The current international situation did not permit the Permanent Court of International Justice to resume its activities during the year 1942. Two cases are still pending before the court—the case relating to the Electricity Company of Sofia and Bulgaria and the Gerliczy Case—but no action was taken by the parties in either of them during the year. Nor was there the usual activity in connection with instruments relating to the court.

The Suez Canal, opened for general use on November 17, 1869, more than justified the gloomy predictions of its opponents that it would become “un second Bosphore.” Abbreviating by hundreds or thousands of miles the transit distance between important parts of the globe, it wrought a kind of revolution in maritime activities and particularly in strategical concepts of peace and war. Its consummation brought to an end more than a score of years of controversy marked by the efforts of the British Government to quash a project certain to destroy the monopoly of sea access to East Africa and the Middle and Far East via the Cape of Good Hope. Until 1869 the protection of British interests in the East had required only the maintenance of naval supremacy among the European States and a close surveillance of the Eastern Mediterranean with Malta and Constantinople as points of vantage. The cutting through of the Isthmus of Suez instantly destroyed previous schemes of British strategy by giving an almost infinite extension to the shores of the Mediterranean. With a similar projection of the problems of the Mediterranean, fundamental changes in planning and procedure, both by Great Britain and by other European States having maritime interests, were unavoidable.

In the history of the American Society of International Law since its beginning no one was more active or more enthusiastically represented its aims and its purposes than Doctor James Brown Scott, despite a life of very exceptional activity in connection with almost every phase of international relations. Perhaps none of these other relationships, so faithfully and assiduously carried on, was as close to his heart as the success of our Society and of its Journal, of which he so long held the Editorship. As a Founder, as Secretary, as President through a decade, there was no activity of the Society that did not receive his full-hearted, enthusiastic support and leadership. For him international law was more than a study or a profession; it was, in fact, a religion.

Within the last year the output of designs for perpetual peace has attained something like flood proportions. Exhortations on how to make this the last war and how to win the peace outnumber the unofficial guides to victory. The volume of these publications, and their sales figures, attest a healthy general interest in the purposes for which we are fighting and the ways and means of achieving them. Inevitably, there is much clash of counsel, and some resulting bewilderment among the reading public. But there is one characteristic uniformity; whether they describe themselves as mere “approaches” to peace, or dogmatically present a fixed “blueprint,” most plans of post-war settlement advocate curtailment of national sovereignty and propose extensive and vigorous supranational organization.

With the enactment on December 19, 1942, of the misnamed “Settlement of Mexican Claims Act of 1942,” American nationals with claims based upon the international responsibility of Mexico for acts or omissions in contravention of international law appear likely to receive long-delayed satisfaction. Some of the claims are more than 60 years old. Awards were made by the United States-Mexican General Claims Commission in favor of some of the claimants more than 15 years ago, but to date no money has been paid to the beneficiaries of these awards. Various factors appear to have made this claims arbitration one of the most dilatory, inefficient, and unfortunate in our history. Claimants were notoriously lax in presenting evidence to the State Department, although in some cases they appear to have been hindered by the Mexican Government from obtaining necessary evidence in Mexico. The preambles to three conventions extending the life of the General Claims Commission allege that “it now appears” or “it has been found” that the Commission could not hear, examine, and decide the claims within the time limit fixed; but Judge Fred K. Nielsen, American Commissioner on that court, has pointed out with some vigor that it was not the Commission, so much as the failure of American counsel and the Department of State, to prepare cases for presentation to the Commission, which caused the delay and paucity of decisions. Resignations of Commissioners, protracted delays in replacing them, antagonisms between Commissioners, and lack of cooperation by the Mexican Government were other factors contributing to the 19-year delay in effecting a settlement.

Even before the attack upon the United States by Japan at Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declarations of war by Germany and Italy, the Inter-American Neutrality Committee had already been forced into a position where it could not fulfill the purposes for which it was originally intended. At the time of its creation by the meeting of Foreign Ministers at Panama in 1939, the Committee represented a genuine desire on the part of the American Republics to observe “certain standards” of neutral conduct which would insure their being able to maintain their status as neutral States; and in fulfillment of the functions assigned to it, the Committee proceeded to make “recommendations” which it believed to be in accord with the traditional principles of neutrality. The recommendation on the Security Zone, while upholding a departure by the American Republics from the specific rules of neutrality, was justified by the Committee on the basis of the fundamental right of self-defense under the conditions of modern submarine warfare.

Political institutions attain their stature largely by organic growth, taking form through a process of evolving practice. In this connection the economic sanctions developed by the United States in the years immediately preceding Pearl Harbor have much significance. As the architects of a new world order now draw up plans for the defense of the international community against war, they can include economic sanctions with greater assurance of American approval than in 1919. For certain types of such sanctions have in the last few years taken their place among our precedents, and the United States may well be expected to view proposals for their use with a more friendly eye than at the close of the first World War.

On February 29, 1892, a treaty was celebrated between the United States and Great Britain providing for the submission to arbitration of the issues which had arisen between those countries respecting the preservation of the valuable herd of fur seals of the Pribilof Islands in Bering Sea. These issues had come to a head in 1886 under President Cleveland, had remained very active throughout the whole of the succeeding administration of President Harrison and had lasted into the second administration of President Cleveland. During part of this period the feelings of the two governments ran high while the issues held the attention of the thinking public. Today, however, they have been largely forgotten and it would not have occurred to me to revive them during these stirring times had not my friend Mr. Frederic R. Coudert, who accompanied his distinguished father to Paris in 1893 as a youthful but very keen observer, requested that as the sole surviving member of the American delegation I review the salient features of this great effort to compose international controversies by reason rather than by a resort to arms. In complying with this request I shall at the same time seek to correct an impression held by many that the United States had a poor case, whereas in respect of one of the two principal issues, namely that of its ownership in the seals, it had a very good case, and in respect of the other, namely the regulations necessary for their preservation should ownership be denied by the tribunal, it had an unanswerable case on which it won what our opponents considered at the time to be a substantial victory though it turned out to be an inadequate one. The position of the United States on this second issue was fully vindicated several years after the arbitration.

Non-recognition by the United States Government of the absorption of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1940 has confronted our courts with a series of questions reminiscent of the period of our non-recognition of the Soviet Government.

The process by which Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania attained legal sovereignty is typical and serves as an example of the process whereby other new States in post-war Europe came into being. There is no doubt that after World War II the important lessons presented by the Baltic case may be drawn upon in planning future European international relations.