ABSTRACT
The Draft Convention on Arbitral Procedure which the International Law Commission submitted in 1953 to the General Assembly provided that "the tribunal may not bring in a finding of non liquet on the ground of the silence or obscurity of international law or the compromis". The fact that the practice of international tribunals has rejected so consistently the notion of non liquet is particularly significant seeing that the inducement to invoke and rely on it is more constant, and more pressing, in the international than in the municipal proceedings. The constancy of international judicial and arbitral practice on the subject has made the rejection of non liquetappear as self-evident. Yet, but for the cogency of the general legal principle as stated, development may well have gone the other way. This is so having regard to the substantive and, on occasions, what may be described as ethical deficiencies of international law.
