Law Commons^™

The Economic Aspects Of Inflation, Leonard L. Watkins

Michigan Law Review

In every large industrial country there is a considerable group that urges inflation as a path to national prosperity. They have made least impression on monetary policies in countries that experienced severe inflation during the war and post-war years. But in the United States, where war-time inflation was relatively moderate and where losses in the recent depression have been especially severe, inflationary measures have been adopted and agitation persists for the adoption of still more radical policies.

Effects Of Inflation On Private Contracts: Germany, 1914-1924, John P. Dawson

Michigan Law Review

The German experience with inflation is unique not only in the magnitude of the ultimate disaster but in the wealth and variety of the record which it left behind. From that experience we may still learn much. The problems presented at successive stages of the German inflation differ in degree but not in kind from those which appear in any major shift in the general level of prices. The devices, legal and economic, for restoring an equilibrium thus destroyed must be essentially the same in any great country organized, as Germany was, for specialized, large-scale production. From a study of …

Housing Legislation And Housing Policy In The United States, Ernest M. Fisher

Michigan Law Review

Passage by Congress of the "Emergency Relief and Construction Act of 1932" just prior to adjournment in July has served to arouse widespread hope for a revival of the construction industry as a whole, and especially those activities of the industry that are bent upon producing new housing facilities. One of the provisions of the Act authorized the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to "make loans to corporations, formed wholly for the purpose of providing housing for families of low incomes, or for reconstruction of slum areas, which are regulated by state or municipal law as to rents, charges, capital structure, rate …

The New Spanish Constitution And International Obligations, Jesse S. Reeves

Michigan Law Review

The promulgation of a Constitution for the Republic of Spain, of date of December 9, 1931, invites attention to certain provisions therein relating to international law, treaties, and related topics.

The Constitution of Esthonia, dated June 15, 1920, Article 4, contains apparently the earliest constitutional provision as to the relation of international to the municipal law: "The universally recognized general rules of international law are an integral part of the laws of Esthonia." The German Constitution of August II, 1920, Article 4, provides that "the generally recognized rules of international law are valid as binding constituent parts of the law …

Judicial Attitudes In The Customs-Union Case, Robert Elden Mathews

Michigan Law Review

The World Court decision of last September in the Austro-German Customs case has given rise in many quarters to an attack upon the Court itself.

The criticism has not been based solely upon the eight-to-seven vote of the judges. We have too many one-man majorities in our own judiciary to find much concern there. But the alignment of nationalities from which the two groups of judges come has been the source of the greatest adverse comment. For it so happens that the majority, holding illegal the proposed Customs Union, was composed of judges many of whose nations were opposed to …

A Reference Work On Post War Treaties

Michigan Law Review

A review of POSTWAR TREATIES FOR THE PACIFIC SETTLEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL DISPUTES. By Max Habicht

Constitutional Law-Just Compensation Under The Fifth Amendment- Rights Of Russian Citizen

Michigan Law Review

The petitioner was a corporation organized under the laws of the Russian Czarist government, and in January, 1917, became an assignee for value of contracts for the construction of two vessels. In August, 1917, the United States requisitioned these contracts, and the vessels being constructed thereunder, for use in the War. The requisition was made under an act of Congress of June 15, 1917, 40 Stat. 183, which provided for compensation as follows: "Whenever the United States shall * * * requisition any contract * * * or take over any ship, * * * in accordance with the provisions …

Treaties-Effect Of War On Commercial Treaties

Michigan Law Review

The Sophie Rickmers, a German merchant vessel registered at Hamburg and owned by a German corporation with principal place of business there, entered New York Sept. 27, 1921. Upon its entry a tonnage duty of fifty cents per ton was collected under U. S. Rev. Stat. sec. 4219 as amended by 19 Stat. 250 (46 U. S. C. A. 121), and sec. ,4225 (46 U. S. C. A. 128), in addition to the six-cent tonnage duty under 36 Stat. 111 (46 U. S. C. A. 121). The treaty of the United States made in 1827 with the Hanseatic Republics, 1 …

Cases On International Law, Hector G. Spaulding

Michigan Law Review

A Review of CASES ON INTERNATIONAL LAW By Manley O. Hudson.

Aliens-Right To Hold Propsrty-Effect Of Statutes

Michigan Law Review

An alien testator devised land to her son, which property was seized during the World War by the defendant Alien Property Custodian as belonging to an alien enemy. Von Zedtwitz v. Sutherland, 58 App. D. C. 153, 26 F.(2d) 525. The plaintiffs sued the son in Kentucky, where part of the land was located, and the Alien Property Custodian in this suit to recover the property on the theory that after the eight-year period which the laws of Kentucky allowed the alien heir in which to dispose of the realty, the title vested in them as next of kin …

The United States And The League Of Nations, Clarence A. Berdahl

Michigan Law Review

With the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles by the necessary number of Powers on January 10, 1920, there came into existence that new experiment in international cooperation and government known as the League of Nations. It has grown from a membership of 43 states in 1920 to 55 in 1929. Including Great Powers and Small Powers, states of Europe, Asia, Africa, South, Central, and even North America, it can in no sense of the word be properly characterized as a European league merely, or another Holy Alliance, but is truly a world organization. Only Afghanistan, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, Russia, …

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

The New Law Of Nations, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

"In these disillusioned years which are the aftermath of the World War the law of nations has come to be regarded in many quarters with a kind of sophisticated skepticism. It is freely asserted that the law has proved a futile reliance, that it has broken down, and it is asked--with an air of unbelief too obvious to be misunderstood--What is there that is ever likely to be done about it?"

Review Of International Law And Some Current Illusions And Other Essays, By J. B. Moore, Henry M. Bates

Reviews

Professor Bates writes: "Most timely ... is the publication of this volume of papers by the most distinguished and the most widely experienced American scholar in the field of international law....

"Judge Moore is a firm believer in the so-called 'equality of nations' and contends that an association based upon any other theory merely invites trouble. Nor does he believe that force can be safely relied upon to preserve international peace....

"The book is of very great value. Every page of it compels thinking and reflection; moreover it is good reading even for the uninitiated...."

Permanent Court Of International Justice, Edwin D. Dickinson

Reviews

"The author of this volume of collected papers and addresses is well known as the Bemis Professor of International Law in Harvard Law School, sometime member of the Legal Section of the Secretariat of the League of Nations, and the most efficient advocate of the new Permanent Court of International Justice in America. His enterprise as an advocate is sufficiently attested by the fourteen brilliant papers reproduced in this volume and the nine other titles of similar nature listed in the bibliography, all of them produced during the last three years....

"The exceptional timeliness of the book and the quality …

International Law, Edwin D. Dickinson

Reviews

Professor Dickson reviews "International Law," by C. G. Fenwick, noting that there are many such books available on the topic: monographs, casebooks, digests, collections of documents etc. He finds some of the material worthy of passing criticism and notes that "The chapters vary somewhat in quality and quantity." But Dickinson also praises "the fine tone of impartiality which makes it possible to present matters both recent and controverted in the restrained and temperate manner of the true scientist."

International Political Questions In The National Courts, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

"Much has been made of the principle, in England and America, that international law is part of the national law to be applied by national courts in appropriate circumstances. As Mr. Justice Gray has expressed it, in the Paquete Habana: 'International law is part of our law, and must be ascertained and administered by the courts of justice of appropriate jurisdiction, as often as question of right depending upon it are duly presented for their determination...'

This principle is useful, where it is applicable, but it is subject to limitations which are sometimes inadequately appreciated ..."

Prize Cases Decided In The United States Supreme Court, 1789-1918, Edwin D. Dickinson

Reviews

"It seems something of a paradox that our first and only complete collection of Supreme Court prize decisions should be published at last under the auspices of an endowment for international peace... And it has been the admirable purpose of the Carnegie Endowment to promote peace by rendering more available all authoritative sources of information about international affairs.

"There is more in common, indeed, between peace and prize cases than a mere matter of contact with international affairs. The development of international law, both as a general system and as a part of municipal law, has been developed by prize …

Les Gouvernements Ou États Non Reconnus En Droit Anglais Et Américain, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

Professor Dickinson tackles the subject of non-recognition of governments or states in English and American law: "Pour conclure, voici les propositions de l'auteur. La reconnaissance d'un Gouvernement or Etat etranger est exclusivement une question politique. L'existence d'un Gouvernement ou Etat etranger est exclusivement une question de fait.... C'est une chose deja grave que de voir d'une menace dans les conflits diplomatiques..."

A Guide To Diplomatic Practice, Edwin D. Dickinson

Reviews

"Sir Ernest Satow's Guide to Diplomatic Practice was first published in 1917. It was the first systematic treatise on the practice and procedure of diplomacy to be printed in the English language, covering a field already occupied in other languages....

"...[T]he author compiles a wealth of data accumulated in research and long experience in what may perhaps be described as the professional diplomatist's book of forms and precedents... It is chiefly a digest of diplomatic data intended to afford practical guidance in the routine of diplomatic organization, precedence and ceremonial, procedure, immunities, international congresses and conferences, the making of treaties …

Book Reviews, Edwin W. Patterson, Edson R. Sunderland, C E. Griffin

Michigan Law Review

The title of this brilliant little volume might, more accurately, have been, "The Spirits of the Common Law," for it depicts the common law as the battleground of many conflicting spirits, from which a few relatively permanent ideas and ideals have emerged triumphant. As a whole, the book is a pluralistic-idealistic interpretation of legal history. Idealistic, because Dean Pound finds that the fundamentals of the 'common law have been shaped by ideas and ideals rather than by economic determinism or class struggle; he definitely rejects a purely economic interpretation of legal history, although he demands a sociological one (pp. io-ii). …

Indemnity Act Of 1863 A Study In The War-Time Immunity Of Governmental Officers, James G. Randall

Michigan Law Review

One of the familiar measures of the Union administration during the Civil War was the suspension of the habeas corpus privilege and the consequent subjection of civilians to military authority. The essential irregularity of such a situation in American law is especially conspicuous when one considers its inevitable sequel-namely, the protection of military and civil officers from such prosecution as would normally follow invasion of private rights and actual injury of persons and property. Such protection was supplied by a bill of indemnity passed in 1863, and this law, with its amendment of i866, forms a significant chapter in the …

Book Reviews, Nathan Isaacs, Horace Lafayette Wilgus, Arthur H. Basye, Leonard D. White, Victor H. Lane, Edwin D. Dickinson

Michigan Law Review

What does a judge do when he decides a case? It would be interesting to collect the answers ranging from those furnished by primitive systems of law in which the judge was supposed to consult the gods to the ultra-modern, rather profane system described to me recently by a retrospective judge: "I make up my mind which way the case ought to be decided, and then I see if I can't get some legal ground to make it stick." Perhaps the widespread impression is the curiously erroneous one lampooned by Gnaeus Flavius (Kantorowitz). The judge is supposed to sit at …

Book Reviews, Edgar N. Durfee, Edwin D. Dickinson, Burke Shartel, Leonard D. White, Evans Holbrook, C E. Griffin, Ding Sai Chen

Michigan Law Review

Although the three lectures contained in this volume are propounded as a "trinity," the reader will not find in them that unity which is of the essence of a trinity, as distinguished from an aggregate of three. The author proposes a "triune division" of legal science, Past, Present and Future. But the first lecture deals with a particular phase of the past, the second with a remotely related phase of the present, and the last with a quite unrelated phase of the future, so that they have little in common, save the brilliance that sparkles through them all.

The United States And World Organization, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

On what conditions should the United States enter a world organization for the maintenance of peace? Viewing the question broadly, should not the United States enter world organization upon one condition, namely, that the organization give promise of the utmost achievement in the maintenance of peace? Unless we are prepared to repudiate the avowals of our statesmen and reverse what is perhaps the oldest and most fundamental tradition of our foreign policy, can we consistently insist upon any other condition than this one?

Rules Of Warfare, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

Professor Dickinson anticipates the 1921 Conference of Washington on arms control and limitation in light of the recent world war and the special situations in the Far East. "War is abnormal, the negation of law and order, the exaltation of force..... This does not mean that codes of war law, so called, have no place or function ...."

Termination Of War, John M. Mathews

Michigan Law Review

The termination of war must, at the outset, be distinguished Ifrom the termination of hostilities or actual warfare. As has been said, war is "not the mere employment of force, but the existence of the legal condition of things in which rights are or may be prosecuted by force. Thus, if two nations declare war one against the other, war exists, though no force whatever may as yet have been employed."' Similarly, it follows that, although actual hostilities have ceased, the status of war may continue until terminated in some regular way recognized by international law as sufficient for that …

League Of Nations And The Laws Of War, Ralph W. Aigler

Michigan Law Review

Everyone would agree that the renovation of international law presents a problem of commanding importance. Diversity of opinion is manifested, however, as soon as attention is directed to the details of the renovating process. Where to begin, what to emphasize, and how to go about it are questions which provoke a medley of discordant answers. Out of this medley a few paramount issues are beginning to emerge. One such issue concerns the so-called law of war. What shall be done about it? The World War revealed its lack of sanction, its confusion with self-interest, its chaotic uncertainty. Can it really …

Power Of Congress To Declare Peace, Edward S. Corwin

Michigan Law Review

In the course of the discussion which has been aroused in Congress by the proposal to declare hostilities with Germany at an end by joint resolution, Senator Thomas of Colorado has brought forward evidence showing that on one occasion the Convention which framed the Constitution voted down unanimously a motion to vest Congress with the power to "make peace." This evidence is good so far as it goes, but it does not support all of Senator Thomas's deductions from it, nor indeed has he given an altogether complete account of it. The proposal in question was made and rejected by …

The Execution Of Peace With Germany: An Experiment In International Organization, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

IN one respect, at least, the Peace of Versailles is unlike any of the great European settlements of earlier date. The provisions included to ensure the execution of its terms are vastly more ambitious in scope and more elaborate in detail than anything of the kind contained in earlier treaties. There is an extraordinary emphasis upon organization for the enforcement of peace.