Le 28 septembre 1955 la Commission Permanente de Conciliation franco-suisse s'est réunie au Palais de la Paix. Elle a été convoquée pour examiner deux différends qui se sont élevés entre la Confédération suisse d'une part et la République française de l'autre, et pour s'efforcer de concilier les Parties.

It was understood from the outset that the trials would be limited, in accordance with the Moscow Declaration, to a number of the highest-ranking Nazi leaders and their principal accomplices. It was proposed by the United States in the draft of April 30, 1945, presented to the Foreign Ministers of France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, that the trial comprise also “the principal Nazi organizations and their members, through whom the most bestial of the Nazi cruelties have been put into effect”. According to this draft, the defense of superior orders shall not absolve the accused from responsibility but may be considered, if justice so requires, in mitigation of punishment. Nor shall an accused be able to escape the trial on the ground that he was the head or principal officer of a state. Offenses against the armies of the United Nations would be punished by the appropriate national tribunals. Perpetrators of atrocities in territories occupied by Germany during the war as well as traitors such as Quisling, Laval, “Lord Haw-Haw”, would be dealt with in a similar manner.

Following my earlier survey of the case law of the International Court of Justice during its first seven years of existence, I now propose to discuss in more detail three of its recent findings, comprising two Advisory Opinions and one Judgement, which I combine under this single heading, not on account of any unity of subject, but simply because they are the last decisions which I intend to analyse for the time being and because they have at least this in common that in all three cases the finding of the Court has been determined not so much by positive texts or by fixed rules of customary law as by legal considerations of a very general nature. I allude to the following cases in chronological order:

Advisory Opinion of July 13th, 1954 on the effects of awards of compensation made by the United Nations Administrative Tribunal;

Judgement of April 6th, 1955 in the Nottebohm case (Liechtenstein v. Guatemala), second phase;

Advisory Opinion of June 7th, 1955 regarding the voting procedure on questions relating to reports and petitions concerning the Territory of South-West Africa.

Article One of the Hague Convention of 1930 on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Laws recognises that it is for each state to determine under its own law who is entitled to its nationality. But this must not be carried too far. Thus e.g. the leading British text-book on International Law observes that “it is clear that a State is not entitled to impose its nationality upon aliens residing for a brief period in its territory or upon persons resident abroad”. An extreme example of the former, and what may be thought to be a disregard of the latter, rule is to be found in the British statute called The Princess Sophia Naturalisation Act, 1705, as recently interpreted by the Court of Appeal in Prince Ernest of Hanover v. Attorney-General. It must be rare that the decision of a municipal court on such an archaic enactment has consequences of such magnitude abroad. Virtually all the protestant royal families of Europe—including that of the Netherlands—are British subjects if the decision of the Court of Appeal is correct, for no possible logical distinction can be discovered between the case of the successful claimant and that of other protestant descendants of an early eighteenth-century German princess. It is to be noted that this is not, at least in form, a mere right to claim United Kingdom nationality if desired, but a ruling that so far as English law is concerned these persons do in fact possess British Nationality. They are thus free from aliens' control when visiting England, could exercise civil rights—such as the franchise—there, could claim protection from the British Crown through its diplomatic and consular representatives, and finally—in the wildest theory —be prosecuted for the capital crime of treason in a British court.

Il y a probablement plusieurs adeptes du droit international qui ne sauraient donner une réponse exacte à la question de savoir qui est le propriétaire du Palais de la Paix. Celui-ci appartient-il à l'Organisation des Nations Unies, à la Cour Permanente d'Arbitrage, au Gouvernement Néerlandais? Le Palais n'appartient à aucun de ces trois. En 1903 l'Américain Andrew Carnegie, le fils d'un tisserand écossais émigré en Amérique, fit don d'un million et demi de dollars pour la construction d'un édifice où la Cour Permanente d'Arbitrage, érigée conformément à la Ie Convention de la Conférence de la Paix de 1899, aurait son siège. Le bénéficiaire de ce don n'était pas le Gouvernement Néerlandais, mais une fondation selon la loi néerlandaise, la Fondation Carnegie (« Carnegie Stichting ») créée spécialement à cette fin. Le seul rapport entre la Fondation et le Gouvernement était constitué par la nomination de quatre membres du Comité des Directeurs par S.M. la Reine des Pays-Bas; le cinquième membre serait désigné par le Conseil Administratif de la Cour Permanente d'Arbitrage. La tâche de la Fondation consistait en la construction et ensuite l'entretien du Palais de la Paix, ainsi qu'en la gestion de sa bibliothèque.

L'année 1955 a marqué un certain progrès, dans ce sens que le Gouvernement néerlandais a estimé que le moment était venu pour mettre ouvertes à la signature le 15 juin 1955 les Conventions suivantes (le troisième portant déjà la date du 1er mars 1954) tandis que ces projets recevaient la signature des pays du Benelux et de la France.