We are grateful to our Leiden colleagues Blokker and Muller for their comments on our contribution in the Nederlands Juristen Blad; just as their response in Transaktie to the elaborated version of our opinion, it is in many ways a well thought-out addition to what we maintained there. Insofar as the purpose of their contribution was to refute our positions, it has (again) failed to convince us.

Andrés Aguilar Mawdsley had a national and international career of the highest distinction. After his studies in Venezuela and at McGill University in Montreal – where more than the law he found the lovely wife who was at his side until the moment of his death – he began his career as a teacher of law, early attaining the rank of professor and dean of the law faculty in Caracas. By the age of thirty-four, he was appointed Minister of Justice. He subsequently served as the legal counsel of the Venezuelan national oil company and in many other positions of responsibility in Venezuela.

Maritime Delimitation between Guinea-Bissau and Senegal (Guinea-Bissau v. Senegal):

1. Application filed on 12 March 1991

2. Order of 8 November 1995 (1995 ICJ Rep. 423)

Libya has come three times before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the basis of special agreements. At present, Libya has pending before the Court two cases it has brought by unilateral application, respectively against the United Kingdom and against the United States, concerning Questions of Interpretation and Application of the 1971 Montreal Convention Arising From the Aerial Incident at Lockerbie. For its part, Chad had never come before the Court since its accession to independence in 1960.

Since 1 January 1996, the following information has been communicated to the press by the Registry of the International Court of Justice.

On 22 February 1991, Portugal filed a case against Australia in the Registry of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) instituting proceedings in a dispute concerning “certain activities of Australia with regard to East Timor”. The impetus behind the case was the conclusion of the Timor Gap Treaty between Australia and Indonesia in December 1989. The application alleged that Australia's conduct had caused “particularly serious legal and moral damage to the people of East Timor and to Portugal, which will become material damage also if the exploitation of hydrocarbon resources begins.” Jurisdiction was founded on the parties' declarations under Article 36(2) of the Statute.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration is currently acting as Registrar in arbitrations between:

1. an African state and two foreign investors;

2. an Asian state and a foreign company;

3. an Asian state enterprise and a foreign-owned local subsidiary; and

4. a European enterprise and an African state.

Last year, for the second time in a little over 20 years, New Zealand asked the International Court of Justice to adjudicate the legality of French nuclear testing. This followed the announcement by the new President of France to the effect that the moratorium that his predecessor had put in place three years earlier, and had promised that France would continue to observe, would be terminated. The action by the New Zealand government was based on a unanimous decision by all political parties in New Zealand. This action reflected the anger of the countries in the South Pacific at the fact that a nuclear-weapon state was still prepared, in 1996, to explode nuclear devices in fragile marine environments on the other side of the world. In short, New Zealand wanted to utilize all available opportunities to persuade France not to proceed.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration is currently acting as Registrar in arbitrations between:

1. an African state and two foreign investors;

2. an Asian state and a foreign company;

3. an Asian state enterprise and a foreign-owned local subsidiary; and an African state and a European enterprise.

Recently, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) issued its opinion on jurisdictional matters in the case of The Prosecutor v. Dusko Tadić. The defendant had challenged the establishment and jurisdiction of the Tribunal. While the defendant specifically contested the authority of the Tribunal on three grounds, it is the claim of lack of subject matter jurisdiction which will be the focus of this article. As the first case proceeding towards trial, this challenge gives the Tribunal its first opportunity to comment upon and clarify the extent of its subject matter jurisdiction.

7 November 1994, indictment of:

1. Dragan Nicolić (Susica camp, commander).

On 6 February 1996, the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina informed the Implementation Force (IFOR) that eight Serbs, who were reported missing since 20 January, were held in custody by the Bosnian authorities as war crimes suspects. None of them had already been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. Among the eight detainees were two high-ranking Serb officers: General Djordje Djukić and Colonel Aleksa Krsmanovic. They were said to have been arrested accidentally by Bosnian police officers during a routine traffic control on 30 January 1996.

In accordance with Article 15 of its Statute, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) adopted its Rules of Procedure and Evidence on 11 February 1994. This text entered into force on 14 March 1994. It is essential not only for the Tribunal itself in its present work in The Hague, but also as a reference for any other international criminal courts and tribunals currently existing or forthcoming. Largely inspired by the national rules of adversarial systems, the Rules rightly put the emphasis on the rights of the accused. However, they must also ensure the protection of victims and witnesses and, generally, the efficiency of the Tribunal, objectives that cannot be addressed on an international level in the same manner as on a national level. Moreover, all of these objectives must be reconciled in order to guarantee a fair trial. As Trial Chamber II of the ICTY emphasized in its response to the prosecutor's request for protection of victims and witnesses in the Tadić case, “[a] fair trial means not only fair treatment to the defendant but also to the prosecution and to the witnesses.”

In a recent article lamenting the perception of partiality created by an activist judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), one commentator observed the general lack of scrutiny to which the ICTY is being held in its treatment of the rights of the accused. He noted that it “is a court without legal critics: no complaint about its conduct may be made to the Human Rights Committee in Geneva or to the European Court [of Human Rights], and human rights lobbies have tended to look the other way.” Indeed, it is in a position that many governments, fatigued by what many of them consider to be cumbersome reporting obligations and troublesome individual complaints procedures under the United Nations treaty body system, would envy.