Can international law help to maintain peace? If so, which areas of international law are relevant to the problem of war and peace? For a long time international law merely recorded that there was a distinction between the law of peace and the law of war, jus pacis and jus belli, a distinction based on the fact that there was a substantial difference between friend and foe, and that the enemy relationship could be one of life and death. This is typical of an underdeveloped legal community. The national legal order no longer recognizes the enemy relationship in the national context. This relationship only fits into a structure lacking central authority and central power. Such as a structure of sovereign States which determine their own way of life and are responsible for their own security. A structure of this kind is a polemogenous one in which the power struggle is considered the ultima ratio. The price of national sovereignty is occasionally war, The price of lasting peace will inter alia be interference with unlimited national sovereignty, restriction of the individual country's freedom of decision in matters concerning armaments, economic structure, ideology and culture, environmental protection and national law.

In 1950 the late J. Drion began his inaugural lecture as professor in the Law Faculty of Leyden University by quoting a well-known English saying: “When a doctor makes a mistake, he buries it; when a judge makes a mistake, it becomes the law of the land” as an introduction to a learned exposition on the fundamental rule of English law: stare decisis et quieta non movere. According to this rule British courts are, as a matter of principle, bound by decisions on points of law, laid down in the judgments of the superior courts, the House of Lords, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and the Court of Appeal. Until 1966 the House of Lords was even bound by its own precedents, as still is the Court of Appeal. The House of Lords can overrule the Court of Appeal and it may, by a single decision, be presumed to bind future Courts of Appeal. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council which is not strictly a judicial body is not bound by its own judgments and does not in theory bind British courts, but the fact that it is manned largely by Law Lords makes its opinions of very great value as precedents.

The protection of cultural objects through international law has developed significantly in the last couple of decades. Protection in the event of armed conflict was the subject matter of a convention in 1954; in 1970, measures were taken aimed at controlling the movement of recognized art treasures and other cultural property and, in recent years, efforts have been made to ensure the protection of immovable works of art in peace time. The latter works are threatened not only by age and cataclysms, through ignorance and vandalism of men but also, and increasingly, through the occupation of space required for the progress of civilization, such as the extension of residential zones, agriculture, industry, and the infrastructure for transport, and, generally by the devastating results of modern life manifested through industry and transportation. Even when protected these objects may suffer from old age and the fact that they have been turned into dead musea.

In the spring of 1971, the case of Ralph Joseph Waver, an American deserter, became a topic of discussion in Dutch legal circles, particularly those interested in public international law.

R.J. Waver was a gunner in the United States Navy serving in the U.S.S. “Marias” which formed part of the Atlantic fleet. On 26 June 1970 his ship called at Rotterdam and Waver deserted, inter alia because he strongly disagreed with American policy in South Viet-Nam. He went into hiding in Amsterdam where he established contact, through friends, with “Release”, a foundation which among other things made it its business to assist foreigners, if necessary with the help of lawyers and other experts. On their advice Waver departed for Sweden on 21 July 1970, as this country was said to offer him the best chance of being admitted. Late in July 1970 he applied to the Swedish authorities in Malmö for a residence permit. However, when the Swedish Government proceeded to hand over friends of his, who found themselves in the same predicament, to the United States Army in Germany, even before they had had time to bring an appeal against the refusal to grant them a residence permit, Waver returned to the Netherlands late in August 1970. “Release” thereupon approached some Members of Parliament who in their turn sounded out the Minister of Justice in regard to Waver's chances of obtaining a residence permit in the Netherlands. The Minister promised to take up the case with the Assistant Secretary-General of Justice. On 22 October 1970 the above Members of Parliament and the Assistant Secretary-General had their first discussion, part of it in the presence of Waver and his Counsel. Opinions differ as to the results of this discussion.

“By applying norms in a uniform and consistent manner, the court insures the equal administration of justice which is, of course, at the heart of any rule of law system”. Judged by this function the contemplated Benelux Court, whose task it is to promote uniformity in the application of legal rules common to Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands (Art. 1(2) ) is no less a judicial organ than any true court. Some doubts may be entertained as to whether its function of resolving basic conflicts is equally prominent. In the final analysis, the Court's judicial activity does help to solve conflicts but, apart from its role as an administrative tribunal, the Court's task remains strictly indirect, that is by way of preliminary review. It does not hand down judgments directly binding upon the litigant parties. This somewhat reduced role is allied to the peculiarity of the legal order, or rather the entire system, within which its work has been charted. This system is the Benelux Economic Union whose basic instrument, the Union Treaty of 3 February 1958, does not mention that it is a common market; in fact, it materially resembles the European Common Market. Its juridical structure is, however, a strictly intergovernmental one and its decisions are taken by unanimity (Art. 18) which features are characteristic of an international organization whereas a supranational organization is provided with an organ capable of issuing “real” decisions without admitting of the direct intervention of the governments concerned.

Attempts at the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea at Geneva in 1958 to define the legal characteristics of islands for the purpose of delimiting continental shelf boundaries proved abortive, despite the presentation of several proposals and draft amendments to the relevant provision of the International Law Commission's 1956 Draft Articles Concerning the Law of the Sea. One difficulty the Fourth Committee faced arose from its formalistic approach. It seemed reluctant to look behind the word “islands”, and appraise different categories of islands differently. A prime example of the confusion this nominalism caused is to be found in the report of Mr. Gihl's intervention in this regard. He reasoned about offshore and coastal islands on a single continental shelf with the mainland coast in terms of islands “having a continental shelf of their own”.