Whilst international submarine cables are essential to modern-day life, threats to these cables from competing ocean uses, such as fisheries, persist. Protection of submarine cables, and resolution of potential conflicts among various ocean uses, is needed now more than ever. This article examines and identifies weakness in the current legal regime for submarine cables, with a specific focus on the regulations concerning punishment for the breaking or damage of submarine cables and the integrated management of competing ocean uses. After discussing the legal regime, the article offers some proposals for reform, outlining various options for future action at the international level.

Treaties are contractual instruments that may provide special rules of priority in case they conflict with other treaties. When a treaty does not provide such rules, however, priority is determined by the rules of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) and/or general principles of law. This article argues that both the VCLT and general principles of law do not provide an adequate solution to treaty conflicts. It suggests that the solution to treaty conflicts rests in a value-oriented reading of international law and the norms incorporated in treaties. Norms represent values and values represent interests or benefits for which international society requires protection. Conflicts of treaty norms are, therefore, conflicts of values that courts and dispute settlement bodies resolve by ordering a hierarchy of competing interests and protecting the most important interests in a given context.

A number of commentators, including Michael Hwang and Jennifer Fong who were featured in a recent issue of this journal,1 have contributed to an ongoing debate about the definition of investment by expressing their support for an objectivist theory or the “outer limits” approach as advocated in Salini v. Morocco. However, this article argues that neither the Salini test nor the rival subjectivist theory can offer an internally consistent and viable legal framework for determining the existence of an investment. After critically examining existing approaches to defining investments in arbitral practice, international investment treaties, European Union (EU) law, and international trade law, the article considers the role of ordinary and effective interpretation and a telos behind investment treaty instruments in coining a meaningful definition.

The ASEAN Economic Ministers unveiled the ASEAN Regional Guidelines on Competition Policy on 24 August 2010. This is a non-binding document covering all key issues relating to competition law and policy. This article provides a comparative study of the regional harmonization of competition law and policy among the EU, NAFTA, MERCOSUR, CAN, and ASEAN, with a focus on ASEAN. In contrast to the “hard law” approach of the EU, NAFTA, MERCOSUR, and CAN, ASEAN has opted for a “soft law” approach because it is constrained by (1) the traditional “ASEAN Way”; (2) the diversity in economic conditions and competition regimes among its members; and (3) the lack of a supranational body to enforce common competition rules, or, at least, a mechanism for dispute resolution. The author concludes that this modest step which ASEAN has taken in the regional harmonization of competition law and policy is appropriate for the time being.

“Acquisitive prescription” should be denied as a rule of international law governing the acquisition of territorial sovereignty. It is useless in practice and confusing in theory. Replacing it should be the concepts of “historical title” and “tacit agreement”, which would thus expand the traditional five modes for legally acquiring territory to six. This rearrangement would be useful for us to get a clear and correct understanding of this part of international law, and would thus enable international law to play a positive role in dealing with territorial disputes. It would also prevent, hopefully, an exacerbation of the Diaoyu Islands dispute between China and Japan as caused by a misunderstanding of this part of international law.

Over the last decade, public-private partnerships between states and a variety of non-state actors have proliferated as vehicles for functional co-operation at the global level. In parallel, there has been an emerging trend to accord such partnerships the privileges and immunities normally reserved for intergovernmental organizations (“IO-type privileges and immunities”). After identifying the legal and normative issues associated with this trend, this article argues that IO-type privileges and immunities should be restricted to entities that are clearly established under and governed by international law, and that any approach to IO-type privileges and immunities as a uniform package deal, regardless of the precise functional requirements of the global public-private partnership and its different categories of staff, or the specific conditions in the relevant national jurisdiction where a given privilege or immunity is sought, should be avoided.

The emerging principle of the “responsibility to protect” (R2P) challenges China's traditional emphasis on non-intervention in the domestic affairs of other states and non-use of force. This article considers the impact of the 2011 Libyan intervention on Beijing's evolving relationship with R2P, and assesses its implications for the future development of the doctrine itself. It argues that China's decision to allow the passage of Security Council resolution 1973, which authorized force in Libya, was shaped by an unusual set of political and factual circumstances, and does not represent a significant softening of Chinese attitudes towards R2P. More broadly, controversy over the scope of NATO's military action in Libya has raised questions about R2P's legitimacy, which have contributed to a lack of timely international action in Syria. In the short term, this post-Libya backlash against R2P is likely to constrain the Security Council's ability to respond decisively in civilian protection situations.