The close of its twenty-third year finds the Permanent Court of International Justice still in existence, and still in a position to resume its activity if and when the world situation may permit. Its premises in the Peace Palace at The Hague are intact; its President and Registrar carry on their duties from Geneva; and the twelve judges who continue in office are available for the discharge of their functions. The budget of the Court for 1944 was duly alimented and a budget has been adopted for 1945.

Of all the terms in general use in international law none is more challenging than that of “ intervention.” Scarcely any two writers are to be found who define this term in the same way or who classify the same situations under it. To one writer it is the interference of one state in the affairs of another; to a second writer it is “ unwarranted” interference; to a third it is interference in the domestic or internal affairs of the state; to a fourth it is interference in external as well as internal affairs. Some writers include interference of a third state between two belligerents in time of war, by taking sides with one against the other; others include only interference between the parties to a civil war. Some include “ diplomatic intervention,” where the intervening state interferes in behalf of its citizens in cases of alleged denial of justice by the other state; others regard such interference merely as “ interposition,” since it does not involve an attempt to control the character of the foreign government but merely to influence its conduct. Many jurists regard all intervention as illegal; an American jurist constructs an entire volume on international law around the central theme of the right of intervention.

In a noteworthy decision, rendered after the outbreak of the present war, relief pendente lite was granted by the Permanent Court of International Justice (as distinguished from its President) for the first time since the Court was established. A review of recent developments affecting that aspect of the administration of international justice according to law will therefore be timely.

The next few years are likely to be of critical importance in the development of the technique of international legislation by means of multipartite agreements. The interruption of the normal rhythm of international legislative activity by the war, the need to revise a substantial proportion of the principal existing multipartite legislative instruments in the light of the new conditions precipitated by the war, and the wide range of problems not dealt with in such instruments hitherto which have now been thrust into the foreground, will combine to produce an intensification of international legislative activity comparable to that of the years immediately following the first world war. The first steps are already being taken by the formulation of plans for a wide range of new international organisations, and when the necessary constituent instruments have been framed the whole of the existing corpus of international legislation is likely to be progressively reconsidered over a period of years.

Several families now living in the Emergency Refugee Shelter which the United States Government has established at Fort Ontario, in the state of New York, are expecting the birth of children in the near future. Will these children acquire American citizenship jure soli? Does the non-immigrant status of the parents derogate from the privilege of the children? And most important among the numerous questions involved, Does the so-called “refugee free port” constitute the requisite type of American territory?

The norm pacta sunt servanda, which has constituted “since times immemorial the axiom, postulate and categorical imperative of the science of international law” and has very rarely been denied on principle, is undoubtedly a positive norm of general international law. But the meaning of this norm is controversial. Most writers lay the accent on the term servanda. One school of thought affirms that “treaties” are always binding, whereas a second tells us that the norm can only mean that valid treaties are binding.; Within this second school of thought some writers object that the norm appears as a deus ex machina, as international law does not lay down rules for the validity of international treaties, whereas others maintain, that not all, but only certain treaties are binding, that the norm admits “exceptions,” or speak of the relativité de la règle pacta sunt servanda.

The Charter of the United Nations, signed at San Francisco on June 26, 1945, states in Article 2 (1) that “ the Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.” Since the outstanding characteristics of the Charter are its recognition of the actual and legal inequality of the Members of the United Nations, and its provisions empowering the Organization to take action, binding on its Members, without their unanimous consent, an understanding of the Charter will be enhanced by placing its dominant features in their conceptual and historical setting.

The Franco-Turkish dispute over the Sanjak of Alexandretta presents another notable case of the consequences of the acceptance of an imperfect settlement at Lausanne between the Allies and Turkey following the first World War. The most important dispute that arose from the Lausanne settlement related to the Vilayat of Mosul, a district comprising the whole northern section of Iraq and valuable for its oil and strategic position, in which Turkey challenged Great Britain's interests and prestige in Iraq.That dispute was successfully settled by the Council of the League of Nations in 1925 in favour of Iraq. Ten years later another dispute arose from the imperfect settlement of Lausanne which concerned this time Turkey's frontiers with Syria. By then the international situation had deteriorated and the League's prestige was undermined. France, the Mandatory Power for Syria, was in need of Turkey's friendship and consequently her bargaining position was weaker. The dispute was eventually won by Turkey.

The Dumbarton Oaks proposals of October 7, 1944, reflect a development of ideas concerning international political and judicial organization in which the Section of International and Comparative Law of the American Bar Association has played a significant part. Its recommendations calling for the establishment of an international organization, including an improved system for settling justiciable disputes, have found their way into resolutions of the Association, composed of some thirty thousand lawyers. These resolutions preceded the joint projects of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and China for an international organization for the maintenance of peace and security.