Intensive campaigns of hostile and subversive propaganda against the territorial integrity and political order of foreign states have constituted one of the most disturbing factors in the international life of the postwar period. Powerful groups, frequently with governmental toleration or support, clamor for the incorporation in their several states of territories inhabited by populations of like nationality. Vigorous and systematic incitement of foreign subjects to disaffection or revolt against their own governments is the method generally adopted to attain this end. The consequent state of tension in the relations of the states concerned presents a real and actual threat to international peace. The dangerous situations which always result from a lack of coincidence between national and political frontiers have been intensified by the rise in several states of dictatorial régimes, which are disposed to press with special vigor their territorial claims. Hostile propaganda, especially if carried on with the sanction of nationalistic governments, “inevitably results in what might be termed the obliteration of the border-line between the state of peace and the state of war.” It tends always to create an atmosphere conducive to the occurrence of those “incidents” which have so frequently led to major conflicts.

Since June 1932, the Bolivian and Paraguayan armies have been fighting in the Chaco.

The twelfth year of the Permanent Court of International Justice has not been marked by a large number of judgments and opinions, but in the Eastern Greenland Case the Court had the greatest triumph which it has achieved down to this time. During the year 1933, the Court was in session for 178 days. The 26th session of the Court, which had begun on October 14, 1932 and in which a recess was taken on December 16,1932, was resumed on January 16, 1933, and continued until April 5, 1933. The 27th session, the ordinary annual session, began on February 1 and continued until April 19, 1933. The 28th session was held from May 10 to May 16, and the 29th session from July 10 to July 29,1933. The 30th session began on October 20, 1933, and continued until December 15,1933.

The Seventh of the Pan American Conferences was held at Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, from the 3d to the 26th of December last, so that it was impossible to have comments upon its activities appear in the January number of the JOURNAL. The undersigned is taking advantage of this opportunity to say a word on certain phases of Pan-Americanism, and the observations, in so far as they concern treaties or conventions, will be in the order in which they appear in the Final Act.

In April, 1934, Mr. Eiji Amau, understood to be the official spokesman of the Japanese Foreign Office, made public a statement of which, according to the New York Times of April 21, the following is said to be an authentic translation.

Though representatives of the United States participated very actively in the drafting of the Constitution of the International Labor Organization in 1919, and though the first International Labor Conference was held in Washington under the presidency of the Secretary of Labor, the Government of the United States had no part in the work of the International Labor Organization during its first fifteen years. In consequence, the United States has hitherto held aloof from one of the most significant of the modern developments of international law. Fortunately, this situation has now been changed. On August 20,1934, the United States became the fifty-ninth member of the International Labor Organization. The steps by which this result has been achieved, and the problems growing out of it, present some interesting legal questions which ought not to escape attention.

John Smith, an American citizen, is engaged in a profitable local business in a foreign country. He unexpectedly receives information from a reliable source that the people of the vicinity plan to attack and destroy his establishment within twenty-four hours. Smith at once imparts this information to the local authorities, who take no steps whatever to protect him. The threatened attack occurs and his business is either severely damaged or ruined. It is obvious that we have here a case for diplomatic representations. A foreigner residing in a friendly state has suffered injury to his property at the hands of the nationals of that state, under conditions where national responsibility attaches. The state of residence has failed to meet its international duty of taking adequate steps to afford the resident foreigner the protection of the local law; in other words, it has not been diligent in attempting to prevent the perpetration by its nationals of acts violative of the local law directed against the foreigner and resulting in injuries to his business interests.

There is a great diversity of opinions both as to the boundaries of the Chaco and as to its wealth and possibilities of development. The Commission, while making use of the information it has been able to obtain during its tour, and supplementing that information by other particulars which have been carefully verified, thinks that it may be well to mention certain essential geographical facts.

It is well settled in Anglo-American law that national courts are competent, in general, to adjudicate rights and duties with respect to all things or persons found within the territory which the process of the court controls. Exceptions find an especial justification in considerations of national or international convenience. A situation which seems to have been insufficiently considered, however, is presented by the case of the thing or person which has been seized or arrested abroad, in violation of international law, and brought within the state and thus within reach of the process of the state's courts. Should the courts be considered competent, on the basis of physical presence thus procured, to adjudicate in the usual way?

Even in this questioning age, when one is disposed to question everything, it may be taken as an axiom of international law that a nation must possess a government. To be a state, with the rights of a state, a people must occupy a definite territory, and they must have a government which can represent them to the outside world, and through which they can accept and discharge responsibility.

On several occasions in the years since 1919 delegates of the United States to international conferences have referred to constitutional arrangements in their country as inhibiting participation by the United States in the conclusion of international agreements of one type or another. Such action raises a problem of great theoretical or pure scientific interest and of great practical importance as well. It has been discussed by various students in the past, but the events or incidents of recent years seem to justify and even demand a reconsideration of the question; it is believed, moreover, that a new basis for solution of the problem can now be indicated which is of greater importance than has been revealed hitherto.