Dans l'organisation internationale de l'Europe occidentaie, l'autorité dite supranationale a fait son entrée. Cette notion de l'autorité supranationale reste encore vague et son interprétation n'est pas tout à fait claire. Jusqu'ici, l'exemple caractéristique est constitué par la Haute Autorité de la C. E. C. A. (Communauté européenne du charbon et de l'acier). La Haute Autorité est un organe qui n'est pas composé de représentants gouvernementaux, mais de fonctionnaires particuliers qui sont, en principe, indé;pendants des gouvernements nationaux. C'est en même temps un organe qui peut, dans les limites de ses fonctions, prendre des décisions ayant force obligatoire pour les états adhérents, même si ces décisions ne sont pas conformes à la volonté de ces états. En plus, la Haute Autorité peut, dans l'exécution de ses décisions, imposer directement son autorité aux sujets nationaux, sans l'intermédiaire des gouvernements.

Dans le dernier numéro, la Rédaction a encore eu la possibilité de faire part de la mort subite du Professeur E. M. Meijers en qui la Hollande perd le plus grand juriste qu'elle possédait à ce moment-là.

Après avoir été pendant cinq ans avocat à Amsterdam, Meijers fut nommé en 1910 professeur de droit civil à Leyde. Il n'a jamais écrit de manuel de droit privé mais, en 1941, après avoir été interné par les forces d'occupation allemandes, pour la seule raison qu'il était juif, il a eu la puissance d'esprit d'écrire en prison, sans avoir à sa disposition aucun livre juridique, son ouvrage magistral «De Algemene Begrippen van het Burgerlijk Recht» (Les Notions Générales du Droit Civil).

Genuine territorial controversies between States have seldom until now come up for decision either before the International Court of Justice or its predecessor.

It has been a time-honored custom after wars to re-examine public and also private international law—the jus minor gentium1 — endeavoring to improve international cooperation. For private international law, the area of such possibilities is not unlimited, at least as far as topics are concerned. The record of the Hague Conferences on Private International Law teaches this. On the other hand, geographical extension of improvements reached is a possibility which should not be ruled out.

Just as in the Fisheries Case (see p. 252 sqq.), a preliminary question as to the real scope of the proceedings might easily have arisen. Theoretically four answers to the problem of territorial sovereignty over the two disputed groups of small Channel islands would have been possible: sovereignty belongs to France; it belongs to Great Britain; the islets constitute a condominium; or they are terra nullius. From the outset the Court, however, took it for granted that the only choice under the Special Agreement of December 29th, 1950, lay as between British and French sovereignty, though it had freedom to come to a different conclusion in regard to either of the two groups. The task entrusted to the Court “to determine whether the sovereignty over the islets and rocks (in so far as they are capable of appropriation) of the Minquiers and Ecrehos groups respectively belongs to the United Kingdom or the French Republic” was thus interpreted by it as being designed to determine “which of the Parties has produced the more convincing proof of title to one or the other of these groups or to both of them.” The adjudication of sovereignty, being essentially an absolute title to a particular territory to the exclusion of, and vis-à-vis all other States, was thereby more or less reduced to the weighing of the respective titles, or at least of the relative probative force of the arguments adduced on either side in support thereof. In this respect the situation was exactly the same as in the case of the Palmas or Miangas island decided in 1928 by Professor Max Huber as sole arbitrator in a suit brought before the Permanent Court of Arbitration by the Netherlands and the United States Governments in virtue of a Special Agreement of 1925 under a previous general Arbitration Treaty of 1908.

Le Royaume des Pays-Bas est un Etat complexe qui se compose actuellement des Pays-Bas (le territoire en Europe), la Guyane Néerlandaise, les Antilles Néerlandaises (appelées autrefois Cura çao) et la Nouvelle-Guinée, c'lest-à-dire la partie occidentale de cette grande île. Les trois premières parties sont des parties autonomes du Royaume qui existent côte à côte sur un pied d'égalité. La Nouvelle-Guinée est un territoire non autonome, gouverné par les Pays-Bas

The apparent inconsistency of the judgments of November 20, 1950 (the “Asylum case”) and of June 13, 1951 (the “Haya de la Torre case”) results from the distinction which, for procedural reasons, had to be made between both cases, although they were essentially one and the same case. Thus the Court, being bound by the rule that its decisions are final and without appeal, had in its last judgment to use a forced argumentation concealing the partial reversal of its first rigid arguments. Though maintaining its (the majority's) view on the limits of the right of diplomatic asylum: no prevention of the exercise of the national administration of justice, the Court in its final judgment unanimously recognized the Latin American practice (“for political expediency reasons”), according to which fugitive political criminals—even those to whom asylum has been granted “irregularly”—are not to be surrendered.

1. — In vele landen erkennen wetgeving en rechtspraak dat de normen, die bij verdrag zijn gesteld, zonder meer in de interne rechtssfeer kunnen werken indien haar strekking zich daartoe leent. Dergelijke normen kunnen de betrekkingen tussen de eigen onderdanen der verdragspartijen onderling beheersen, haar aan-wending wordt geëist in civielrechtelijke procedures. Het geval kan zieh voordoen dat een zelfde materie geregeld wordt door een verdrag èn door de voornaamste bron van intern recht, de wet. Zeer wel denkbaar is het dan, dat beide soorten normen met elkaar in conflict körnen. Welke houding moet de rechter in dat feval aannemen tegenover de intern werkende verdragsnorm? n alle aangeduide landen vindt men dit zelfde probleem terug. Het overlaten van de oplossing aan de jurisprudentie leidt vaak tot niets; als regel onttrekt de rechter zieh zo veel mogelijk aan de hem opgedrongen taak een rangorde te stellen tussen beide rechts-bronnen. Die taak rust eerder op de Grondwetgever.

The landmark case of modern international law of economic warfare, Anderson v. N.V. Transandine Handelmaatschappij, dealing with the application of Royal Decree A 1 of May 24, 1940, was once more the subject of judicial consideration, after an interval of more than ten years, in State of the Netherlands v. Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Archimedes. It may briefly be recalled that the Royal Decree A 1 of the government-in-exile vested protective title in the State of the Netherlands to claims capable of being transferred outside the Realm in Europe and belonging to persons domiciled in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, for the purpose of conserving the rights of the former owners. It was this conservatory character of the Decree, as expressly stated in its art. 1(3), that militated against any confiscatory concept which might have prevented its extraterritorial application to assets located in the United States. Indeed, the conservatory character was stressed in all subsequent decisions which held Royal Decree A 1 applicable in the United States.

The convention of Rome of October 7th 1952 on damage on the surface caused by foreign aircraft to third parties retains the principle of absolute liability. Art. 1, however, has the following exceptions: “Nevertheless there shall be no right to compensation if the damage is not a direct consequence of the incident giving rise thereto, or if the damage results from the mere fact of passage of the aircraft through the airspace in conformity with existing air traffic regulations.”

The most comprehensive and authoritative enumeration of sources of international law is contained in Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice. It is well known, however, that this enumeration is far from satisfactory both as regards its formulation and its completeness. The definition of international custom in article 38. 1 (b) has often been criticized; it has further become necessary to emphasize the distinction between general principles of law as mentioned in Article 38. 1 (c) and principles of international law, which are not expressly mentioned in the article and which do not always coincide with international custom; moreover certain unilateral acts are, apparently, supposed to fall under the scope of Article 38. 1 (a) referring to international conventions, as is also the case with an increasingly productive source of international law, namely the decisions of international organs.

1. To those who are striving for the establishment of one uniform system of maritime law, the 25th day of August, 1924 must no doubt be an important mile-post on the long road which they hope will one day lead to the desired goal.

On that day diplomatic representatives of a number of nations at Brussels signed two International Conventions, one relating to the limitation of liability of the shipowner and the other to the liability of the carrier in the case of carriage of goods under a bill of lading.