Since literature is not capable of providing a generally accepted answer to the question “What in fact is an international firm?” it is submitted that in this paper a definition should be given being operational in the context of this study.

Thus an international firm is defined as:

—a group of business bases subject to some degree of central managerial control;

—operating within geographically diversified markets subject to different political, legal and cultural spheres; and

—usually interdependent through some form of capital sharing.

The present regime of the Lower Mekong River which began with the establishment of the Committee for Coordination of Investigations of the Lower Mekong Basin (Mekong Committee) in 1957 is the outcome of the keenly felt individual interests of the basin states coextensive with the community interest involved. As a clear departure from strict adherence to the traditional principles of territorial sovereign right theory governing the use of international rivers, the regime demonstrates a characteristic change from nationalism to internationalism, or perhaps more accurately regionalism, with the active participation of United Nations, its specialized agencies and third countries in the water resources development of the basin. The trend appears to be towards a regime of integrated development.

On March 24, 1965, the American Government recognized for the first time the use of chemical substances in Vietnam. This news provoked a storm of protest throughout the world, leading eventually to a bitter debate in the United Nations in 1966, which resulted in Resolution 2162 B (XXI) adopted on Dec. 5. This Resolution called “for strict observance by all States of the principles and objectives of the Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, signed at Geneva on 17 June, 1925, and condemns all actions contrary to those objectives”.