In the wake of nationalist movements directed against the determination of The Netherlands not to give up their rights to West New Guinea, the Indonesian central government in 1958 nationalized Dutch properties, among them tobacco plantations.

Considering the voluminous literature on international judicial and arbitral settlement, it may at first seem surprising that there has been relatively little interest shown by international lawyers in the problem of enforcement of the decisions rendered—a matter which is regarded as crucial in other areas of international law and organization. Yet the reasons for this lack of attention are not difficult to discern. Mainly it has been taken for granted that states which voluntarily submit their disputes to arbitral or judicial procedures will comply with the decision of the tribunal, and that if they were not prepared to run the risk of an adverse decision, they would not have submitted the case for adjudication in the first place.

A Joint Resolution was unanimously approved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States on July 6 and 8, 1959, respectively. It was proclaimed by the President on July 17 and he designated the week beginning July 19, 1959, as “Captive Nations Week” to be observed “with appropriate ceremonies and activities.” The resolution cited, among other things that “the enslavement of a substantial part of the world's population by Communist imperialism makes a mockery of the idea of peaceful coexistence between nations” that “since 1918 the imperialistic and aggressive policies of Russian Communism have resulted in the creation of a vast empire which poses a dire threat to the security of the United States and of all the free peoples of the world” that “the imperialistic policies of Communist Russia have led, through direct and indirect aggression, to the subjugation of the national independence” of twenty-two states; that “these submerged nations look to the United States, as the citadel of human freedom, for leadership in bringing about their liberation and independence” and the enjoyment of “religious freedom” and “individual liberties” that “it is vital to the national security of the United States that the desire for liberty and independence on the part of the peoples of these conquered nations should be steadfastly kept alive” that “the desire for liberty and independence by the overwhelming majority of the people of these submerged nations constitutes a powerful deterrent to war and one of the best hopes of a just and lasting peace” and that “it is fitting that we clearly manifest to such peoples through an appropriate and official means the historic fact that the people of the United States share with them their aspirations for the recovery of their freedom and independence.”

The opening of the Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans under the Arctic ice by the atomic submarines U.S.S. Seadragon and U.S.S. Nautilus heralds the conquest of hitherto impenetrable undersea depths. Yet this event is only one of many triumphs along a new frontier of oceanographic exploration and development which is uncovering untapped sources of immeasurable wealth and benefits for all peoples. But even as we confidently prepare to harness these vast natural resources of the oceans, we must seek to achieve equitable agreements on international laws of the sea by which nations will abide. Only thus can the freedom of the seas and the right to harvest its resources be ensured without the risk of anarchy and wasteful depletion; only thus can nations avoid increased risk of strife and, possibly, war over conflicting claims to the bounty of the seas.

Opportunity to drive a significant salient, spearheaded by a specific implementation of the Tate Letter into the stubbornly resisting domain of sovereign immunity, was presented recently to both the State Department and the New York Supreme Court in Weilamann and McCloskey (Sheriff of City of New York) v. The Chase Manhattan Bank. Bank accounts of the State Bank and the Bank for Foreign Trade of the U.S.S.R., maintained in the Chase Manhattan Bank, had been attached by the New York City Sheriff in an action by Mrs. Weilamann, owner of Soviet state bonds in default. The party defendant, the Soviet Union, though served with process, did not appear in the main action, or directly enter a plea of immunity. In a further action in aid of the warrant of attachment, for a judgment directing the Chase Manhattan to turn over the moneys in these accounts to the Sheriff, pursuant to the warrant (the bank having refused to turn over the moneys to the Sheriff on the ground that it was not indebted to the U.S.S.R., but did owe balances to the two Soviet banks), the complaint was dismissed on the ground that the State Department's letter of interest suggesting immunity of the U.S.S.R. from attachment must be honored.

Most comprehensively viewed, the international law of the sea comprises two very different sets of principles. One set of principles, establishing certain basic, overriding community goals, prescribes for all states the widest possible access to, and the fullest enjoyment of, the shared use of the great common resource of the oceans. The other set of principles, commonly described as jurisdictional, expresses certain implementing policies designed economically to secure the basic community goals of shared use by establishing a shared competence among states in a domain largely free from the exclusive public order of any particular state.

Human conduct is regulated by a plurality of normative systems—religious, ethical, conventional and legal norms. Religious and ethical rules embody higher values and are sometimes more effective than legal rules.

Friedrich Nottebohm was born at Hamburg, Germany, a German national by birth and remained a German national until 1939. Since 1905 he had resided in Guatemala, where he carried on prosperous activities in the fields of commerce, banking and plantation. At the end of March or the beginning of April, 1939, he left for Germany and applied in October, 1939, after the outbreak of the second World War, for naturalization in the Principality of Liechtenstein and was naturalized on October 13, 1939. From this moment on he conducted himself exclusively as a national of Liechtenstein, particularly with regard to Guatemala, where he returned in 1940. On October 19, 1943, he was arrested by Guatemalan authorities and turned over to the armed forces of the United States in Guatemala. He was deported to the United States and interned there for two years and three months. During his internment in this country, in 1944, fiftyseven legal proceedings were commenced against him in Guatemala, designed to confiscate all his movable and immovable properties. When he was released from internment in the United States in 1946 and wanted to return to Guatemala to take up the defense against all the litigations pending against him there, he was refused readmission to Guatemala. In 1946 he went to Liechtenstein, where he has resided ever since. In 1949, three years after he had made Liechtenstein his effective and permanent domicile, his properties in Guatemala were confiscated under Guatemalan law.

It has recently been held in The Netherlands that Indonesian nationalization measures failed to affect title to goods and securities situated in The Netherlands. Almost simultaneously, it was decided in Western Germany that the same measures did affect title to goods situated in Indonesia. Martin Domke concludes his admirably informative report on these decisionss with the statement that while the decisions of the Dutch courts correspond with the concept of non-recognition of foreign confiscatory decrees which assertedly still prevails in Western countries, the German courts in “abandoning” what is called the prevailing view did not submit convincing reasons for “changing the well-established principles of international law.” Issue is here taken only with these latter assertions. It will be contended that the German decisions were in conformity with well-established principles of international law and followed the prevailing practice of Western countries.

The Antarctic is no longer the virtual unknown of story and legend. Though it will undoubtedly remain a frontier—as much of Alaska has remained a frontier—one consequence of the International Geophysical Year is that policy and operational affairs of the South Polar Regions have gradually become almost “orthodox,” that is, handled on a daily basis by government officials and institutions in the near-normal manner of dealing with any matter in modern bureaucracy and research.

In an age in which trading activities of the state are increasing everywhere, in which the economic progress of underdeveloped countries has become the object of international and national concern, but in which, on the other hand, the rights and legitimate expectations of alien investors have in many countries suffered more frivolous and alarming setbacks than at any other time—in such an age the problem of the state’s international responsibility for losses arising out of contractual relations between states (or other international persons) and aliens is clearly of great actuality.

During the past thirty years there has been an increasing awareness that in order to achieve the maximum utilization of available water resources the development of each river basin should be considered as an entity. One instance in which the concept was thoroughly applied, whether or not properly, was the Tennessee Valley Authority. Effective conservation and flood control practices must begin in the upper reaches of a watershed in order to be effective. Normally the best dam sites are located in the more mountainous terrain, distant from the cities and irrigated farm lands.

The U-2, a high-flying United States reconnaissance plane under pilot Francis G. Powers, permanently based in Turkey, but taking off from Pakistan territory with intent to cross Soviet territory and land in Norway, came down near Sverdlovsk, well within Soviet territory, on May 1, 1960. Such flights had been carried on for four years under general orders of the President, following refusal of the Soviet Government to accept the “open skies” proposal made by the President at the Summit Conference of 1955, and after such flights had become operational in 1956. Apparently the Soviet Government had become aware of such flights through radar tracking.

On July 27, 1955, an aircraft belonging to El Al Israel Airlines Ltd., making a scheduled commercial flight between Vienna and Lydda (Israel), penetrated over Bulgarian territory without previous authorization and was shot down by Bulgarian military aircraft. All the crew and the fifty-one passengers were killed. The ensuing diplomatic correspondence and negotiations producing no satisfactory results, the Government of Israel decided to submit the dispute to the International Court of Justice. Proceedings were instituted against Bulgaria by Application of October 16, 1957.