When the Eighth International Conference of American States met at Lima in 1938 it was planned that the Ninth Conference should meet at Bogotá, Colombia, in 1943. The outbreak of the war in 1939, however, called for emergency measures in the form of three consultative meetings of Foreign Ministers and a special conference held at Mexico City in 1945. The First Meeting of Foreign Ministers at Panama in 1939 laid the basis for the maintenance of continental neutrality in accordance with standards of neutral conduct formally set forth in the Declaration of Panama. The Second Meeting of Foreign Ministers, held at Habana in 1940, proclaimed the principle of mutual defense against an attack by a non-American State and adopted measures to prevent the transfer of territory in the Western Hemisphere from one non-American State to another. The Third Meeting of Foreign Ministers, called in January 1942 after the entrance of the United States into the war, called for the breaking of diplomatic relations with the Axis Powers and for other measures of continental defense against the subversive activities of agents of tbp Axis Powers. In 1945, a special conference assembled in Mexico City to consolidate the defensive measures of the American States and to make pla is in anticipation of the conference to be held at San Francisco for the establishment of a general international organization for the maintenance of peace. This was followed by another special conference held at Rio de Janeiro in 1947 in which the collective security provisions adopted at Mexico City were given permanent form in the Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance.

Contrary to most international organizations, the Inter-American System lacked, up to now, a treaty basis. It was based merely on resolutions. Among them the famous Resolution of April 14, 1890, which created the “International Union of the American Republics,” has a particular character and importance. This resolution needed ratification which was given, but by the American governments only. By this ratification the American Republics bound themselves legally and consented to be bound for ten years—and still longer if nothing to the contrary was done—and consented to the making of modifications and amendments, concerning the organization, by majority vote. Generally resolutions of the International Conferences of American States and other such meetings constitute only recommendations and are not legally binding but resolutions concerning organization are legally binding at once on the basis of point 16 of the ratified Resolution of April 14, 1890; the latter is, up to now, in a strictly legal sense, the Constitution, the fundamental norm, of the Inter-American System.

The position of justice and law in the international society organized under the Charter of the United Nations seems to have become a matter of controversy among scholars commenting on the Charter. Conflicting views on this matter have been expressed, and they seem to obscure one of the very basic problems arising from the Charter of the United Nations. Professor Clyde Eagleton maintains that “the Security Council was not restricted to legal principles, solutions, and procedures; security was set above justice, and the establishment of order was to precede the reign of law.” Senator Henri Rolin, Delegate of Belgium to the San Francisco Conference, expressed a different view by saying that ”with regard to peace, we felt the need to emphasize, that our first object was to be strong to maintain peace, to maintain peace by our common effort and at all costs, at all costs with one exception—not at the cost of justice.” Professor Alfaro, Delegate of Panama, seconded him. He stressed that “we will not maintain peace and security at the cost of justice; that is to say, sacrificing the rights of any nation.”

During the past few years Swedish Courts have repeatedly dealt with cases involving problems of international law of great general interest. Several of these cases have concerned problems of the immunity of ships owned by foreign Governments. Each case has presented characteristic peculiarities and difficulties of its own and as a result various legal aspects of the problem have been thoroughly examined by the courts. Apart from these purely legal difficulties the cases have usually been of a politically delicate character. There has thus existed the risk that foreign Governments would attempt to bring pressure to bear on the Swedish courts whose independence and objectivity have, therefore, frequently been severely tested. This circumstance renders an examination of Swedish judicial practice during the past few years particularly interesting. Owing to the importance of the problems dealt with from the point of view of international law and of the light they shed on the administration of justice in Sweden during a difficult period, a brief summary and analysis of the principal cases may be of some interest to the American public.