The decisions of international bodies may be based either on the rigid principle of unanimity or on the more convenient doctrine that the majority shall govern. In a world where national sovereignty is so widely stressed, the former method has a natural appeal. The rule of unanimity has, in fact, been treated by many persons as an inevitable corollary of the theory of sovereignty, which, as it is generally understood, would subject no state to any limitation against its will. Such an idea was very probably in the mind of former Secretary of State Hughes when he stated in the opening address of the Conference on Central American Affairs in December, 1922, “ Unanimity is a part of the consequence of the status of states in international law.” Writers on internationallaw have often so defined sovereignty and independence that the requirement of unanimity for any concerted action of a group of nations would follow.

The readers of the American Journal of International Law may like to have a brief account of the constitution of this tribunal and of its work up to the end of its last sitting in May, 1928.

Although from the point of view of scientific jurists, it may be true that the awards of the tribunal, limited as it is to the interpretation of a single instrument, cannot be said to be of importance as laying down or even developing any general principles of international law, the practical importance of the decisions has been great, and thus the work of this piece of international mechanism is of interest to students of international affairs.

The Sixth International Conference of American States which met at Havana on January 16, 1928, adopted a resolution, proposed by the Argentine delegation, recommending to the Governing Board of the Pan American Union “ the calling of a special conference of representatives of the Union, to be held at such place and date as it may designate, for the purpose of studying in its amplest scope the problem of the Inter-American protection of trade marks.” 1 The conclusions of that conference are to be forwarded, through the medium of the Pan American Union, to the consideration of the different governments without the need of a later reference to the Seventh International Conference of American States.

We are now approaching the end of the first decade following the World War. Perhaps we are sufficiently removed from the heat and passion of that struggle to attempt to gauge the progress which the world has made in the development of international law since it was ended. Ten years is a brief period in any field of history; but before this decade was begun, most of us felt that it was going to see great things accomplished toward broadening and strengthening and extending the law by which the relations of states are governed. The war brought a challenge to our international legal order which could hardly have failed to create for our generation an opportunity to leave an impression on international law, such as has been left by no other generation in the three hundred years since the time of Grotius. As the decade is ending, and as our generation begins to find its energies so absorbed in other tasks, an appraisal of the progress we have achieved may enable us to judge the use we have made of our opportunity and the extent to which it still exists.

Revolutionary acts and preparations are liable to punishment by the criminal law of the community against which they are directed, and belong as such to the domain of municipal law. They become a matter of direct importance to international law when the menaced state finds that the efficacy of its laws and the possibilities of peaceful internal development are being frustrated by revolutionary propaganda or by acts of rebellion coming from abroad. Such acts may, when brought to consummation within its territory, be punished with all the rigor of the law. But the probability of their suppression is diminished and the chances of their success are enhanced as a result of their being hatched out and prepared under cover of the territorial supremacy of another state. It happens thus that what one state believes to be its internationally recognized right of peaceful existence is put in danger in consequence of another state’s right to exclusive jurisdiction over its territory, a right, in turn, fully protected by international law.