Few rules for the ordering of Society have such a deep moral and religious influence as the principle of the sanctity of contracts: Pacta sunt servanda. In ancient times, this principle was developed in the Bast by the Chaldeans, the Egyptians and the Chinese in a noteworthy way. According to the view of these peoples, the national gods of each party took part in the formation of the contract. The gods were, so to speak, the guarantors of the contract and they threatened to intervene against the party guilty of a breach of contract. So it came to be that the making of a contract was bound up in solemn religious formulas and that a cult of contracts actually developed.

The Israeli-Soviet oil arbitration in Moscow has evoked world-wide criticism for not being up to the standards of a fair and impartial proceeding. Not only do the results of the award, dated July 3, 1958, appear to be unsatisfactory, but the award also does not sufficiently deal with the legal questions submitted to the tribunal. The latter thereby missed the opportunity of contributing to the development of an important legal aspect of international transactions, namely, the application of the force majeure clause. This note will be primarily concerned with that point, as well as with some international law aspects arising out of the arbitration.

The United Nations Conference on International Commercial Arbitration convened from the 20th of May until the 10th of June, 1958, at the Organization’s Headquarters in New York. Early in the general debate, the United States Eepresentative, Mr. Beale, stated that his Government was

It is proposed in the present paper to examine the act of state doctrine enunciated in the dictum of Chief Justice Fuller in Underhill v. Hernandez that

The present study is intended to be a modest contribution to Schlesinger’s research project concerning the “general principles of law recognized by civilized nations.” At the same time it tends to comply with the voeu recommended by Jenks to the Institut de Droit International concerning the desirability of better information on the decisions of international arbitral tribunals. It is the aim of the present study to trace all explicit or implied references to these “general principles of law recognized by civilized nations” which may be found in the hitherto published decisions of the Conciliation Commissions established under Article 83 of the Peace Treaty with Italy of February 10, 1947. These Commissions consist of one member appointed by each of the states concerned. If these two members fail to agree, they draft a “statement of disagreement,” whereupon a third member,5 citizen of a third state, is added to the Commission, which shall then decide the case concerned by a majority vote.

Editor’s Note: Through the generosity of The International Law Fund, the American Journal Of International Law is able to undertake, on an experimental basis, a new section devoted to Contemporary Practice of the United States relating to International Law.