While I agree with the action taken by the Court and consider that, in view of the unsatisfactory and contradictory provisions of the special agreement by which the parties have submitted this case to the Court, it is perhaps the only course by which the Court could, under its Statute, aid the parties in arriving at a wholly satisfactory solution of their dispute, nevertheless, in view of certain language used in the order, which might be the source of doubt as to the limits of the jurisdiction of this Court and might serve as a basis of argument that it is within the competence of this Court, with the consent of the parties, to take jurisdiction of and decide purely political questions upon considerations of expediency without regard to the legal rights of the parties, I feel it incumbent upon me to make the following observations:

In my opinion the question of the competence of this Court which has been raised by the present case and a direct decision of which the Court has avoided, for the moment at least, by the making of the present order, is, from the point of view of the future of this Court and the development of the judicial settlement of international disputes, by far the most important question which has ever been brought before the Permanent Court of International Justice. I feel, therefore, that I would be derelict in my duty if I allowed the question to be passed over in silence or left any doubt as to my opinion in regard thereto.

Six years ago, under the title “ Recent Recognition Cases,” the present writer reviewed a group of British and United States court decisions dealing chiefly with questions arising out of the withholding of political recognition from de facto foreign governments. Most of the decisions reviewed concerned the unrecognized governments of Mexico and of Russia. At the time of writing, the United States had recognized the Government of Mexico and Great Britain had recognized both the Government of Mexico and the Government of Russia, with the result that most of the problems presented in the so-called “ recognition cases” continued acute only in the United States and only with respect to Russia. Problems presented by the withholding of recognition from the Government of Russia are still acute in the United States in 1931, novel and interesting cases have been before the courts in the intervening years, and the end is not yet in sight. In the present paper it is proposed to bring the earlier review of this group of decisions up to date.

On September 15, 1930, the State Board of Commerce and Navigation of New Jersey made a ruling that aircraft would not be permitted to land on any New Jersey waters above tidewater within the jurisdiction of the state. The application had been made for permission to operate a five passenger flying boat between Nolan's Point, Lake Hopatcong, a vacation resort, and New York City, and to set off a portion of the lake to make a landing place for the hydroairplane. It was stated that other inland waters in New Jersey were being used for a similar purpose, and the ground of the refusal was that aircraft flying from water constituted a menace to surface navigation. This ruling created considerable newspaper comment and aroused vigorous protest from persons interested in aviation, and by order of October 20, 1930, the ruling was limited to Lake Hopatcong.

Although diplomatic representatives enjoy certain immunities in the countries to which they are accredited, they are not free to disregard the laws of the state receiving them. When a diplomatic representative breaks the local law, the ordinary procedure and the usual sanctions cannot always be applied. However, the individual or the state injured by infraction of the law by the diplomatic representative is protected by a number of sanctions and means of applying them. The purpose of this study is to examine their effectiveness.

Viewed from the functional attitude, few aspects of international government offer more difficult problems than the constitutional process for negotiating, ratifying, executing and revising interstate agreements. Defects in the organizations for international cooperation are matched by imperfections in the internal machinery for asserting the will of states in collective undertakings. Certainly the constitutional development of the control of foreign policy has not kept pace with recent progress in international government as typified by the League of Nations and the International Labor Organization. The World War brought a more liberal control of foreign affairs in Germany and Austria. But in most countries, constitutional development in the supervision of the foreign office moves more slowly than in other fields of public law; and in all countries proposed changes in the mechanism of the regulation of international relations meets the powerful resistance of conservatism and national prejudice.

The treaty obligation, which the Central American countries have imposed upon themselves, to refuse recognition to new governments established in those countries in certain specified circumstances, was first adopted in their General Treaty of Peace and Amity of December 20, 1907, and their supplemental treaty of the same date.2 The stipulations of these treaties were restated and consolidated in their later General Treaty of Peace and Amity of February 7, 1923, which treaty is still in force.3