The sixteenth year of the Permanent Court of International Justice was not marked by a great increase in the volume of its jurisprudence, but three judgments were handed down and several events of importance are to be chronicled for this period.

In 1881–2, during discussions of a committee of the Board of Trade, which was considering the question of a tunnel under the English Channel, the following question was asked: “Is it possible that war would be declared against us, as we might say out of a clear sky, without any previous strain or notice that a quarrel was impending?” To answer this question, the Adjutant-General ordered a special investigation concerning the extent to which wars had been made without previous declaration. The report, when completed, evidenced the surprise of the author at the great number of undeclared wars, and incidentally remarked:

The opinion of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, delivered January 28, 1937, in the case of Attorney-General for Canada v. Attorney- General for Ontario,1 voids certain “new deal” measures 2 of the Dominion of Canada. This opinion is important not alone because it has given a harsh blow to social legislationin the Dominion, and because the judgment is a reminder of one of the last vestiges of Imperial authority over Canada, these aspectsof the judgment being internal to the British Commonwealth, but also important are the external aspects. These involve the power of Canada to give effect to treaty obligations assumed by the Dominion as a member of the international community.

The legal aspects of denial of justice and its position in the framework of international law have been expounded in a number of important works.1 Regarding the history of the doctrine, however, there appears to be no work of any importance, apart from the excellent observations of Charles De Visscher.2 This is not in any way surprising in view of the fact that the history of international law is a subject which does not receive the attention it deserves, and more particularly in view of the legend, which has been disproved in a convincing manner by James Brown Scott, that there was no system of international law prior to the days of Grotius. Yet the history of denial of justice is not only extremely interesting, but it also throws light on some of the most important institutions of modern international law.

There is probably no branch of international law which is so calculated to encourage the skeptic as that mass of contradictory precedents, dogmatic assertions, and vague principles which are collected under the common head of "intervention," and perhaps there is no more potentially dangerous ground of intervention than that which is variously described as "self-preservation" and "self-defence." It was in the Caroline case that self-defence was changed from a political excuse to a legal doctrine. At a time when the law has become once more fluid and is undergoing rapid change, a reconsideration of the Caroline controversy, and of McLeod's case to which it is so closely allied, may serve a useful end.