The Japanese Foreign Office is no exception to the similarity in structure that characterizes the foreign offices of most modern States. On paper, the organization of the Gaimusho (Foreign Office) has little to distinguish it from corresponding departments in other countries. A different picture, however, is offered by the constitutional mise en scène of this important office. The relations of the Gaimusho to the Cabinet, and through theCabinet to the Imperial Diet, to the Privy Council, and to the Army and Navy, sharply reflect the pattern of the Japanese polity and gives the Foreign Office of Nippon a character which is in marked contrast to the same department in most parliamentary régimes.

The law of citizenship did not escape the general chaos into which the existing laws of Russia fell upon the accession of the Bolsheviks to power on November 7, 1917. Consequently it has not been easy to determine thestatus of citizens of the former Russian régime under the new government, especially of those residing abroad, voluntarily or by compulsion. It has only been gradually that any degree of certainty has come into the law, the first decree purporting to cover the question of citizenship in a comprehensive fashion not having been enacted until October 29, 1924. Even today one who essays to state with certainty what the Soviet law of citizenship is with respect to any given case needs to tread warily. After a comprehensive study of that law and its application, one is impressed with the fact that not all its provisions can be taken literally in all cases.

The term “denial of justice” has been used widely to describe certain types of acts and omissions of States directed against foreigners deemed to be internationally illegal and justifying diplomatic interposition by the aggrieved State. There is no agreement, however, as to the precise scope of the term. In attempting to determine whether a single definite meaning can be assigned to the expression, emphasis must be placed upon its actual use in diplomatic practice and in the decisions of international tribunals, for the opinions of writers, no matter how authoritative, may not correspond with the practice of States. A few general considerations may be suggested by way of introduction.

Of all the early problems of American diplomacy, few held more dangerous potentialities or proved more difficult of solution than those involving the rights and privileges of naturalized Americans when traveling or resident in foreign lands. In America, the position of such people was fairly well defined. The laws, which were brief, merely referred to them as “citizens of the United States,” the equals, in short, of the native-born in every particular save that of eligibility for the Presidency. It was when naturalized Americans entered the country to which, because of birth within its jurisdiction, they bore a different relation than did native Americans, that difficulties arose. The American Government was forced to decide whether it ; should extend to them, while they remained in such countries, the same protection granted to native Americans, or whether it should follow the practice of the English Government, which washed its hands of naturalized Englishmen the moment they entered the country of their native allegiance.

Ever since Article 16, with its provisions for penalties against a violator,was inserted in the League of Nations Covenant, the term “sanctions” has been much to the fore in all discussions relating to international problems.The ranks of the internationally mindedhave been divided between those who favor the formal drafting and definite application of punitive measures against declared breakers of agreements and pacts, and those who inveigh against the feasibility of carrying over into the international arena the “policeman” ideas familiar to municipal or domestic law. The former school holds that only by adequate preparation in advance of swift and deadly sanctions can “bad-boy” nations be induced to keep the peace; while thelatter group believes that the present international society is notyet ripefor such community tactics, that it is virtually impossible to distinguish “good” boys from “bad” ones, and that the difficulties of treating a whole nation as a criminal are almost insuperable. The problem ceased to be an academic one at the time of the Sino-Japanese and Chaco crises, in each ofwhich the States of the world, both in the League and out, side-stepped the issue in one way or another, but during the Italo-Ethiopian affair, the matter became even more acute. It is not the purpose of this article to discuss the question of sanctions as it relates to the political entities comprising the euphemistically called “family of nations,” but it is proposed to examine the workings of agreements among economic or commercial bodies and to look into the ways in which those agreements are enforced or “sanctioned.”