David F. Cavers

In Advocacy of the Problem Method

This paper is shop talk. Worse still, it is shop talk unadorned. Law teachers when they talk shop in print usually contrive to dress up their remarks, to annotate judiciously, and to wind up with something that can properly be termed a Contribution. That this article should fall so far short of the mark testifies not only to my own discovery that price control and authorship do not mix, but still more to the hazards of editing symposia in wartime when decent editorial standards must bow to the necessity of not letting an important topic go uncovered.

An Interim Plan for International Control of Atomic Energy

The proposal presented below recognizes and explores the altered status created by the Soviet achievements in atomic energy. Mr. Cavers has discussed the problem of international control in articles appearing in the October, 1947, and December, 1948, “Bulletin.” He is Professor of Law at Harvard University.

Draft Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Decisions Relating to Maintenance Obligations

The States signatory to this Convention, Desiring to establish common provisions to govern the reciprocal recognition and enforcement of decisions relating to maintenance obligations in respect of adults, Desiring to coordinate these provisions and those of the Convention of the 15th of April 1958 on the Recognition and Enforcement of Decisions Relating to Maintenance Obligations in Respect of Children, Have resolved to conclude a Convention for this purpose and have agreed upon the following provisions –

The Changing Choice-of-Law Process and the Federal Courts

Those contributions to this symposium which are directed to developments in the judicial resolution of choice-of-law problems will have examined in some detail a major change that has been occurring in the conception of the courts task in a choice-of-law case. In this article, I shall content myself with a brief statement of this trend as I see it1 and then turn to a consideration of its significance for the federal courts in the decision of cases falling within their diversity jurisdiction. In so doing, I shall neither be concerned primarily with the way in which the federal courts are discharging their duty, under Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Mfg. Co.,2 to follow the conflict of laws rules of the respective states in which they sit, nor discuss the validity of the Klaxon rule as a matter of constitutional or statutory interpretation.3 Rather, I shall be occupied chiefly with the question whether the current trend in choice of law calls for an overruling of Klaxon by decision or statute, either generally or in those cases wherein the federal district courts jurisdictional reach is greater than the state courts.

New Life for the UNAEC

Two contributors to this issue, Dr. Cavers and Mr. Shils, consider how the UNAEC may yet accomplish constructive work during the extended span of life conferred upon it by the insistence of the small nations at Paris. Dr. Cavers, a member of the Faculty of the Harvard Law School, sees in the exploration of concrete problems a hope of reconciling divergent views on atomic energy control. He outlined a previous suggestion for resolving the control dilemma in “Atomic Power Versus World Security”, BULLETIN, Vol. 3, No. 10.