Special Tribunal Research Articles

Australian Developments of the Rule of Law

The distinguishing feature of the British system of government is the principle described by Professor Dicey as the Rule of Law. The constitutional history of England is the story of a struggle to put this theory into rigorous practice, first against the claims of private lords to the governance of their tenantry, and secondly against the kingly power exercised by commissions, special tribunals and appointive ministries. When the parliamentary regime triumphed over all its adversaries and was itself brought under the control of the people through sweeping electoral reforms, we are apt to think of the British system as having reached its objective as a movement that for better or for worse had exhausted its potentialities. The Industrial Revolution and its multiplying consequences in every phase of social life seem to have occasioned no outstanding development in the institutions of British government. The Law works through the same instruments and to a great extent still within the same bounds set for it by an agrarian society. This on a rigid interpretation must be considered a criticism of the efficacy of the Rule of Law in the achievement of social justice. The problems of our industrial era are imperfectly enclosed within the narrow fences of conventional law. To many a man, private enterprise seems to wield a lordship over his life and property as untrammelled as that of the feudal lord over his liege men. The British system, however, has now outstepped the territorial limits of the United Kingdom. The self-governing Dominions are inheritors of the Rule of Law as truly as the Parliament at Westminster. It is the object of this paper to describe developments in the governmental system of the Common-

Enemy Patents in the United States

There was concluded in Washington on December 15,1931, an arbitration between the Central Powers and the United States of claims arising out of the seizure by the United States of enemy-owned ships, patents and radio stations during the World War. The arbitration was unique in that, instead of being brought about as the result of a treaty or a convention between the Powers in question, it was instituted as the result of an Act of Congress by which a special tribunal was established for the hearing of such claims against the United States. Thus we are confronted with the unusual spectacle of a Power against whom the claims were asserted, recognizing such claims by a legislative act on its own part, without any bilateral agreement, and establishing of its own accord a special tribunal for the determination of the claims. It was consequently an arbitration international in its scope, but conducted before a domestic tribunal.

Jurisdiction of the Courts over a Special Tribunal Created by Statute

Jurisdiction of the Courts over a Special Tribunal Created by Statute