In his address to the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party on October 17, 1961, Premier Khrushchev assured his listeners that the principles of peaceful co-existence, whose source he attributed to Lenin, had “always been the central feature of Soviet foreign policy”.

The sudden and tragic death of Dag Hammarskjold on September 17, 1961, evoked throughout almost the entire world a sense of grief and loss that was without parallel in recent times.

The military take-over of Goa by India on December 18, 1961, was of legal importance, not only because it raised serious issues concerning the application of United Nations law, but also because it indicated a major difference between the East and the West in the interpretation of that law.

One of the most persuasive arguments advanced by the advocates of the repeal of the Connally Amendment has been its “boomerang effect.” While it was intended to protect the vital interests of the United States as a respondent, it also protected, on the basis of reciprocity and perhaps less intentionally, the respondent state in a case instituted before the International Court of Justice by the United States as the applicant.

As “house counsel” to the Department of State, the Office of the Legal Adviser exerts a major influence on the views and policies of the United States Government concerning matters of international law.

[This article was completed in the summer of 1961 before Dag Hammarskjold’s tragic death. It was intended primarily to provide an account of Mr. Hammarskjold’s own concept of the legal-constitutional framework within which he performed his high office. The article is now offered—without modification—as a modest tribute to a man who has left an historic imprint on the development of international law and organization.]

The question of the legal basis for United Nations armed forces is one of immense practical significance for the future effectiveness of the organization in keeping the peace.

The establishment of an effective rule of law in the international society, we have been told time and again, is the only way to save the world from the danger of its plunging into the holocaust of an atomic-missile war which, if it ever comes, will mean an over-all destruction.

The United States-Japanese Property Commission is a recent example of the successful use of an international arbitral commission to settle disputes between sovereign nations.

The injection of nuclear armaments and modern delivery systems into Communist world strategy, together with shifts in the balance of world political and economic power, have caused basic revisions in Soviet theories of war, politics, and international law.

The International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, unquestionably has made important contributions to the development of international law, though perhaps not on a scale that was optimistically assumed or, at any rate, hoped for at the time of its founding.

Election as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal and the assumption of the responsibilities of that post cause reflections on the distinguished history of this publication and upon our present objectives.

“ . . . It would be strange if now, in face of the formidable development of international debts, there were nothing for the lawyer to say.” Sir John Fischer Williams, Chapters on Current International Law and the League of Nations, p. 257 (1929).

Four Continental Conferences sponsored by the American Bar Association recently brought together within a period of ten months lawyers from more than 100 nations to consider ways in which lawyers could work together globally to strengthen international law and legal institutions to make them more of a factor in achieving and maintaining world peace.

The trials of war criminals which occurred subsequent to World War II resulted in a veritable flood of learned books and articles reporting on these trials and discussing their propriety and their legal significance.

This note is meant to take the place of a review of the first six volumes of the Reports of the Decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Communities which are published in the four official languages of the European economic communities and contain the decisions rendered during the years 1954–1960.

The establishment of a Communist regime in several European countries as a result of the Soviet military occupation and political influence shortly before and after the end of World War II (Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, Rumania and Yugoslavia) caused these countries, as a rule, to follow the Soviet pattern or imitate each other in the field of legislation.

The United Nations Conference on Diplomatic Intercourse and Immunities met at the Neue Hofburg in Vienna from March 2 to April 14, 1961, pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 1450 (XIV) which stated the Assembly’s decision to convene an international conference of plenipotentiaries to consider the question of diplomatic intercourse and immunities.

In the ever expanding panorama of international law, few areas have been more intriguing to the scholar or of greater concern to the international lawyer than the international responsibility of states for injuries to aliens.