By her Treaty of Perpetual Alliance with Great Britain, signed in 1936, Egypt undertook to give to her Ally, in time of war and within the borders of her own territory, every facility and aid in her power. These obligations she has respected in letter and in spirit. As a result she finds herself today, while still a neutral, acting as host to large armies drawn from all the quarters of the globe. These troops are within her borders on her express or tacit invitation. To them—as allies and as allies of her ally—is extended the traditional hospitality of the land. At the same time their presence raises numerous problems. One of these is that of criminal jurisdiction. Egypt has only recently emerged victorious from a long struggle to free herself from restraints on her national sovereignty in judicial as well as in other fields.

The current war has been marked by a drastic extension of the practice of taking hostages. Ever since antiquity such action has constituted a permissible expedient, as frequent in peacetime as during war. Only recently, however, has it become a major weapon of warfare. The contemporary experience of total war necessitates a revaluation of the law and practice in regard to hostages. German actions in this war have involved such marked disregard of international law as to bring into question the entire legal foundation of the taking of hostages.

The economic interdependence of the different countries of the world explains the great importance of international transportation and, consequently, of legal rules able to make sure that the transfer of goods with the utmost simplicity, safety, and speed will be practicable. If this is true for the world as a whole it is, obviously, even truer in the case of Europe, a densely populated area, divided among many sovereign states. Up to a certain point the purely national legislation of the different countries may be able to provide for international transportation as well, but this point is soon reached and then international cooperation becomes a necessity. This works, at first, through bipartite agreements—which also serve as stop-gaps when attempts at broader collaboration have failed—but the truly promising way to regulate international transportation is by multipartite conventions. In Europe agreements of this type have existed for a long time.

In the October, 1942, number of this JOURNAL, was published an article by one of the present authors dealing with the jurisdiction of the courts of one country over the personnel of the armed forces of another friendly country at the time on the soil of the former. The presence in so many instances, in the war now raging, of the armed forces of one power in the territory of another was mentioned as the reason for the timeliness of that article. This situation still continues and makes equally timely an examination of the rights and the practice of a host country with respect to taxation of the friendly visiting forces, their operations, supplies, and personnel.

One of the most interesting and perplexing of the Hague Regulations of the Rules of Land Warfare of 1907 is Article 56 of Section III.., In the prevailing English version the article in question reads as follows:

The present world war has made further changes in the constitutional relations among the nations of the British Commonwealth. This was to be expected, for each great crisis has left its mark on that relationship in the past. The first world war ended the purely colonial period in the history of the Dominions. Their military contributions to the Allied war effort gave them a claim to equal recognition with other small states and to a voice in the formation of policy. This claim was recognized within the Empire by the creation of the Imperial War Cabinet in 1917, and within the community of nations by Dominion signatures to the Treaty of Versailles and by separate Dominion representation in the League of Nations.

It is proposed to deal in this article with the English law concerning the legal status of the United States forces present in the territory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland during the present war. The history of, and the controversies regarding, the legal position of friendly armed forces on foreign territory in international law remain outside of the scope of the present survey, which is devoted to the municipal aspect of the matter. In order, however, to give a picture of the whole body of English law applicable to the American forces we shall include a few remarks on the development of the question in English municipal and British imperial law, and it will also be necessary to compare the provisions concerning the United States forces with those regulating the status of the other allied and associated forces at present stationed in the British Isles, as well as with the provisions regarding visiting Dominion troops. As will be seen later there has been a certain amount of interdependence between international and interimperial relations with regard to the legal problem with which we are concerned.

Upon the collapse of France and the signing of the Franco-German Armistice on June 22, 1940, there were rumors that military and naval bases in Syria and the Lebanon might be used by Germany against France’s former ally, Great Britain. In a broadcast from Beirut the French High Commissioner and the Commander-in-Chief of the French Forces in the Levant, General Mittelhauser, thereupon declared, that hostilities had ceased in Syria and the Lebanon and denied any thought of handing over bases to the Axis Powers.

The treatment of civilian alien enemies, either in the national jurisdiction of a belligerent or in occupied territory, presents questions of public international law as well as of municipal law and administration. It appears that in some of the United Nations in the present war the problem of internment of such persons has become less acute as the tide of battle has turned against the Axis. In Great Britain, for example, the number of aliens of enemy nationality interned under the Royal Prerogative, and whose release had not been authorized, was only 6,123 at the beginning of 1944 as compared with 17,940 at the beginning of 1941.

On December 14, 1939, the twentieth Assembly of the League of Nations authorized the Secretary-General to convene its General Committee and empowered it to decide any question which the Secretary-General and the Supervisory Commission might submit to it until the next session of the Assembly. Since the Assembly also authorized the Secretary-General, with the approval of a majority of the Supervisory Commission, “to take any exceptional administrative or financial measures or decisions which appear necessary” until the next session of the Assembly, the purpose of providing for a meeting of the General Committee would appear to have been to enable measures or decisions other than administrative or financial to be taken if in the opinion of the Secretary-General they were necessary.

The legality of the annexation of Austria by Germany under international law stems out from the peace treaties signed in the suburbs of Paris at the end of World War I. The Treaty of Versailles of June 28, 1919, between Germany and the Allied and Associated Powers.