the International Institute of Public Law at Paris and the International Bureau for the Unification of Penal Law. It was contemplated that other appropriate scientific bodies might also take. part in the work.

The Assembly's resolution directed that the task of determining the scope of the survey, arranging for its compilation and approving the results for publication should be entrusted to a small expert committee set up by the Council. The present Committee was appointed for the purpose by the Council on January 28, 1938.

The Assembly contemplated that the Committee would obtain the cooperation of the women's international organizations. It was owing to the efforts of these organizations that the League was led to discuss the status of women, and they had already placed a mass of information on the subject before the Assembly.

Scope of the Survey

The Assembly has refrained from fixing any limits for the survey and has left it to the Committee to make it as "comprehensive" as possible. This fundamental question of the scope of the survey can only receive a complete solution as experience of the progress of the work shows what is actually practicable. It need hardly be said that the Assembly cannot have contemplated an encyclopaedic statement of all the points of difference between the legal status of men and women throughout the world. A work of such a character, which would involve a detailed analysis of the civil, constitutional and administrative, and criminal law of every country, would take a very long time to produce and fill a very large number of volumes.

The amount of detail which can be included in the survey and the extent to which the "application" of the law can be dealt with are not suitable matters for discussion in the present report, but two important questions of "scope" should be mentioned.

In the first place, the Committee does not feel able to take responsibility for planning or directing the compilation for primi

2 The Assembly's resolution excluded detailed treatment of questions of nationality and "the question of conditions of employment," which by its resolution of September 27, 1935, the Assembly had recognized to fall within the sphere of the International Labor Office [which] has already published on the latter subject a very complete and interesting study entitled "Le Statut Legal des Travailleuses" (Etudes et Documents, Serie I (Travail des femmes et des enfants), No. 4). The English edition of this book will appear shortly under the title: "The Law and Women's Work: A Contribution to the Study of the Status of Women." The Committee has had the assistance of a representative of the Labor Office in discussing the delimitation of its sphere from that of the Office.

tive races of a survey such as is contemplated by the Assembly's resolution.

This decision does not, of course, in any way prejudge the question whether such a study should be made by the League.

In the second place, the institutes mentioned above have informed the Committee that they are not equipped to deal with Mohammedan law in its various forms, Hindu law and other traditional legal systems of India, or generally with law which is not of the Western type. The Committee is endeavoring to find a method of overcoming this difficulty.

There is, of course, no question of omitting Oriental countries as such.

Work of the Scientific Institutes

The Committee is glad to report that the three institutes above mentioned have very willingly undertaken to deal with the branches of law of the Western type for which they are respectively equipped. At its second session, it has been able to examine the work already done with the representatives of the institutes and reach agreement with them on many important questions both of method and of principle.

Cooperation with the Women's International Organizations

A most satisfactory feature of the Committee's work is the help which it is receiving from the women's international organizations. It has to thank them not merely for the efficient arrangements which they are making to supply information which supplements or acts as a check upon that directly available to the scientific institutes, but also for their readiness to understand and make allowance for the difficulties which technical and practical considerations sometimes place in the way of meeting their wishes as to the contents of the survey. The Committee has held two meetings with the representatives of the organizations, at which it has explained the measures it is taking and discussed the suggestions made by the organizations and the way in which they could best assist it in its work.

I.

DECISIONS TAKEN BY THE COMMITTEE AT ITS THIRD SESSION, 19-22 JULY 1939 1

Oriental Law

1. The Committee approved the measures taken by the Chairman in regard to the study of the status of women in India.

1 Source: League of Nations, Official No. C. S. F./34 (1).

Public and criminal law, as well as private law, should be dealt with by the Indian researchers without prejudice to appropriate references being also made in the surveys produced by the Institutes of Paris. It was agreed that the study of Indian law must appear in the same book as that of Western law.

2. As the result of the information obtained by the Chairman from the Indian Office, it was agreed that Burma could not be included in the contemplated publication.

3. The same decision was taken in regard to the Netherlands Indies as the result of Mr. van Kleffens' letter.

4. The Committee asked the Chairman to invite the Institute of Comparative Law of Lyons, which had been approached by Mme. Bastid, to undertake the preparation of two synthetic studies, such as was contemplated for India, one dealing with French Indo-China and the other with Near Eastern countries (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and possibly Iran).

5. It was recognized that, as it was not materially possible to cover the whole field of law of the Oriental type, the Committee must confine itself to providing, by the side of the survey of Western law, a survey of those forms of Oriental law which it had found satisfactory means of investigating.

6. It was agreed that the surveys of Western law made by the scientific institutes should include the law of Eastern countries (China, Iran, Japan, Thailand) insofar as that law was of the Western type.

II. The Committee's Future Program of Work

1. Noting that the First Committee had expressed the hope that the Survey could be published in 3 years from September 1937, and that the Women's Organizations were disappointed at the length of time which was proving necessary for producing it, the Committee considered that every effort must be made to produce the book before the Assembly of 1941.

2. The Committee, therefore, decided to ask the scientific institutes to arrange the work so that:

(a) The whole mss. of their respective studies would be in the hands of the Secretariat not later than December, 1940;

(b) The work would be done in sections; each section, as completed, would be forwarded to the Secretariat so that the latter could send copies to the members of the Committee and have the text translated into English;

(c) The work should go to press at the beginning of 1941.

3. The Committee noted that its task was to determine the scope and organize the preparation and publication of the Survey, but not to edit it in detail or be responsible for the information contained in it. It hoped that after the present session it would not be necessary for it to meet for the sole purpose of examining particular sections of the work of the Institutes. At the same time it recognized that special measures were desirable to avoid errors in regard to the law of the United States of America, owing to its complexity and the absence in Europe of adequate source material.

III. The Form in Which the Survey Should Be Published

The format, typography and arrangement of the specimen submitted by the Secretariat were approved, with one modification. IV. Date of the Information Given in the Survey

The committee decided that the authors of each section of the survey should indicate the date for which the information given in that section was up-to-date.

V. Private Law

The study submitted by the Institute of Private Law was approved, subject to certain suggestions.

VI. Criminal Law [see p. 57]

The study on point (h) was approved, subject to certain suggestions.

The Committee approved a proposal of M. Donnedieu de Vabres that the Bureau should submit the completed sections of its study to its correspondents in order that the information might be checked and brought up to date. It noted that sections dealing with points (a), (b) and (c) were expected to be ready for communication to it in October next, and that questionnaires dealing with points (d), (e), (f) and (g) would be sent to the correspondents in the near future.

The different sections would be sent to the Secretariat at the same time as to the correspondents in order to be translated and to be communicated to the members of the committee.

1. The Scheme of Work (document C. S. F. 13) [see p. 54 ff] was modified as follows:

2 As regards point (d) the Committee explained to the Representative of the Institute the changes which, in its opinion, would be desirable in the study already made by the Institute.

(a) The franchise and (b) Eligibility.

The extent to which point 2 is dealt with in each case will depend on the available information. Point 3 is omitted in each

case.

(f) The questions here mentioned arise only in a few countries which have adopted legislation of an exceptional character. (g) and (h). These points were struck out.

(c) Seeing that the admission of women to educational establishments does not appear to give rise to any claims as regards primary and secondary institutions, and that the question of discrimination mainly arises in connection with certain establishments for higher education, the Committee decided that the Institute of Public Law would not deal with point (c), but that the attempt should be made to induce the International Bureau of Education to take up the matter and supply a survey which, if necessary, would be published separately from the main work on the Status of Women. The Secretariat would take appropriate steps to this end.

(e) The words "or other independent occupations" were suppressed.

2. As regards points (a), (b), and (e), it was agreed that, apart from its other sources of information, the Institute might consult the Women's International Organizations if this could be arranged with the help of Miss Hesselgren who would ascertain whether the application could be addressed to the Liaison Committee.

3. On M. Laferriere's suggestion, it was decided that the study of public law should, in general, represent the law as on January 1, 1939, but, if the information was available, might be brought up to date to a later date.