International Law Commons^™

Sovereignty In Antarctica: The Anglo-Argentine Dispute, Russell W. Mackechnie Jr.

Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce

The purpose of this article is to examine the relevant arguments of Argentina and Great Britain and, in light of an analysis of the theories of territorial sovereignty and prior decisions, to suggest that, should the dispute be referred for decision to the International Court of Justice, Argentina has a formidable array of arguments at her disposal. It may be argued that the opportunity for decision by the Court is foreclosed by the existence of the Antarctic Treaty, that the issue of territorial sovereignty in Antarctica is moot. It is submitted, however, that the possibility of a Court determination is …

Sovereignty Over Unoccupied Territories--The Western Sahara Decision, Mark A. Smith

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Recent Development--Panama Canal Treaties, David M. Himmelreich

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Given its strategic interest in the Canal, it might well be asked why the United States would sign a Treaty which does not give an unambiguous right of intervention. Under the Treaty, the United States has at best only a weak legal justification for intervention, which will be useful in domestic politics should the popular opposition to "giving the Canal away" become critical, but which will be much less convincing elsewhere. World opinion is suspicious of the reliance of any great power on intervention, regardless of the legal rationale. The justification will be least persuasive in Latin America where there …

Following In Another's Footsteps: The Acquisition Of International Legal Standing By The Palestine Liberation Organization, Robert A. Fisher

Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is a public body which has been accorded certain international legal standing. The purpose of this Comment is to chronicle the acquisition of that standing by reference to identifiable stages in a similar process undertaken by the Zionist Organization/Jewish Agency for Palestine. This kind of analysis should illustrate not only how international law bears upon Middle Eastern developments, but also how international practice of the last half century has allowed peoples such as the Jews and Palestinians to attain legal standing, as a vehicle for acquiring territorial sovereignty.

Revolution-A Spiritual Phenomenon: A Study In The History Of Ideas, Henry E. Strakosch

Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce

The irrational and utopian note of the revolution remained constant through its long and eventful history. I will try to show that the idea of modern revolution is not simply an attack on an established authority, but a phenomenon sui generis, i.e., an attack on order as such, based on an identifiable metaphysical position. The present article may be regarded as an attempt to contribute through an uncovering of the spiritual roots of the revolution, to an understanding upon which depends the survival of personal values in the social order, at a time when that order seems threatened from without …

Socialist Concepts Of Sovereignty: The Case For Romania, Aurel Braun

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Artificial Islands Constructed On United States Continental Shelf Denied Status Of Independent Sovereignty, Journal Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The United States brought injunction and trespass claims in the federal district court against three private persons to prevent the unauthorized construction of artificial islands atop several submerged coral reefs located about four and one-half miles off the southeast coast of Florida. These reefs were composed of the skeletal remains of coral organisms and lay at a depth of 600 feet. The reefs continued to grow laterally, but had reached their maximum height and were completely submerged at all times except at low tide when their highest projections were momentarily visible. The reef area, which harbored countless varieties of marine …

Criminal Jurisdiction Over Visiting Naval Forces Under International Law, Walter F. Brown

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Neo-Positivist Concept Of International Law, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

The question "Is international law really law?" has not proved troublesome, according to Hart, because "a trivial question about the meaning of words has been mistaken for a serious question about the nature of things." Hart defends international law in Bentham's terms as "sufficiently analogous" to municipal law. It is important to see in what way this analogy is viewed by Hart in order to determine whether the reasoning he offers is too high a price to pay for accepting a neo-positivist into the circle of those who hold that international law is really law.

Toward Supremacy Of Treaty-Constitution By Judicial Fiat: On The Margin Of The Case, Eric Stein

Michigan Law Review

Increased interdependence of states in modem times has shaken the nineteenth century doctrines of extreme dualism and positivism. These doctrines would build an impenetrable wall between the international and national legal orders; they would elevate the state to the position of exclusive actor and deny the individual any standing in the international legal order; and, in the interpretation of a rule of law, they would exclude any regard for the political, economic, and social context in which the rule is applied.

International Law- Criminal Law- Jurisdiction Over Aliens For Crimes Committed Abroad, Frank G. Reeder S. Ed

Michigan Law Review

Six alien defendants were convicted under a federal statute for knowingly making false statements before United States consular officials abroad in order to procure nonquota immigrant visas. Their motion to dismiss this count on the ground that the district court lacked jurisdiction to indict and try aliens for crimes committed outside the territorial limits of the United States was denied. On appeal, held, affirmed. As a necessary incident to its sovereignty, the United States is competent to punish aliens apprehended within the United States for acts against its sovereignty committed outside the country. Rocha v. United States, 288 …

On Amending The Treaty-Making Power: A Comparative Study Of The Problem Of Self-Executing Treaties, Lawrence Preuss

Michigan Law Review

The current furor concerning the treaty-making power of the United States has been aroused by the apprehension that this country might become a party to certain multilateral treaties in the social and economic fields, and, notably, the draft Covenants on Human Rights, the Genocide Convention and the Convention on Political Rights of Women. The plethora of proposed constitutional amendments now before the Congress merely marks an intensification of the controversy, recurrent throughout our history, concerning the legal effect of Article VI, Section 2, of the Constitution of the United States. Problems concerning the relative authority of treaties and other international …

International Law-Trusteeship Compared With Mandate, Donald S. Leeper S. Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The mandate system represented an attempt to cope with the problem of nonself-governing territories as an international responsibility and, for the most part, was an advancement over former methods of treatment. The system was not perfect and its operation pointed up a number of its defects. The framers of the United Nations Charter formulated the trusteeship system to take the place of the mandate system, correcting its defects and adding certain innovations. The purpose of this comment is to present a brief comparison of the two systems and to consider a few of the major problems presented.

A Modern Law Of Nations, Percy E. Corbett

Michigan Law Review

The title of Professor Jessup's book implies a criticism of the existing, or "traditional" law of nations. That law is not, apparently, modern. What the author means can be gleaned from his first paragraph. The existing principles, institutions and procedures intended to govern the conduct of states and usually referred to as "international law," are not adequate to meet the conscious needs of today's world. Those needs find their sharpest expression in a widespread demand for a more reliable world order, one more capable of resolving peaceably conflicts between states, more capable of resisting the forces which periodically tear the …

The Subjects Of A Modern Law Of Nations, Philip C. Jessup

Michigan Law Review

International law is generally defined or described as law applicable to relations between states. States are said to be the subjects of international law and individuals only its "objects." Treatises on international law accordingly usually proceed at the very outset to examine the nature and essential characteristics of the fictitious jural person known as the state.

Recognition Cases In American Courts, 1923-1930, John S. Tennant

Michigan Law Review

Although the Soviets have maintained complete, uninterrupted, and practically undisputed control over most of the territory of the former Russian Empire for more than ten years, the United States still refuses to recognize the Soviet government as the international representative of Russia. The first general consideration of the legal situation engendered by the policy of our government was contained in an article by Professor Edwin D. Dickinson, "The Unrecognized Government or State in English and American Law,'' which appeared in the Michigan Law Review in 1923. In view of the importance of this matter, and the number of cases involving …

Review: International Law, H. Arthur Steiner

Michigan Law Review

A Review of : INTERNATIONAL LAW By Ellery C. Stowell.

International Law-Extraterritorial Criminal Jurisdiction

Michigan Law Review

The importance of assertions of the right to punish extraterritorial crime is directly related to the advance of international commercial and social intercourse. The earliest serious attempts to assert such a jurisdiction date only from the eighteenth century. Now, practically every state exercises some degree of jurisdiction over offenses committed abroad. But the extent of the power claimed by the different nations varies so as to cause doubt as to what is the international rule on the subject.

The Case Of The S. S. "Lotus", George Wendell Berge

Michigan Law Review

A momentous judgment was rendered by the Permanent Court of International Justice, sitting at the Hague, on September 7, 1927, in the Case of the S.S. Lotus. Interest in the case is especially manifest among students of international and maritime law, as well as others, because it is perhaps the first case to come before the Permanent Court in which the question for decision was a point of general international law. Thorough analysis and comment on the questions involved would fill a good-sized volume. Only a few observations can be made in this article on the merits of the …

New Avenues To Freedom, Edwin D. Dickinson

Michigan Law Review

Lay opinion regards the law of nations as a weak and ineffective system. It is the fashion to deplore the inefficacy: of its precepts and to regard it as a sort of benevolent code unsupported by any forces which can really compel observance. There is a good deal of loose talk about providing sanctions. The truth is, however, that few systems of law are so infested with tyrannies. It is not sanctions which are needed so much as opportunities for growth. It is not the buttressing of existing dogmas which is required so much as new avenues to freedom.

Canada's Treaty Making Power, C. D. Allin

Michigan Law Review

The question of the treaty-making power of the Dominion of Canada was raised in an acute form during the negotiations between Great Britain and the United States governments over the halibut fisheries. After several years of investigation and negotiation, a draft agreement was drawn up by the American State Department and sent to the Canadian government through the British ambassador at Washington. According to the title and preamble of the treaty, the convention was drawn up between the United States and Great Britain, but by Article I, "The Nationals and inhabitants and fishing vessels and boats of the United States …

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 ..."

Humanitarian Intervention In International Law As Related To The Practice Of The United States, Malbone W. Graham

Michigan Law Review

One of the outstanding results of the Great War, as regards international law, has been the tendency to question the bases of that law and to subject almost every portion of it to a minute examination, to determine its adequacy in governing effectively the relations of states to each other. This wholesale questioning has not confined itself merely to the laws of war and of neutrality-open as most of them may be to objection as a result of the practices in the course of the war-but also to the international law of peace, as regards the doctrine of the equality …

Executive Legislative And Judical Recognition Of International Law In The United States, Charles G. Fenwick

Michigan Law Review

The indefiniteness which attends both the concept and the con- tent of what is known as international law will sufficiently explain why it is difficult to -determine the exact relation which that body of law which regulates the conduct of states bears to the domestic law of each individual state. First of all, jurists are not agreed as to whether international law deserves to be called law in any real sense. The followers of the school of AUSTIN who, restrict law to the category of commands imposed by a political superior upon a political inferior, naturally refuse to recognize the …

An Organic Conception Of The Treaty-Making Power Vs. State Rights As Applicable To The United States, Charles Sumner Clancy

Michigan Law Review

When we talk of the State, its rights or its structures, we are necessarily led to the inquiry, "What do we mean by the State?" Beginning with the proposition that the State is a composite formed of individuals whose lives are shaped by the life of the whole, it necessarily follows that a perfect understanding of any particular State would involve a knowledge of the characteristics of the members who compose it. This of course is obviously impossible, but the theory underlying States generally is founded upon general human characteristics. So we may take as a basis the great truth …