The 34th session of the international Law Commission was held in Geneva from May 3 to July 23, 1982, and was chaired by the Commission’s dean, Professor Paul Reuter of France. This was the first meeting of the Commission in its new and enlarged composition. Its composition was new in the sense that all of its members were beginning a new 5-year term of office, the term of the former Commission having expired at the end of 1981. It was enlarged as a result of a decision taken by the General Assembly at its session in the fall of 1981 to expand the membership of the ILC from 25 to 34.

On December 17, 1982, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution supporting an expansion of the advisory opinion jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice. The resolution (H.R. Con. Res. 86) urges the President to explore the appropriateness of establishing a United Nations committee to seek advisory opinions from the ICJ. The committee would act when asked by a national court seeking advice regarding any international law question under the national court’s jurisdiction.

On February 3, 1983, Senator John Heinz (R., Pa.) introduced in the 98th Congress, with Senator John Chafee (R., R.I.) as principal cosponsor, a proposal to amend the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977. The bill had been approved by the Senate on November 23, 1981, after the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs had made certain changes in the amendments originally proposed by Senator Chafee. Although a subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce held extensive hearings on the FCPA, it never reported the proposed legislation, and the 97th Congress adjourned in December 1982 without completing action on the proposal.

There are substantial differences between attitudes in the United States and those in foreign jurisdictions towards litigation in general and pretrial discovery in particular. Thus, in the United States, there is a breadth of pretrial discovery that cannot be found in any other legal system. Moreover, factual investigation in the United States is largely controlled and conducted by the attorneys for the litigants rather than by the judiciary which, in many other legal systems, is responsible for such investigations in a litigated matter.

During the 1970’s human rights appeared to enjoy low esteem in Africa. The basic documents in inter-African relations were the UN and the OAU Charters. In its Preamble, as well as four substantive articles, the UN Charter refers to respect for human rights as a basis for international relations. The principles of human rights were further elaborated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 whose principles, in the view of some writers, have become part of customary international law. This Declaration was in turn elaborated on in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966.