scholarly journals The Paris Covenant for a League of Nations

1919 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Howard Taft
Keyword(s):  
National Policy ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Final Decision ◽  
Declaration Of Independence ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
Promised Land ◽  
International Court

We are here to-night in sight of a league of peace, of what I have ever regarded as the “Promised Land.” Such a war as the last is a hideous blot on our Christian civilization. The inconsistency is as foul as was slavery under the Declaration of Independence. If Christian nations cannot now be brought into a united effort to suppress a recurrence of such a contest it will be a shame to modern society.During my administration I attempted to secure treaties of universal arbitration between this country and France and England, by which all issues depending for their settlement upon legal principles were to be submitted to an international court for final decision. These treaties were emasculated by the senate, yielding to the spirit which proceeds, unconsciously doubtless, but truly, from the conviction that the only thing that will secure to a nation the justice it wishes to secure is force; that agreements between nations to settle controversies justly and peaceably should never be given any weight in national policy; that in dealing between civilized nations we must assume that each nation is conspiring to deprive us of our independence and our prosperity; that there is no impartial tribunal to which we can entrust the decision of any question vitally affecting our interests or our honor, and that we can afford to make no agreement from which we may not immediately withdraw, and whose temporary operation to our detriment may not be expressly a ground for ending it.

The Changing Role of the International Court

1985 ◽  
Vol 20 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 182-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shabtai Rosenne
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
International Justice ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
History Of ◽  
Changing Role

En s'efforçant, au lendemain de la guerre [1914 – 1918], de poser les bases d'une société de peuples régie par le droit, les fondateurs de cette communauté internationale nouvelle se rendaient pleinement compte qu'il ne saurait y avoir une société organisée sans un pouvoir judiciaire chargé de veiller, en dehors de toute préoccupation de politique et de force, à la stricte observation du droit. C'est dans cette conviction qu'ils ont prévu, dès l'origine, la création de la Cour permanente de Justice internationale.Feinberg in 1931Reviewing the history of the Permanent Court of International Justice and of the International Court of Justice from 1922—the World Court, a convenient but possibly misleading expression which embraces both the Permanent Court from 1922 to 1945 and the present International Court of Justice established as an integral part of the United Nations since—four clearly separated periods can be discerned. They run from 1922 to 1931, 1932 to 1940, 1946 to 1966, and from 1967 onwards.The establishment of the League of Nations and the Permanent Court after a cataclysmic war in Europe and the awe-inspiring Russian Revolution released a wave of euphoria upon the exhausted and war-weary peoples of what is now known as Western Europe, and they placed great hopes in the new League and Court.

The Leadership of the United States in the Postwar World

1944 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-248
Author(s):  
Clarence A. Berdahl
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
United States Navy ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Unanimous Vote ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Hague

It is now more than one hundred years since the substance of the Connally Resolution was first adopted by a legislative body in the United States; it is almost fifty years since the United States, at the Hague Conferences, took the lead in pressing for an international court with much more power than the Court we have since failed to join; it is about thirty-five years since Congress itself, by a unanimous vote in both houses, adopted a resolution urging that the United States Navy be combined with other navies into an international police force for the preservation of peace; it is not quite thirty years ago that the political parties, without any of the present hullabaloo on the point, and at a time when the United States was not itself at war, achieved such a unity of position in their stand for effective American participation in world order as to make debate between them on that issue virtually nil; and it is not quite thirty years ago that the man soon to become the Republican leader in the Senate joined from the same platform with the Democratic President in an appeal for a League of Nations, and a League with force, both economic and military, at its command.

State Breaches of Contracts with Aliens and International Law

1964 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 881-913 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chittharanjan F. Amerasinghe
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Society ◽  
Final Decision ◽  
Natural Consequence ◽  
Special Significance ◽  
Breach Of Contract ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
International Court

It has not been established with sufficient clarity and certainty whether a state commits a breach of international law by breaking a contract made by it with an alien. The question needs an answer. It is not one of an entirely theoretical nature. On the answer to it will depend many important consequences. There are four of special significance. First, if the breach of contract is characterized as a breach of international law, the final arbiter of the question whether there had been a breach of contract and of the extent of that breach would be an international court whether as a court of last resort or otherwise. This is the natural consequence of the fact that it is the organs of enforcement of international society that have the power of finally determining questions relating to the breach of legal norms belonging to that society. Municipal courts would not have the final decision. Secondly, the norms applicable by an international court in making such a decision would be the norms of international law and not necessarily the rules of a municipal system of law. International rules should, of course, be applied in determining whether there has been a breach of international law. Thirdly, questions of evidence and procedure relating to the contract would be governed by international law.

The Idea of Just War

2021 ◽  
pp. 141-142
Author(s):  
Martin Wight
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Law ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
National Policy ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Holy War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War

In this note Wight describes pendulum swings in opinion about the requirements of justice in war in Western civilization since the Middle Ages. Medieval Catholicism emphasized the righteousness of the ruler’s cause and asserted orthodoxy against infidels or heretics. Prominent writers on international law in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Gentili, Grotius, and Vattel) marked a shift toward secularization and rationalism (with both sides usually able to claim justice) and restraint in the laws of war governing the methods of combat. Moser’s study of international law, published in 1777–1780, was representative of an ‘age of positivism’ (1763–1918) in which all sovereign states had a right to resort to war or to remain neutral, while codifying obligations concerning the conduct of war. The Covenant of the League of Nations, signed in 1919, initiated a return to restrictions on the right to resort to war, reinforced by the 1928 Kellogg–Briand Pact, also known as the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy, which was upheld by the Nuremberg Tribunals. The Covenant ruled out aggression as unjust, while action in defence of the Covenant would be just by enforcing collective security. The Soviet Union reintroduced Holy War with its view of the Great Patriotic War (World War II) and the Cold War as just causes that advanced Communist revolutionary objectives. Counter-force strategies of nuclear deterrence may be regarded as strengthening restraint in the methods of war, compared to counter-value or ‘anti-city’ approaches.

A Note on the ICJ Advisory Opinion on Kosovo

2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 867-880 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Muharremi
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Advisory Opinion ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Declaration Of Independence ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Unilateral Declaration ◽  
The Icj

On 22 July 2010, the International Court of Justice (hereinafter the “ICJ”) delivered its advisory opinion on the accordance with international law of the unilateral declaration of independence in respect of Kosovo. The ICJ concluded that the declaration of independence dated 17 February 2008 did not violate any applicable rule of international law consisting of general international law, UNSC resolution 1244 (1999) (hereinafter the “Resolution 1244”) and the Constitutional Framework for Provisional Self-Government in Kosovo (hereinafter the “Constitutional Framework”). The ICJ delivered the advisory opinion in response to a question set out in resolution 63/3 dated 8 October 2008 of the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization (hereinafter the “General Assembly”), which asked if “the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo is in accordance with international law.”

scholarly journals Breard and the Federal Power to Require Compliance With ICJ Orders of Provisional Measures

1998 ◽  
Vol 92 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-691 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Clinton Administration ◽  
Final Decision ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Postponement ◽  
Take All

Among the puzzling aspects of the Breard episode was the Clinton administration’s claim that the decision whether or not to comply with the Order of the International Court of Justice requiring the postponement of Breard’s execution lay exclusively in the hands of the Governor of Virginia. The ICJ’s Order provided that “[t]he United States should take all measures at its disposal to ensure that Angel Francisco Breard is not executed pending the final decision in these proceedings.” The Clinton administration argued that the Order was not binding, but it also took the position that, even if the order were binding, there would be no authority in the federal Government to require a postponement of the execution. As the administration explained to the Supreme Court:

I. INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE, ACCORDANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL LAW OF THE UNILATERAL DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE IN RESPECT OF KOSOVO, ADVISORY OPINION OF 22 JULY 2010

2011 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 799-810 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dov Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Advisory Opinion ◽  
International Court Of Justice ◽  
Declaration Of Independence ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Court ◽  
Unilateral Declaration ◽  
The Icj

‘Is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo in accordance with international law?’ It is to answer this question that the General Assembly of the United Nations (‘UNGA’) requested an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (‘ICJ’). The request, adopted in October 20081 and initially sponsored by Serbia, was triggered by the declaration of independence of Kosovo issued on the 17 February 2008.2 Some two years later, on the 22 July 2010, the ICJ delivered its Advisory Opinion.3 By a 10–4 vote, the ICJ found that the declaration of independence of Kosovo did not violate international law.

Armaments and the French Experiment

1939 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimon A. Doukas
Keyword(s):  
Private Enterprise ◽  
National Policy ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Armed Force

Resort to armed force as an instrument of national policy, though often outlawed and denounced by common consent, seems as inevitable today as ever before. When the Covenant of the League of Nations was adopted, it was agreed “that the manufacture by private enterprise of munitions and implements of war is open to grave objections” (Art. 8, Sec. 5). Shortly after, on September 10, 1919, 28 nations assembled at St. Germain-en-Laye and Paris to sign a Convention for the Control of the Trade in Arms and Ammunition. This was followed by a conference to consider the draft of a new convention which was called by the League and met in Geneva on May 4, 1924. The adoption of the Arms Traffic Convention the following year was hailed everywhere as a signal victory.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document