Since literature is not capable of providing a generally accepted answer to the question “What in fact is an international firm?” it is submitted that in this paper a definition should be given being operational in the context of this study.

Thus an international firm is defined as:

—a group of business bases subject to some degree of central managerial control;

—operating within geographically diversified markets subject to different political, legal and cultural spheres; and

—usually interdependent through some form of capital sharing.

Nous sommes réunis pour comm´morer la fondation de la Commission d'Etat pour la codification du droit international privé; celle-ci fut fondée par décrêt du 20 février 1897 N° 1 de la Reine Mère Emma, Régente du Royaume, au nom de Sa Majesté la Reine Wilhelmine, sur proposition du Ministre des Affaires Etrangères et du Ministre de la Justice.

At a Conference held in Mexico City from 17th to 28th September 1970, the statutes of a new universal intergovernmental organisation, The World Tourism Organisation, were drawn up, to become effective and the organisation bought into being 120 days after 51 competent States have signified their acceptance of them. These statutes were drawn up in circumstances which, from a legal point of view, can only be regarded as decidedly unusual. Basically what happened was that the International Union of Official Travel Organisations, IUOTO, an international non-governmental organisation, was attempting to secure a means whereby it could “transform” itself from its private law status into a fully-fledged international intergovernmental organisation, governed by public international law, and this without any break in the continuity of legal personality between the two situations. The story of the metamorphosis of IUOTO makes interestingreading.

It often happens in the history of law, that a certain event gives the impulse to a new direction of legal thinking. Though the technical developments of our age continually confront us with new problems, which demand special provisions also in the legal field, the urgency of such provisions is often felt only after some dramatic accident, which arouses public alarm in wide circles.

The present regime of the Lower Mekong River which began with the establishment of the Committee for Coordination of Investigations of the Lower Mekong Basin (Mekong Committee) in 1957 is the outcome of the keenly felt individual interests of the basin states coextensive with the community interest involved. As a clear departure from strict adherence to the traditional principles of territorial sovereign right theory governing the use of international rivers, the regime demonstrates a characteristic change from nationalism to internationalism, or perhaps more accurately regionalism, with the active participation of United Nations, its specialized agencies and third countries in the water resources development of the basin. The trend appears to be towards a regime of integrated development.

On March 24, 1965, the American Government recognized for the first time the use of chemical substances in Vietnam. This news provoked a storm of protest throughout the world, leading eventually to a bitter debate in the United Nations in 1966, which resulted in Resolution 2162 B (XXI) adopted on Dec. 5. This Resolution called “for strict observance by all States of the principles and objectives of the Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, signed at Geneva on 17 June, 1925, and condemns all actions contrary to those objectives”.

Seldom has the international community shown such a rapid and prompt reaction to an international wrongful act as in the case of hijacking of aircraft. States, international organizations—governmental or non-governmental—came together to advise and take strict and immediate measures to cope with this situation. The modern phenomenon of hijacking of aircraft, like abductions of statesmen, diplomats and other civil servants, and attacks on diplomatic and consular missions, which are intended to draw attention to a certain political cause, are only some of the forms of violence which international society witnesses today. Of all these instances of sheer violence, the abduction of aircraft and persons on board has made the greatest impact. At the same time it has brought about an immediate and strong reaction of world opinion against these unprecedented acts.

In operative paragraph 2 of resolution 2750 C (XXV) of 17 December 1970, the General Assembly of the United Nations decided to convene in 1973 a new Conference on the Law of the Sea. Although this Conference will also deal with older aspects of the law of the sea, the cause of this decision was not so much the failure of the conference of 1960 as the necessity to meet the need for legal rules for completely new maritime activities, viz. the use of the floor and subsoil of the deepest oceans. The general philosophy and leading principles on which the new regulation will have to be based, are embodied in General Assembly res. 2749 (XXV), also of 17 December 1970, containing a “Declaration of Principles governing the Sea-Bed and the Ocean Floor, and the Subsoil thereof, beyond the Limits of National Jurisdiction”, the first concrete result of three years UN activities on the subject. The article tries to give an evaluation of the several principles of the Declaration, as well as of the procedure by which they have been brought about, all this in view of the announced international conference.