The Bananas decision demonstrated that WTO dispute settlement panels and the Appellate Body are capable of effectively and clearly analyzing whether extremely complex measures are consistent with WTO rules. The trade-liberalizing decision established the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) as a meaningful constraint on discriminatory measures with an impact on both goods and services and clarified the nature of the GATS Most-Favoured Nation (MFN) obligation. The decision also severely constrained the ability of the EU to justify non-tariff discriminatory measures such as the quota allocation system at issue in Bananas based on the Lomé waiver.

Allegations of human rights and humanitarian law violations by UN forces have highlighted the need for more clarity in this area. This requires a focus on human rights and humanitarian norms applicable to UN forces, and the question of responsibility for violations of those norms. To a large extent, these questions concern the relations between the UN, national contingents, and troop contributing states. What are their respective rights and obligations? In this paper it is submitted that the answer given to this question under international law differs from the one given in the specific legal framework and practice of UN forces.

Since its founding in 1963, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) has placed special emphasis on the preservation of the territorial integrity of African states. It has actively contributed to the development of relevant rules of international law, such as that of uti possidetis. Its opposition to the fragmentation of states has been absolute. However, the small island state of Comoros has challenged this state of affairs. The seemingly successful secession of ‘Anjouan’ has threatened the cherished principles of the OAU. This article critically analyzes the relationship between the principles at the heart of the dispute, those of self-determination and uti possidetis, and concludes that there is no legal proscription on the secession of ‘Anjouan’.

The Hague Convention on Cultural property of 1954 prohibits the transfer by the occupier of cultural property from territory occupied by him. Under the Protocol annexed to the said Convention, the parties to it undertake to return cultural property transferred in contravention of the Convention to their countries of origin. These provisions arc clearly inadequate when dealing with Jewish cultural property looted by Nazi-Germany and its collaborators in the course of World War II. Jewish cultural heritage was usually considered as endangering the cultural heritage of the host nations and, consequently, subject to harassment and destruction. It would therefore seem inequitable to return looted Jewish cultural property (representing the cultural heritage of the Jewish people) to (those countries from which it was looted; the proper recipient of this heritage (also by virtue of the principle of self-determination) is the Jewish people represented by the State of Israel and the major contemporary Jewish communities around the world.

This article provides an overview of, and a short comment on the WTO's Rules of Conduct for the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes. After an introduction, the nine articles and three annexes of the Rules are described. Next, some comments are made. The article concludes arguing that some clarifications to the Rules could be made. However, these are not expected to be realised shortly, since there is as yet little or no experience with the Rules. Interpretative issues regarding the Rules appear unlikely to be invoked frequently for fear of impairing the success of the dispute settlement process.

On 8 July 1991, Qatar filed an application instituting proceedings against Bahrain in respect of certain disputes between the two states relating to sovereignty over the Hawar Islands, sovereign rights over the shoals of Dibal and Qit'at Jaradah, and the delimitation of the maritime areas of the two states.

The Court has revised its working methods to expedite the examination of contentious cases brought before it. The revision was necessary owing to the major increase of activity of the Court in recent years and to the budgetary constraints it faces as a result of the financial crisis of the United Nations. The outlines of these decisions were reported by the President of the Court when he addressed the United Nations General Assembly at its 52nd Session on 27 October 1997.

The subject-matter of this article is the Judgment of the International Court of Justice in the Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros case. Following an exposition of the relevant facts, it continues with a critical analysis of the Judgment of the Court. In addition to a brief analysis of the issues involving the law of treaties, the law of state responsibility, the law of state succession, and the treaty obligations of Hungary and Slovakia relating to the use of Danube water and the protection of its environment, it focuses on the rules and principles of general international law concerning the use of international watercourses and the protection of the environment that were applied by the Court in this case.

The subject-matter of this article are the issues of treaty law as expounded in the Judgment in the Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros case. The following problems are discussed: unilateral suspension and abandonment of obligations deriving from the binding treaty; the principle of fundamental change of circumstances; unilateral termination of a treaty; applicability of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties in this case; legal status of so-called ‘provisional solution’; impossibility of performance and material breach of treaty; the application of the principle of ‘approximate application’; and the principle pacta sunt servanda. The issues arc discussed at the background of the Drafts of the International Law Commission.

The law relating to state succession played a small but important role in the World Court's recent decision in Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros. Hungary's argument that the 1977 Treaty had not survived the transition from Czechoslovakia to Slovakia notwithstanding, the Court found that the 1977 Treaty had continued to be in force. Hungary presented several arguments relating to succession: the absence of consent; and that only certain rights and obligations (but not the Treaty itself) had survived. The present article analyzes these arguments in context and concludes that the Court came up with the right decision, but through a process of reasoning that is less than fully convincing.

Indictment of 10 November 1995.

On 24 April 1998, the United Nations signed an agreement with Norway on the Enforcement of Sentences imposed by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The Agreement entered into force upon signature. Similar agreements have been signed with Italy and Finland on 6 February 1997 and 7 May 1997 respectively.

In the summer of 1997, a member of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia met with Slavko Dokmanović in Serbia in order to lure him into Croatia, where he was ultimately arrested by UN peacekeeping personnel, Dokmanović was the subject of a sealed indictment for his role in the execution of 261 people forcibly taken out of the Vukovar hospital in 1991. The Tribunal rejected Dokmanović's argument that the manner of his arrest violated the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and international law. In doing so, the Tribunal focused on the distinction between ‘luring’ and ‘forcible abduction’, reckoning that the former was acceptable while the latter might, constitute grounds for dismissal in a future case. The article argues that the Tribunal's decision rests on an artificial distinction between luring and abduction which may needlessly discourage future apprehensions undertaken by NATO and UN troops in the territory of the former Yugoslavia. What the Tribunal in Dokmanović should have focused on, is that there is no violation of international law where the Security Council or the Tribunal has authorised law enforcement activities, where the state has consented to such activities, or where such activities are necessary under the principle of self-defence. Moreover, even where the manner of apprehension violates international law, the Tribunal may apply the so-called ‘Eichmann-exception’, while at the same time recognising that the mala captus bene dententus principle is generally inconsistent with the modern law of human rights.

The relationship between national jurisdictions and the international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda raises many problems. One of them concerns the surrender of indicted war criminals from national jurisdictions to the Ad Hoc Tribunals. Several obstacles stand in the way of effective surrender to the Ad Hoc Tribunals. This contribution focuses on the legal obstacles that may be encountered in this respect. By means of the case of the failed surrender of Ntakirutimana from the United States to the Rwanda Tribunal, it will be demonstrated that legal assistance to the Ad Hoc Tribunals is of a fundamental different nature than legal assistance offered to foreign tribunals.