On December 18, 1951, the International Court of Justice at The Hague rendered its judgment in the Fisheries Case between the United Kingdom and Norway. By ten votes to two the International Court declared “that the method employed for the delimitation of the fisheries zone by the Royal Norwegian Decree of July 12, 1935 is not contrary to international law.”

For several generations past international lawyers have discussed the problem whether recognition of states, governments and belligerency is a matter of law or of policy. They have been unable to reach uniform conclusions. Some of them, like Professor Lauterpacht in his book on recognition, have advocated the view that there is a right to recognition and a duty to recognize.

In any legal system there is an order of rank of types of law. This order in countries where courts are independent of other branches of government, where there is both a “separation of powers” and a “rule of law,” is established and maintained by the courts through their decisions. As “interpreters” of the constitution, written or customary, the courts are really the artisans of this standard of rank, for it is rarely stated explicitly in constitutional documents.