Collective security is the main purpose of the United Nations, just as it was the main purpose of its predecessor, the League of Nations. What does collective security mean? Under general international law the principle of self-help prevails. The protection of the legal interests of the states against violations on the part of other states is left to the individual state whose right has been violated. General international law authorizes the state, i.e., the individual member of the international community, to resort, in case of a violation of its rights, to reprisals or war against that state which is responsible for the violation. Reprisals and war are enforcement actions. Insofar as they are reactions against violations of the law, and authorized by it, they have the character of sanctions. We speak of collective security when the protection of the rights of the states, the reaction against the violation of the law, assumes the character of a collective enforcement action.

The three years that have elapsed since the end of the Second World War in Europe have shown the need for ever-increasing labor in the field of copyright law. With our world drawn ever closer, the two existing systems for the protection of intellectual workers will necessarily meet more frequently. A detailed study of the historical background and present makeup of these two bodies of conventional law should lay the groundwork for their coördination.

In the October, 1947, number of this Journal there was printed the judgment, or as we should say in the United States, the opinion, of the Court of Appeal of England in Szalatnay-Stacho v. Fink. In the following number, that for January, 1948, there appeared an editorial comment on that case by Mr. Arthur K. Kuhn. The present writer begs leave to present certain additional reasons and precedents bearing upon the problem arising in the Fink case, namely, whether and to what degree an official of, or person working under, a government in exile, or an officer or employee of any foreign government, exercising his functions in another country with its consent, is liable to prosecution or suit in the courts of that country on account of his official acts. Though the governments in exile have returned home or ceased to operate, in the event of another war the phenomenon may recur. In any event, the increasing volume and complexity of international relations and the constantly closer ties between friendly nations make probable an increase in the number of officials of one country functioning permanently or temporarily in another with the latter's permission. Among these may be economic, financial, scientific, and military representatives, and all sorts of officers conferring or working with their “opposite numbers” in the host country. A detailed examination of the subject therefore seems timely.

The spotlight which has played on the international military trials at Nuremberg and elsewhere has left in relative darkness and obscurity the trials by the military commission of the American fighting and occupation forces.

The proclamation of the President of the United States on September 28, 1945, declaring as a matter of policy that the natural resources of the subsoil and sea bed of the continental shelf appertain to the United States, proves to have offered a marketable concept in the marts of international law. Six States have followed the example in the last three years, with certain notable modifications of their own, and it appears not improbable that the principle thus put forward may gain increasing acceptance in international practice. It seems appropriate therefore briefly to review various developments with respect to jurisdiction over the continental shelf, the epicontinental sea, and their resources.