This article discusses some of the legal issues that arise in the context of the possible establishment of an individual complaints procedure for violations of international humanitarian law, a proposal launched at the Hague Appeal for Peace in 1999. It examines such a proposal in the light of recent practice of human rights bodies, which suggests that the latter are not the most adequate means to improve supervision of compliance with international humanitarian law. The article argues that a separate body should be established and concentrates on the competence ratione materiae of such a body, the conceptualisation of the legal basis for individual complaints, non-state actors as respondents of complaints and applicable reparations for violations of international humanitarian law.

Even though Article 23 of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea explicitly acknowledges the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea to nuclear vessels, many coastal states have recently forbidden or submitted to authorization the passage of ships carrying radioactive materials: this reveals a trend towards a more restrictive concept of “innocent passage.” As to straits used for international navigation and archipelagic sea lanes, the ius communicationis is still prominent and every measure that might prejudice the navigational rights of nuclear ships would not be consistent with the Montego Bay Convention.