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would function in accordance with the Statute of the International Court of Justice. This statute is based upon the statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice, signed at Geneva on 16 December, 1920. Article 36 of the Statute of the International Court provides that while States parties to the statute may declare that they recognize as compulsory the jurisdiction of the Court, declarations made under Article 36 of the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice which are in force at the date of signature of the Charter shall subsist as acceptances of the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice for the period which they still have to run and in accordance with their terms. New Zealand first accepted the jurisdiction of the Permanent Court in September, 1929, and a renewal of its acceptance was deposited with the Secretary-General of the League of Nations in April, 1940. This declaration, which subsists as an acceptance of the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court, was for a term of five years from 1 April, 1940,, and thereafter until such time as notice may be given to terminate the acceptance. It excludes from its operation (inter alia) disputes with the Government of any other member of the League which isa member of the British Commonwealth of Nations. The most important issue on which the Court has been asked to give a decision concerns the dispute relating to the mining of Corfu Channel. The disputants are the United Kingdom and Albania. The Court has also been asked to give an advisory opinion on the conditions of admission of a State to membership in the UnitedNations. By a majority of nine to six the Court has given its opinion that a member of the United Nations which is called upon, in virtue of Article 4 of the Charter to pronounce itself by its vote, either in the Security Council or in the General Assembly, on the admission of a State to membership in the United Nations, is not juridically entitled to make its consent to the admission dependent on conditions pot expressly provided by paragraph 1 of the said Article : and that,, in particular, a member of the Organization cannot, while it recognizes the conditions set forth in that provision to be fulfilled by the State concerned, subject its affirmative vote to the additional condition that other States be admitted to membership in the United Nations together with that State. With a view to preparing for possible discussion at the next session of the General Assembly of the controversial question of the admission of new members, this advisory opinion is now being examined in the Department.