On September 8, 1992, President George Bush transmitted to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, adopted at New York on May 9, 1992, by the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a Framework Convention on Climate Change and signed on behalf of the United States at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro on June 12, 1992.

Not the least among the many problems of reconstruction facing civilization at the present moment is the establishment upon a secure basis of the principles of international law as a system of world conduct and protection. Of actually restraining principles, indeed, the late war has exhibited few; nor have these, so far as successfully asserted, prevented violations of neutral rights upon a vast scale, together with a similar disregard of privileges heretofore universally conceded to occupied territory; while still more appalling has been the exploitation of diplomatic immunity in the interest of treacherous propaganda, and the wholesale assassination of noncombatants on the high seas. To such action, the words in which Germanicus is represented by Tacitus as addressing his licentious soldiery may well be applied: “Ye have violated even rights accorded to enemies, as also the sanctity of embassy and the consecrated obligations of usage between peoples.”

As the Permanent Court of International Justice completes the third year of its activities, its r61e in the international life of our time and the prospect for its cumulating contribution to international law begin to stand out more clearly. During 1920, while its Statute was being drafted, the general conception as to its functions was more or less nebulous. In 1921, while the protocol promulgating the Statute was being ratified and while the judges were being chosen, doubts were still being entertained as to the need for the court and the opportunities which would be permitted to it. In 1922, the organization of the court, the promulgation of the rules of procedure and the handing down of three advisory opinions served to beget confidence. The year 1923 was such a busy one for the court, and the satisfaction with its five advisory opinions and its judgment in the Wimbledon case was so general that lawyers began to foresee great activities in store for it, and foreign offices began to count its existence a factor in current international affairs.