The Nature and Function of Private International Law
“Gentlemen, this subject is very important. I have earned 15000 ducats by opinions given in this matter” (Baldus); 1 “the nature of the conflict of laws is a dismal swamp, filled with quaking quagmires and inhabited by learned but eccentric professors who theorize about mysterious matters in a strange and incomprehensible jargon. The ordinary court or lawyer is quite lost when engulfed or entangled in it.” 2
The Nottebohm Case
MANY years ago the Permanent Court of International Justice declared in a well-known passage 2 that when a State presents a claim on behalf of its nationals it is in reality asserting the right to ensure in the person of its subjects respect for the rules of international law. Although this statement is merely an affirmation of the fact that the machinery of international justice, and especially of the Court, can be set in motion by States and States only, it is indicative not only of a right but also of a responsibility. This responsibility, for which there exists no legal sanction, consists in upholding international law, and, where a State's nationals are concerned, affording them diplomatic protection. Not only is this a responsibility as well as a right, but in one sphere of international law, now perhaps obsolete or obsolescent, it has always been regarded as a duty, namely, in the sphere of the law of neutrality, for it has been not only the right, but the duty, of neutrals to defend their neutrality. The protection of nationals, however, although a right, is a right which a State may exercise or not at will. If nationality is a matter within the domestic jurisdiction of States—as the Court has categorically declared— then so is protection; and even more so, since, although there exist certain ill-defined principles governing the acquisition of nationality, and perhaps even of its loss, the only principle hitherto supposed to control the exercise of protection is that it may not be asserted against a State of which the object of protection is also a national. As to the circumstances in which protection may be afforded, international law has nothing to say. Subject to the special case of dual or multiple nationality and the masternationality rule, the exercise of protection has been regarded as a matter which cannot be questioned on the international or municipal plane. It is in principle one of the absolute discretions of States. In spite of this fact, and although the right to exercise protection may not be doubted, the practice of international
Points of strong summability of Fourier series
In this paper we present a new solution of Hardy and Littlewood's problem concerning strong summability of Fourier series; we also present a property of points of strong summability.