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The Final Act of the Second Hague Conference "recommends to the parties the assembling of a Third Peace Conference, which might be held within a period corresponding to that which has elapsed since the preceding conference," and recommends the appointment of a "preparatory committee" which (in the language of the.Final Act), shall be "charged by the governments with the task of collecting the various proposals to be submitted to the conference, and of ascertaining what subjects are ripe for embodiment in an international regulation," and of preparing a program for the conference and a plan for its organization and procedure. This recommendation, in the absence of some catastrophe, such, for instance, as the outbreak of a great European war, means the meeting of the Third Hague Conference some time in 1915, or thereabouts, and already many of the great nations of the world, among them the United States, have appointed their members on the preparatory committee.

This item has been retyped from the original and pagination will differ from the original. ; Art. 233 reads : Willful homicide shall be excusable : 1. when provoked by a severe bodily harm, or by any crime whatsoever against the person, which is liable to a punishment higher than one year's hard labour or imprisonment; 2. when committed in the act of resisting in the daytime, the scaling or the breaking of enclosures, walls, or the entrance of a house or of an inhabited apartment, or of the appurtenances which may have a direct or indirect communication with such house and apartment; 3. when committed by a person who was acting under the immediate influence of an instantaneous passion or mental agitation owing or which he was, in the act of committing the crime incapable of reflection; 4. when committed by a person who acting under the circumstance stated in art : 229, has exceeded the limits imposed by the law, by the authority or by necessity; provided, however, that if any such excess is due to such person being taken unawares, or to fear or fright, the same shall not be liable to punishment. In order to its being declared that the offender was incapable of reflection it is necessary, in cases of provocation, that in the fact the homicide be attributable to heat of blood and not to a deliberate intention to kill or to cause severe bodily harm, and that the cause be such as would, in men of ordinary temperament, commonly produce the effect of rendering them incapable of calculating the consequences of the crime. ; N/A

The average individual of these modern days views war with apprehension and alarm. To him it means loss, or risk, of life or limb, either for himself or for those dear to him, or loss of business opportunities and heavy taxes. The growth of socialistic and democratic doctrines has widely spread the historic truth that in the conflicts of the past, largely brought on by the selfish greed of the oligarchic few, the plain many, "the common herd," Napoleon's "food for powder," have had their sufferings for their pains. And the heads of the aggregations of men we call "sovereign states"—the oligarchic few— softened by the spread of the civilizing influence of an industrial age, themselves begin to look on war askance, and to plan ways of avoiding it.

In eminent domain proceedings where the state or a repository of state power seeks to use land within a restricted residence area for a purpose not consistent with the restrictive covenants, recovery of compensation by adjacent owners in the subdivision for this violation seems dependent upon whether the interest created by the covenants in the adjacent owners is a "property right". If it is a property right it can not under most state and the federal constitutions be taken by eminent domain unless compensation is made.' On the other hand, if the interest be not "property" no compensation need be made for its removal or violation.

FORH almost 150 years, since the Memorial which was submitted by the Maltese to H.M. The King in 1811, the necessity was felt of having an adequate law to regulate the Press in Malta. The subject was discussed by the Royal Commissioners of 1830, and since then also in the Legislative Assembly, but up to now no satisfactory position has been reached. Our present law, Ord. V of 1933, as subsequently amended, which in part follows Ord. XIV of 1889. is in many respects inferior to its model and far behind the progressive laws of modern democratic governments. For this reason the National Assembly in April, 1945, unanimously decided that the Press Ordinance of 1933 should be amended. The goal at which the present urge for a reform should aim lies in effectively guaranteeing freedom of the press and at the same time in preventing such freedom from degenerating into licence. ; N/A

The relations existing in the various states of the world, and particularly in the various states of Europe and America, between international law and municipal law, or, as it might better be called, national law, have been made the subject of several studies in recent years. In view of the probable necessity for many years yet to come of relying for the development and application of international law upon national legislatures, courts, and executive or administrative officials, in the absence of any adequate system of international legislatures, courts, and executive officials, this borderland between international law and national law deserves the most thorough attention. But the attention given to the way in which international law is enforced by national courts, the way in which international treaties are supplemented by national statutes, and to other similar phases of the general subject, has led to some neglect of the central question in the problem, or, at least, has not afforded an adequate answer to that question. It is the purpose of this paper to state this question as it has arisen in cases tried in American courts, to attempt to find the proper solution for it, and to compare that solution with ruling case law on the point in the United States.

The Maltese group of Islands consists of Malta and Gozo and the two small islets of Comino and Cominotto which are situated in the channel between the two main islands. The archipelago is in the central channel which connects the Eastern and Western basin of the Mediterranean Sea; the distance from Sicily is 80 Km., from Tunisia 320 Km., and from Tripoli 320 Km. The chain of islands stretches 29 miles from North West to South East. Malta is nearly four times the size of Gozo and the total area of the group is 114 square miles (306 square Kilometers). Agriculture is the chief industry of the islands though at first light it would appear that there is no extensive cultivation owing to considerable tracts of fertile soil being concealed in the valleys or hidden behind the numerous and high stone walls which serve as boundaries and provide shelter for the crops from strong winds; the needs are small and for the most part composed of terraces by which the soil has been walled up along the contours of hill's with enormous labour to save it from being washed away. The area under cultivation is 43,000 acres; the area under irrigation comprises but 4% of the area farmed; water is the prime necessity of the farmers and considerable works are being undertaken to extend the provision of water which would naturally increase production. Before the British domination Malta was governed by the Civil Law (Diritto Comune) with the usual additions of usages and of Municipal Laws the latest compilations of which was framed under Grand Master De Rohan and is known after him as "Codice di Rohan" (1784). Towards the second half of the last century the codification of the Maltese Laws was stated by means of Separate Ordinances and those which related to property were consolidated by Ordinance VII of 1868. In the Revised Edition of the Laws of Malta in force on December 31, 1942, the Civil Code, including the Law of Persons occupies Chapter 23 of the Edition. Ordinance VII of 1868 closely followed the pattern of the Great French Codification and the various amendments most of then of slight importance, made since the year 1868, incorporated in the Revised Edition, have not weakened to any appreciable degree the unalloyed individualism sanctioned by the Code Civil. Agricultural legislation proper began making its appearance only after the Department of Agriculture was formed in 1919-1920, and the principal enactment which governs leases of rural tenements is the result of the War Emergency and will expire when the emergency is proclaimed ended. In this article we propose to give a broad outline of Maltese Law affecting land ownership and tenure and while dealing more diffusely with typical Maltese institutions which have practically disappeared from other legislations. ; N/A

In the 1934 term, the Supreme Court came to grips with some of the major constitutional problems of the New Deal and rendered decisions more intimately affecting our national life than any since the Dred Scott case of 1857. The great slavery decision rocked the nation to its foundations by its futile attempt to solve a problem insoluble by any means save war. The important constitutional decisions of the Reconstruction period in their immediate consequences affected mainly the South, and it will be remembered that by a series of side-steppings, some involuntary and some not, the Supreme Court escaped the necessity of passing squarely upon the validity of the basic program of Reconstruction as embodied in the act of 1867. Forty years ago, in its 1894 term, the Court incurred much unpopularity by three decisions of major significance. It invalidated the Income Tax Act passed in fulfillment of Democratic campaign pledges; it emasculated, temporarily at least, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act by holding it inapplicable to a most obvious and vicious monopoly—the sugar trust; and it incurred the hostility of organized labor by sustaining the issuance by a federal court of a labor injunction. None of these decisions was, however, nor were all of them together, as far-reaching in significance as those handed down in the last term of Court.

The most significant case in the field of state constitutional law decided during the past year is that of State ex rel. Miller v. Hinkle, decided by the supreme court of Washington in 1930. This case held that an apportionment act is a "law," and can be popularly initiated under the initiative and referendum provisions of the constitution of the state of Washington. The court granted a petition for a writ of mandamus to compel the secretary of state to accept a petition submitting to popular referendum a proposal to redistrict the state for purposes of representation in the legislature. The legislature had failed for many years to perform its constitutional duty to reapportion the state, and this case illustrates the most conclusive argument in favor of the use of the initiative and referendum for purposes of ordinary legislation, even though the only legislation to which it be applied be that of reapportionment. Many states are faced with a serious problem in connection with over-representation of rural districts in the legislature and under-representation of urban districts. The initiative and referendum seem to offer about the only way out of the difficulty if state legislatures refuse to correct the inequality. The only alternative is that we change our ideas as to the necessity of majority rule in the selection and composition of legislative bodies, a change which the rural districts appear already to have made.

For courts of forty-eight states to interpret forty-nine detailed organic acts with an eye toward maintaining limited federal government amid centralizing total war and a distracting national election, challenges not only the statesmanship of performers, but the discrimination of reviewers.Collectively, the major state court decisions in the third year of the war point toward a resurgence of judicial power, a reëmphasis upon the rights and the place of the states and upon the legislative as opposed to the executive branch, a new period of exceptional interest and fertility in the growth of constitutional doctrine.War, paradoxically, has bolstered as well as undermined the creed of states' rights. The pattern that has emerged from the small but growing number of federalism cases reveals state courts no longer content to make a virtue of necessity. "Little OPA" acts and ordinances are generally upheld. But expanded federal controls exercised administratively in fields long reserved to the states meet steadily mounting opposition—especially if they are not obviously crucial to the war effort or to the stability of a war economy. Even actions taken under those provisions of the Price Control Act which were deliberately framed to safeguard federal administrators from state-court interference have suffered nullification. Since the date of the Yakus and Willingham decisions, statutory construction has supplanted constitutional law as the medium for resolving those personal and delicate questions of the state judges' own powers under the Price Control act.

We have seen that in private law the Canonists and Romanists made open war on custom, and took sides against it on behalf of the written law — the formal, written word, emanating direct from the will of the supreme authority. Custom has contributed a large number of rules to the law of nations. To the examples already given we may add the formalities of treaties and the necessity of ratification; rules which appear in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries of our era, and in accordance with which the signature of the plenipotentiaries does not make conventions binding in the absence of their confirmation by the supreme authority. Hand in hand with laws, edicts and decrees, which together form the "consular laws," custom is still to be found in so far as regards the laws in force in the European and American States, over the territory of different important political communities, such as the Ottoman Empire, various Asiatic Powers, and certain African governmental communities. Is it necessary to recall that almost all of the laws of war are the result of customs recognized during hundreds of years, and upon which intellectual and moral progress has not ceased to exert a beneficent influence?

Intro -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- A painting and a slave ship -- The city built on slavery -- Crews and captives -- The making of the Zong -- All at sea -- An open secret -- In the eyes of the law -- A matter of necessity -- In the wake of the Zong -- Abolition and after -- Remembering the Zong -- Notes -- Further Reading -- Index.

The distinction between combatants and the civilian population has been characterized not only as one of the fundamental principles of international law, but as its greatest triumph. The purpose of this paper is to show that both in point of fact and in theory the distinction has been so whittled down by the demands of military necessity that it has become more apparent than real. On occasion belligerents still give lip-service to the doctrine but when confronted with a particular military situation in the course of actual combat activities in most cases they have either refused to recognize the distinction or, possibly in order to satisfy the requirements of their legal advisers, have extended the definition of combatant to include almost all important elements of the enemy's civilian population.

The manner of the performance of the duty of preventing hostile expeditions, and the means to be employed for that purpose, are matters largely or entirely for the discretion of the individual state. It cannot be said that any particular method is required or sanctioned by international law. This discretion is limited, however, by practical necessity and by the exigency of good faith.