The U.S. refusal to permit Yasir Arafat, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, to attend the 43d annual meeting of the General Assembly in New York was almost universally condemned as a violation of international law. Because Arafat publicly complied, on December 14, 1988, with the conditions the United States had long prescribed as prerequisite for direct contacts with the PLO, many have tended retroactively to validate the refusal to grant the visa, as a pragmatic and legitimate technique of diplomatic suasion. Consequently, it is all the more urgent that the record of international legal violation be confirmed, lest the refusal be cited, in the idiosyncratic fashion of international law, as precedent for future violations. Such a development would hasten the deterioration of the regime of restraints on the discretion of host states and reduce the effectiveness of resident international organizations.

In recent years federal courts have faced a growing number of challenges to United States actions abroad. Citizens living abroad have brought claims alleging that their property was unlawfully taken or that their lives were threatened by United States governmental action. Aliens living in foreign countries have also invoked constitutional protections—Nicaraguans have alleged torture and assassination attributed to CIA activities in Central America; a Mexican alleged that his home in Mexico was searched by Drug Enforcement Agency officials without a search warrant; a Lebanese citizen claimed that he was unlawfully arrested and interrogated in international waters by U.S. agents; a Polish refugee tried for hijacking in a special United States court convened in Berlin sought the right to a jury trial. These cases test the extent to which the Constitution limits U.S. conduct abroad.

We have read with great interest the remarks “De Jure Naturae et Gentium” by Mr. Alfred P. Rubin of the U. S. Department of Defense. But as these remarks were obviously written with reference to this writer’s editorial, “Natural-Law Thinking in the Modern Science of International Law,”

Several important events have marked the seventh year in the history of the Permanent Court of International Justice. The court was in session at The Hague from February 6, 1928, to April 26, 1928 (thirteenth session); from June 15, 1928, to September 13, 1928 (fourteenth session); and from November 12, 1928, to November 21, 1928 (fifteenth session). It handed down two advisory opinions (Nos. 15 and 16) and two judgments (Nos. 12 and 13), and several important orders. It lost the services of two eminent judges through the resignation of Judge John Bassett Moore and the death of Judge André Weiss. A settlement was reached with the Netherlands Government of the long-standing question as to the privileges and immunities of the judges and registry officials; and, what is perhaps more important for the court’s future, the signatories of the court’s protocol of signature began the consideration of changes in the court’s statute in the light of seven years’ experience. The seventh year marks progress in the establishment of the court’s position as the chief agency in the world for the international administration of justice, as it marks also changes which will affect the future of the court.

Wholly apart from the questions of whether and under what circumstances major coercion is permissible under international law and whether minor coercion, including threats, is lawful, there is a broad and deep national consensus that the United States should continuously develop a military capacity sufficient for a range of contingencies and maintain it in a state of readiness. The consensus has been far less certain with regard to who will decide, and how, to initiate and use this capacity, at varying intensities. The original terms of the Constitution have been invoked by partisans of opposing views, but debate in those terms has proved inconclusive. Behind the legal bickering, a complex, but unstated, operational code has developed, allocating competence to initiate, direct and terminate different types of coercion among the branches. Parts of the operational code are clear and relatively stable over time. Other parts are less certain and can be projected only with qualifications, reservations or contingencies.

In an era of propaganda warfare it is dangerous to condone the misuse of words. Words with a well-defined legal meaning, such as “intervention,” should not be loosely used in a non-technical sense outside the context in which they have been developed.

With nationality problems continuing to occupy a prominent place in both international and municipal practice, expressions of opinion of our highest tribunal upon the subject are received with peculiar interest. This is particularly true where the rule announced is one which governs the validity of naturalization judgments. In a recent sweeping naturalization decision which upholds the government’s views at every point, the United States Supreme Court has again stressed the rule that when doubt exists concerning a grant of citizenship, the statutes must be strictly construed in favor of the United States and against the alien. On October 22, 1928, the court handed down its opinion in the case of Anna Marie Maney, Petitioner, v. The United States of America, in which it affirmed, on writ of certiorari, the judgment of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The latter court had directed the cancellation of the applicant’s certificate of naturalization as having been “illegally procured” because of her failure to file, at the prescribed time and in the required manner, the certificate of her arrival in the United States.