Lorsque, en 1947, la Commission d'Etat néerlandaise, dans le but de renforcer ses rangs, a proposé la nomination de deux nouveaux membres, Kollewijn et de Winter, elle a eu certainement la main heureuse. Elle accueillait dans son sein deux personnages qui, liés par une amitié personnelle et une harmonie intellectuelle, allaient contribuer magistralement à l'oeuvre de l'unification du droit international privé.

Dans le courant de l'été de 1951, M. Maarten Bos me demanda si j'estimais aussi que le moment était venu de fonder, aux Pays-Bas, une revue consacr´e à l'étude du droit international.

Chacun—c'est un auteur néerlandais qui l'a dit—, en commémorant un ami, a le droit de mettre en relief le trait de caractère qu'il a admiré le plus. A l'égard de mon ami de Winter le choix, fait d'ailleurs d'ores et déjà, ne m'est pas difficile. Ce que j'ai admiré en lui, cela a été le savoir, l'intelligence, l'intuition, mais surtout l'esprit de fraternité.

The centenary of the Institut de Droit International and the International Law Association furnishes a proper occasion for a look back at the spread of use in modern times of interstate and international multilateral agreements for the settlement of issues in conflict of laws and conflict of jurisdictions. No “History” has as yet been written. As a tribute to those who had the vision of possibilities and the perseverance to make them come true, this collection of relevant data is presented. Production of a “History”, it is hoped, will be facilitated. While the data collected suggest some obvious conclusions with respect to the use of multilateral conventions in the field, the full story is needed to evaluate accomplishments and assess further possibilities.

Students of the history of the English constitution are familiar with the claims of the Crown at a now remote time to exercise powers of dispensation and suspension on the theory that the king was the supreme and sole lawgiver. If the sovereign could pardon a malefactor after a wrongful action was committed, he should be able to dispense beforehand with the application of a law to a particular action. Some small justification for this assertion has been based on “the hardship which often must have ensued in individual cases from the hastily drawn and crudely expressed statutes of a mediaeval Parliament.” The claim to a power of suspension was a claim to suspend the entire operation of a statute or its application to a class of cases. The royal assertions appear to have been inspired by the practice of the papacy in issuing bills “non obstante any law to the contrary.”