The able American Ambassador to France, Charles E. Bohlen, has declared before a Senate Committee that the withdrawal of France from the NATO integrated commands was “probably the most serious event in European history since the end of the war.” In weighing this assessment, one might well keep in mind de Tocqueville’s reminder that “what we call essential institutions are often only the institutions to which we are accustomed.” Yet there is little question that the French move was a significant development in postwar Europe. The purpose of this article is to explore some implications of this development for the international system and for the international legal order.

The amendments to the Charter adopted by General Assembly Besolution 1991 (XVIII) A of December 17, 1963, relating to the Security Council entered into force on August 31, 1966. As a result, the number of the non-permanent members was raised from six to ten, bringing the total of members of the Council to fifteen and the word “seven” in paragraphs 2 and 3 of Article 27 was replaced by the word “nine.” The rest of paragraph 3 of Article 27 was left unchanged and the affirmative and concurring votes of the permanent members continue to be required for decisions of the Council “on all other matters,” that is, on all matters other than procedural ones. It is clear from the debates preceding the adoption of the amendments that there was no intention to tamper with this requirement which confers on each of the permanent members the power to cast a “veto,” that is, a negative vote. No attempt has been made to clarify the effect of the absence of a permanent member from the Council upon the adoption of decisions relating to non-procedural matters or the effect of the abstention by a permanent member in the vote on such a decision. Presumably, by tacit accord, it was deemed wiser to leave the proverbial Pandora’s box locked.

Locked in south central Africa by Zambia, Mozambique, Botswana and the Republic of South Africa, Rhodesia comprises a land mass of over 150,000 square miles and a population of about four million blacks and 220,000 whites. From 1889 until 1922 the area was administered by a chartered company formed by Cecil Rhodes. In 1922 the white settlers opted for the status of a self-governing colony, and in 1923 Southern Rhodesia was annexed by Great Britain. In 1953 it joined, with Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland in a federation, still under the United Kingdom; the venture proved unsuccessful and was terminated in 1963.

In his great blueprint, “An International Bill of the Rights of Man,” written in 1943, i.e. before the Dumbarton Oaks Conversations of 1944 and the San Francisco Conference of 1945, Professor Hersch Lauterpaeht (as he then was) suggested that the international machinery for securing the observance of the “International Bill of the Rights of Man,” which he then proposed, must be of two kinds—of supervision in its widest sense, and of enforcement. By “supervision in its widest sense” he meant “all activity calculated to ensure the observance of the Bill of Rights short of actual enforcement by political or physical means of compulsion.” He went on to say that this included

The United Nations Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities has an interest which is belied by its subordinate position in the international hierarchy. Apart from the intrinsic interest of the work in which it is engaged—work at the very heart of some of the most hotly debated issues in the United Nations—the Sub-Commission, because of the manner of its composition, possesses certain characteristics which differentiate it significantly from most other United Nations organs. Like the now defunct Sub-Commission on Freedom of Information and of the Press which was created at the same time, it consists, in theory, at least, of experts acting in their individual capacity, an arrangement which—because it gave its members a degree of independence not possessed by representatives of governments—would, it was hoped, permit them to contribute to the solution of certain problems in ways not possible to the latter. How has this arrangement worked in practice, if at all? Does the Sub-Commission really act as a body of independent experts, or are its decisions motivated by the same kind of political considerations which motivate its superior bodies? Why has it so singularly failed to make any contribution towards the protection of minorities? “What have been its successes and what is its future?

While there has been general agreement among writers on international law and polities that the recent rapid increase in the number of independent states is significant for the international system, debate about the actual and potential consequences of that increase for the contemporary international legal order continues. Since that debate, which focuses on the attitude of the “new states” toward the existing international legal order, the reasons for that attitude, and the extent to which changes in that order are consequently inevitable, likely or desirable, has so far been conducted primarily on the basis of impressionistic generalities, it appears essential to investigate more closely and empirically the attitudes and behavior of the new states. Egypt has been selected as an important case study because of its leadership in the Arab world, its strategic position in the Afro-Asian world, and its active rôle in the anti-colonial and non-alignment movements, as well as because of its particular yet representative problems and goals.

The scope of this paper is limited to the study of Communist China’s attitude toward some important legal problems of the United Nations, such as its legal status, the binding force of its resolutions and the Chinese representation question. In regard to sources, this paper is based upon Communist China’s official statements, treaties, the record of its international practice and the views expressed by certain Communist Chinese writers.

In the decade since the Convention on the Continental Shelf was framed at Geneva, the possibilities of reaching and using the mineral resources of the ocean have continued to open up at an unprecedented rate. Exploitation of oil and gas deposits in the continental shelves is now a commonplace, and such production has become an important part of the world’s normal supply. The technological frontier, pushed forward by the explosion of interest in the ocean sciences during the last few years, is now advancing into the deep sea beyond the limits of the geographical shelves, and the pace may be expected to accelerate in the next decade.

On December 16, 1966, the General Assembly approved three agreements designed to establish a global system of enforceable treaty obligations with respect to fundamental human rights. These agreements are the second part of the “international bill of rights” proposed at the San Francisco Conference. Eighteen years separated the adoption of these agreements—the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights—and the approval in 1948 of the first part of the projected United Nations program for the protection of human rights, the non-binding Universal declaration of Human Rights.

Several elements have interacted to influence the course and pattern of the boundaries and the regime of Soviet territorial waters. The foremost of these is national security. All of the seas bordering the U.S.S.R. have narrow entrances which can be commanded easily by hostile foreign Powers. During the Russian Revolution and subsequent Civil War, German vessels and, after the War, Allied vessels in the Baltic and the Dardanelles restricted to an uncomfortable extent the freedom of action of the Soviet Government. Soviet weakness in the Baltic theater was a major factor in determining Soviet policy towards Finland and the Baltic states during the 1939-1941 period, and the proximity of NATO naval forces to the Baltic continues to provoke Soviet proposals to close the sea to noncoastal Powers. Similarly, the U.S.S.R. was compelled to endure Turkish violations of the Montreux Convention on the Turkish Straits during World War II while its Black Sea fleet was immobilized. The Pacific coast seas and the Atlantic and Pacific approaches to the Arctic seas are also susceptible to a blockade by hostile Powers. Even the Arctic seas themselves, once regarded as an unguarded but impregnable frozen boundary, have become unexpectedly vulnerable with the development of nuclear submarines.

The significant rôle for the specialized agencies contemplated by the Charter of the United Nations is reflected in the constitutions of those agencies. It is the purpose of this paper to analyze, on a comparative basis, one aspect of the constitutional law of intergovernmental agencies related to the United Nations, viz., the flexibility of their constitutions. This study should reveal the degree of adequacy of this ingredient, so essential to the viability of these important international institutions.

In his speech to the Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund at Rio de Janeiro on September 25, 1967, Mr. Pierre-Paul Schweitzer, the Managing Director of the Fund, said:

Selection of a library can be a troublesome problem for the lawyer advising clients with international problems. Fortunate is he whose office is but a stone’s throw from the library of a great law school or one of the few Bar Association libraries with the knowledge and funds to enter the foreign field. Most lawyers must get along with the relatively few materials which can be made available in their office or in the local law library.

After twenty years of frustrated attempts to bring South Africa to accept her international obligations in respect of South West Africa, the United Nations General Assembly resolved on October 27, 1966, to terminate South Africa’s right to administer the Territory. In this resolution the Assembly declared that

On June 30, 1967, in Geneva, Switzerland, Ambassador W. Michael Blumenthal, acting at the direction of the President, signed five multilateral agreements on behalf of the United States. He and the representatives of 45 other countries thereby concluded the Kennedy Round of trade negotiations and formalized an elaborate set of international obligations which, over a period of four years, would see the most extensive liberalization of trade ever achieved through co-operative action on the part of the trading countries of the world.

As soon as the House of Representatives considers and passes the Diplomatic Relations Act of 1967, and the President signs the new Act into law, the United States will proceed to deposit its ratification of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. These two documents will make rather extensive changes in United States law and practice with respect to diplomatic privileges and immunities. It will be the purpose of this article to give a capsule summary of the manner in which the Diplomatic Relations Act may be anticipated to operate in the future, and to indicate the pertinent areas in which the previous United States law and practice will be affected thereby.

The fifty-third session of the Institut de Droit International, originally scheduled to meet in Athens under the presidency of Judge Jean Spiro-poulos, met instead at Nice, September 7-16, 1967, with Haroldo Valladão, First Vice President of the Institut, in the chair. The session was well attended and included, among the eighty-five participants, the Honorary President, Charles De Visscher, eight judges of the International Court of Justice and eighteen members or former members of the International Law Commission.