Under the traditional rules of international law, the sea was divided into the high seas and the territorial seas and in each case different rules and regulations obtained. As for the exploitation of fishery resources, the coastal state possessed unquestioned rights to regulate any such exploitation within its territorial sea and to apply its domestic legislation fully to any person engaged in such activities. Similarly, the coastal state was free to prohibit fishing by foreigners in its territorial sea and thus to monopolize those fishery resources. On the high seas, however, no state was allowed, at least in principle, to impose its jurisdiction upon any foreign vessel, since fishing on the high seas fell under the general regime of the high seas. The existence of these two disparate regimes, namely, exploitation under the full control of the coastal state and exploitation free from interference by any country, was a fundamental presumption underlying the exploitation of fishery resources.

The extraterritorial reach of national economic regulation, particularly of antitrust laws, is one of the most controversial topics in the international legal community, largely because that community has failed to develop jurisdictional principles that both accommodate the regulatory needs of regulating states and are discriminating enough to avoid impinging on the legitimate interests of other states. As a result, international conflicts related to the assertion of jurisdiction have greatly increased in both frequency and intensity.

The Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes Between States and Nationals of Other States (the Convention) provides for a truly international arbitration machinery, operating under the auspices of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

One often reads or hears that a state has a right to exclude all aliens from its territory unless a treaty obligation requires admission. Frequently, that proposition prefaces discussion of such issues as immigration quotas, expulsion and deportation of aliens, justiciability and procedural due process in litigation involving immigration questions, and the duty of states to protect aliens. Sometimes the proposition is colored by such words as “of course,” “no longer open to serious question,” or “unquestionably”—clues, at least, that some questions and doubts may be in order.

There are substantial differences between attitudes in the United States and those in foreign jurisdictions towards litigation in general and pretrial discovery in particular. Thus, in the United States, there is a breadth of pretrial discovery that cannot be found in any other legal system. Moreover, factual investigation in the United States is largely controlled and conducted by the attorneys for the litigants rather than by the judiciary which, in many other legal systems, is responsible for such investigations in a litigated matter.

During the 1970’s human rights appeared to enjoy low esteem in Africa. The basic documents in inter-African relations were the UN and the OAU Charters. In its Preamble, as well as four substantive articles, the UN Charter refers to respect for human rights as a basis for international relations. The principles of human rights were further elaborated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 whose principles, in the view of some writers, have become part of customary international law. This Declaration was in turn elaborated on in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966.

In a notice issued by David P. Stewart, Administrator for Iranian Claims, under date of June 24, 1983, the Department of State informed claimants before the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal at The Hague of recent developments at the Tribunal with specific regard to settlement of claims. The notice read in part:

On two recent occasions, the Tribunal had refused to certify as Tribunal awards settlements submitted by U.S. claimants and Iran. In one case the amount of the proposed settlement significantly exceeded the amount of the claim. In the other, the settlement was in the full amount of the claim plus interest, but the settlement required that, after the settlement had been paid from the Security Account at the N.V. Settlement Bank of Netherlands, more than half of the amount of the settlement would be paid to Iran for taxes allegedly owed. The U.S. claimant had previously denied that any such taxes were owed. The United States—and, to the best of the Department of State’s knowledge, all U.S. claimants—has consistently denied that Iranian counterclaims for taxes are within the Tribunal’s jurisdiction.