The International Tin Agreement (ITA), one of the world’s oldest commodity pacts, ran out of money and discontinued its market support operations on October 24, 1985. Subsequent disclosures revealed that the organization not only had exhausted its cash reserves but also had borrowed over £900 million in an unsuccessful effort to support the price of tin. Member governments of the ITA failed to approve additional contributions to repay these loans, leaving banks and commodity brokers to absorb massive losses. The market price of tin plummeted to half its previous level. The collapse came as an unexpected shock, for the ITA had been widely viewed as the world’s most successful commodity pact. International agreements operating almost continuously during the past 50 years, including the ITA and its precursors, have been credited with successfully reducing fluctuations in the naturally volatile price of tin. The collapse now makes the whole future of tin regulation uncertain. In addition, the failure of tin sounds a warning for other commodity pacts, which are equally susceptible to the underlying weaknesses to which tin fell prey.

One way of thinking about cultural property—i.e., objects of artistic, archaeological, ethnological or historical interest—is as components of a common human culture, whatever their places of origin or present location, independent of property rights or national jurisdiction. That is the attitude embodied in the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of May 14, 1954 (hereinafter “Hague 1954”), which culminates a development in the international law of war that began in the mid-19th century.

In the latest interpretation of the 13-year-old Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty)—one that stunned the arms control community—the Reagan administration announced on October 6, 1985, that the United States is authorized under the Treaty to develop and test advanced technology, spacebased weapons systems such as lasers and particle beam weapons. According to the administration, the ABM Treaty places no restrictions, short of actual deployment, on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the so-called Star Wars program. Although Secretary of State George Shultz has stated that the United States will continue to exercise restraint in the SDI program by limiting the development and testing of weapons according to a “restrictive” interpretation of the ABM Treaty, the question remains whether a legally sound basis exists for the administration’s “permissive” interpretation of the Treaty.

Philip Jessup’s life was richly varied. Scholar, practitioner, teacher, administrator, diplomat, judge, prolific writer—he moved from role to role, displaying in each his abundant gifts of character and intellect. Every new job, each fresh subject was a challenge met with zest and high spirits. As a scholar, he was drawn to the issues of the day. He never hesitated to take sides when he felt he had good grounds to do so. In his classes and writings, he was as concerned with practical action as with new ideas. Endowed with a commanding presence, a remarkably resonant voice and a talent for lucid and lively expression, Jessup had no difficulty in getting the attention of an audience. He used concepts sparingly, but effectively, and he avoided windy rhetoric. On the whole, he favored narrative exposition, particularly highlighting the aims and predicaments of the individual actors. People, it seems clear, were more real to him than the abstractions of law or political theory. He was a stickler for thorough and detailed research, as his judicial opinions and books show. Concrete, unique facts were important to him; he had to get them right. Historical detail and revealing quotations were used by him with telling effect.

To write of Philip Jessup means to survey the history of the teaching of international law in the United States throughout the last half century; to cover all important events concerning the birth of international organizations on the morrow of the Second World War; to visit the halls of the General Assembly and the Security Council; to attend meetings of the American Society of International Law and the Institute of International Law, where he so frequently took the floor to shed light on their debates; to attend sittings of the International Court of Justice in the years 1960-1969. I could hardly undertake this task; there are others much more qualified to do so. What I wish to do is to recall him as a great jurist I knew and a delightful human being; in short, a judge and a great friend whom I learned to admire.

Not having been privileged to study, or work more than fleetingly, with Philip Jessup, I write from a less informed and intimate perspective than his colleagues and, of course, his son. Not that Jessup was a distant figure, for he conveyed to all who knew him, or even encountered him, a warmth and sympathy that was exceptional. No man in the world of international law aroused more universal admiration and affection than did Philip Jessup.

Throughout his career, Philip C. Jessup was passionately committed to the use of law and diplomacy for the peaceful settlement of international disputes. He provided a generation of leadership in the wide and difficult endeavor that he characterized as “transnational law”—by which he meant to emphasize the importance of a wider storehouse of rules and avoidance of the dogmas and fictions associated with traditional international law.

When I first heard this account of my father’s early motivation to take up international law I cannot remember, but it surfaces again, I believe, in the Columbia University oral history. His experience in the trenches in France towards the end of the First World War was the key. He was in the infantry, carrying a light machine gun, and fought through a number of the terminal battles with the American Expeditionary Forces. Although he was shipped back at the end of the war as a West Point candidate, he mustered out at the earliest opportunity to resume civilian life and complete his undergraduate degree at Hamilton College.

The July ’86 issue of this Journal contains a brief appreciation of the honor done to this country and profession by the election of the U.S. member, Professor Herbert Reis, to the second vice-presidency of the United Nations Administrative Tribunal. We said, at that time, that the “election of Mr. Reis … is a significant recognition of his eminence as a legal scholar by the community of his peers.” Its significance is underscored by the difficulty any American has, nowadays, in being chosen for high office in any international group.

In its decision in The Paquete Habana, the United States Supreme Court wrote that customary international law is part of the law of the United States to be administered by the courts, “where there is no treaty and no controlling executive or legislative act or judicial decision.” The U.S. capture of the foreign fishing vessels in question was determined to have violated customary international law protecting enemy fishing vessels in time of war, and the Supreme Court ordered that compensatory damages were due. The remedy was ordered, notwithstanding the fact that the capture was undertaken to enforce a presidential proclamation establishing a naval blockade of Cuba. The arguments of the Solicitor General and the Assistant Attorney General supporting the capture went unheeded.

Customary international law is part of federal common law. Federal common law is binding on every executive branch official, including the President. Congress can by statute create a different rule, however, because federal common law is interstitial; it fills in gaps between statutes and gives way when an inconsistent law is enacted. Consequently, with congressional authorization, the Chief Executive can disregard any norm of customary international law. But in the face of congressional silence, he is required to respect a clearly defined and widely accepted norm of customary international law. I consider this position, elaborated in a recent article in the North-western Univernty Law Review, to be most consistent with traditional separation-of-powers principles and also the soundest functional approach.

In Garcia-Mir, the district court found that prolonged detention of the undocumented aliens was, in the circumstances, “arbitrary,” and therefore a violation of international law. But it also held that even though it was in violation of international law, the courts would not order an end to the detention because it had been authorized by the Attorney General. The court of appeals affirmed.

Dr. Marjorie Millace Whiteman died at the age of 87, at her home in Liberty Center, Ohio, on July 6, 1986. A graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the recipient of LL.B. (1927) and J.S.D. (1928) degrees from Yale Law School (where she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal), she was also a Carnegie fellow in international law. Later, Miss Whiteman served as a research associate with the Research Commission on Latin America at Columbia University, and then, in 1929, began her distinguished career with the Department of State, winning recognition throughout the world as an authority on international law.

One of the Society’s promising young teachers, Professor Martin A. Feinrider, died on June 16, 1986, the innocent victim of an automobile collision. Just a month before his death, he had been awarded tenure and a full professorship at Nova University.

In the January 1961 issue of this Journal, there appeared, over my name, a Comment entitled When Extradition Fails, Is Abduction the Solution? The Comment dealt with the frustration of efforts to effect the extradition to Yugoslavia of Andrija Artukovic, a leader of the Croation “state” established in Yugoslavia under Nazi sponsorship during World War II. Artukovic had been charged with the kilting of hundreds of thousands of victims guilty only of ethnic diversity. He had fled to the United States in 1948. The Comment remarked that, in view of the atrocities attributed to Artukovic, “[i]t would hardly be incredible if a group of Serbs, inspired by hatred, revenge and patriotism, should try to emulate the ‘volunteers’ who successfully contrived to move Adolph Eichmann from his refuge in Argentina to a prison in Israel.” The Comment concluded that “it must be our position that the only acceptable way to deal with fugitive war criminals is through orderly processes of international law and extradition.”

The material in this section is arranged according to the system employed in the annual Digest of United States Practice in International Law, published by the Department of State.