux du domicile, les champions de la procédure et ceux de la loi matérielle.

Recently the Council of Ministers of the European Communities adopted a regulation relating to the customs treatment of goods in transit through the customs territories of the Member States. According to Article 7 of this regulation the transit of goods carried by ships on the Rhine may provisionally continue to take place in conformity with the procedures provided for in Article 9 of the Revised Convention on Rhine Navigation, even if the transportation of the goods in question starts or ends within the Community; furthermore, under para. 3 of the same article, the provisions of the EEC treaty relating to the free movement of goods, can only be applied to goods transported in accordance with Article 9 of the Rhine Navigation Convention, if these goods are covered, in addition, by a “document of internal community transit”, proving the “community character” of the goods.

The wording of this article raises the legal question whether a Community regulation could in so far as Rhine navigation is concerned validly prescribe procedures, relating to the customs handling of goods, other than, or additional to, those provided for in the Rhine Navigation Convention.

Actually the provisions of the latter Convention concerning customs treatment are inspired by the necessity of ensuring free navigation, whereas the Community regulations, dealing with transit of goods, whatever the means of transport may be, are, of course, inspired by the requirements of a common market of goods.

Articles 6 to 14 of the Rhine Navigation Convention deal with customs matters. The history of this regime is traced in the present paper from the “Reichs-Deputations Hauptschluss of 25 February 1803” through the “Oktroi-vertrag” of 1804, the proceedings of the Vienna Congress' Commission on the free navigation of rivers, the Final Act of the same Congress and the Rhine Navigation Act of 1831 to the Rhine Navigation Convention of 1868, and the “Preusische Denkschrift betreffend die Revidierte Rheinschiffahrts-Akte” commenting the lastmentioned Convention.

Particular attention is given to the reference, in Articles 9 and 13 of that Convention, to States united in a common customs' or taxation system.

The history thus described confirms the view that the transit facility, laid down in Article 9 of the Rhine Navigation Convention, applies also in the case where the territory of one State, belonging to a group of States “united in a common customs' system”, is crossed. The EEC-regulation cannot, therefore, take away the right of a waterman to make use of this facility.

On the other hand, there would seem to be no legal objection to the same regulation prescribing for the sake of the application of the EEC treaty rules relating to the free movement of goods, a specific method of proving the fulfilment of the conditions required in that treaty, provided that the document required can be obtained in such a way that the facility provided for in Art. 9 of the Rhine Navigation Convention is not thereby nullified.

Indeed if the additional document could only be obtained by a waterman by leaving a deposit as security, or by making his ship conform to other technical requirements than those, prescribed by the relevant regulations of the Central Rhine Navigation Commission (Règlement sur la clôture douanière des bâtiments du Rhin), or in any other way by fulfilling conditions taking away the advantages of the transit facility under Art. 9 of the Rhine Navigation Convention, there would be a conflict between the EEC-regulation and the Convention. As the EEC-regulation stands at present there is no such conflict. Nevertheless it would be convenient if the customs procedures under the Rhine Navigation Convention and those under the EEC-regulation on community transit could be unified. Consultations to that effect between the two organisations are pending.

Since the very inception of the United Nations the racial policies of the Republic of South Africa have been a constant source of discord and international friction of one kind or another. South Africa's policy towards her coloured population was first brought to the attention of the General Assembly by India which complained that the treatment accorded to the people of Indian origin living in South Africa but who, India admitted, were nevertheless South African citizens, was contrary to the human rights provisions of the Charter and to the Cape Town Agreements concluded between the then Union of South Africa and India in 1927 and 1932. This subject remained before the United Nations and was considered almost annually until the seventeenth session when it was joined to consideration of South Africa's apartheid policy in one composite item. “The question of the race conflict in South Africa resulting from the policies of apartheid of the Government of the Union of South Africa” was first brought to the attention of the United Nations during its seventh session by thirteen states which maintained that by her racial policy South Africa was “creating a dangerous and explosive situation, which constitutes both a threat to international peace and a flagrant violation of the basic principles of human rights and fundamental freedoms which are enshrined in the Charter”.

The Conference of the International Law Association held at Dubrovnik in 1956 adopted a resolution authorizing its Committee on the Uses of the Waters of International Rivers to expand the scope of its work so as to cover all uses including navigation. Accordingly, the writer of this article was invited to report on the navigational uses of rivers, the main objective being to redraft and bring up to date the League of Nations Convention of Barcelona 1921, known as the Convention and Statute on the Régime of Navigable Waterways of International Concern. The Convention and Statute were ratified by 21 states, including Great Britain and France, but not the United States, the U.S.S.R. or the Netherlands. In 1957 India withdrew its acceptance.

Op 4 juni 1937 verkreeg Gesina van der Molen aan de Vrije Universiteit te Amsterdam de graad van doctor in de rechtsgeleerdheid na verdediging van haar proefschrift “Alberico Gentili and the development of international law”. Zonder enige restrictie is dit een mooi en uiterst waardevol boek over een der belangrijke voorgangers van Grotius, die evenwel de eeuwen door de grote faam van de Groot niet heeft geëvenaard. Dr. van der Molen heeft oorspronkelijk niet een universitaire studie volbracht, doch is eerst wat later, geïnspireerd door haar mentor professor Anema, nadat een colloquium doctum haar de toegang tot de universiteit had verschaft, aan de Vrije Universiteit rechten gaan studeren. Tegelijkertijd zette zij haar journalistieke arbeid voort. In 1929 deed zij doctoraal examen. Reeds lang was toen haar belangstelling gewekt, diep getroffen als zij was door het uitbreken van de eerste wereldoorlog met het enorme leed, dat daarbij over de mensheid gebracht werd, voor het probleem van oorlog en vrede. Acht jaren na haar doctoraal verscheen het proefschrift, dat een standaardwerk moet worden genoemd over een der eersten, die zich met de vraag van oorlog en vrede en van het volkenrecht in het algemeen grondig bezig heeft gehouden. Zonder kennis van Latijn en Italiaans, van Romeinse Juristen, Kerkvaders, Scholastici, de Spaanse theologische juristen en de Reformatoren, van het volkenrecht en van veel meer zou het schrijven van dit werk niet mogelijk zijn geweest.