Despite great efforts made to conform maritime practice at The Hague in 1907, and later in London in 1909, the sheer pace of industrial competition in evidence by 1914 meant not only that disarmament remained out of the question, but further, that new theories of wartime necessity might over-ride the many developed, ‘civilised’ wartime restraints, if to do so favoured victory. One body of rules quickly disregarded was that for armed neutrality at sea, by which is meant a state stance of abstention and impartiality declared on the outbreak of war, in exchange for continued neutral rights of peaceful maritime commerce. Illustrative of the impact industrial warfare had on rules of maritime neutrality was the infamous Baralong incident of 9 August 1915, in which a German submarine was sunk by the British Q-ship. It is argued, however, that the unrestricted manner in which World War 1 was fought was not caused by any deficiency of the known rules of maritime neutrality, per se. Instead, the essence of that war may be sought in political, chauvinistic demands for ultimate success, and an associated greed that would ultimately force neutral states to share the costs of a conflict not of their making.

The territorial scope of the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court was an issue which was hotly debated prior to the adoption of the Rome Statute. Yet, in the first 10 years of the Court's operation the negotiators' concerns with regard to a jurisdictional overreach seem to have been misplaced. To date, the interpretation and application of Article 12(2)(a) of the Rome Statute – the key provision in this context – have remained uncontroversial. This practice, however, has left certain important questions untouched, and particularly the issue of jurisdiction in cases of the partial commission of a crime on State Party territory. In this context, the question is how little of an international crime should take place on State Party territory for the ICC to have jurisdiction. It is hereby suggested that in order to answer this question, the Court may have recourse to the jurisdictional rule of reason developed by Francis Mann in the context of his work on state jurisdiction and antitrust law. In this context, it is suggested that the Court would have jurisdiction over any case or situation that would have a sufficiently strong connection with the territory of a State Party. The meaning of a ‘sufficiently strong connection’ – an essential ‘reasonableness’ approach, showing the absence of an abuse of rights or arbitrariness – would then need to be specified on a case-by-case basis.

This article presents an analysis of the role and content of proportionality under contemporary international humanitarian law governing the means and methods of warfare (jus in bello) and is designed to present a legal analysis of proportionality to help provide a context for state practice. The events of Operation ‘Cast Lead’ and the reactions of the international community may be instrumental in determining the role assigned to proportionality in the context of armed conflicts. A study on jus in bello proportionality with reference to Operation ‘Cast Lead’ offers a contribution to a further development of the concept of proportionality and to resolving some of its controversial issues concerning its role and content in order to improve the current compliance of the principle.

The main purpose of the paper is to investigate the differences between the new international economic order (NIEO) advocated by the overwhelming majority of the members of the General Assembly and the existing order. To what extent are changes called for in the institutional and substantial legal rules that help to mould international economic relations on a world scale? Attention is paid especially to the principles on which these rules are based and to the modifications thereof that would be required for bringing about the NIEO.

Themis is blind. The law is the same for wealthy and poor alike. Access to the court is open to all equally. The standard used applies to all equally. Fine ethical postulates, but not free of magniloquence. The law is for sale at a price, and a high price. In the field of law the asking of a price also produces inequality. For some time now the Dutch legislator has attempted to eliminate this discrimination by the use of aids. The person of nil assets who wishes to assert his rights or to defend them deserves support, at least financial support. However, this activity of the legislator has not remained free from scepticism and criticism. Dutch nationals have the right to support, thus, not litigants in general. In various legal provisions aliens, in principle, are excluded from that right. In various places in civil procedural law aliens are discriminated against -albeit financial discrimination. The core of the argument expounded below lies in two of those places: where in principle persons are excluded from free legal assistance (whether in or out of court); and where in principle they are excluded from cost free access to the courts.

The codification of international law concerning the non-self-governing territories has proceeded through three distinct phases in this century. Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations contained the notion that the well-being and the development of dependent peoples was the sacred trust of civilization. This concept legally applied only to the mandated territories, but in fact embodied the then current philosophy of the colonial powers. It implied that the territories should not be exploited for the benefit of the administering authorities; it was, however, a fairly static view, which did not even indicate to what end the “development” was to lead.

One of the most difficult topics in both American and European procedural law is the jurisdictional reach of courts over defendants in tort and contract actions. This has become particularly evident with the exponential increase in the use of the Internet as a communication and marketing device. Questions regarding the proper forum in, for example, defamation actions or consumer disputes present difficult questions for both American and European courts. The European Union's adoption of a new Regulation for cases filed on or after 1 March 2002 (the ‘Brussels Regulation’) presents an opportunity for fresh examination of this important topic.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides for a modicum of international supervision of its States parties through the scrutiny of their periodic reports by the Human Rights Committee. This measure, which may be described as one of ‘international implementation’, operates in concert with the ‘domestic implementation’ requirement included in Article 2 of the Covenant. The ‘international implementation’ aspect entails some abridgement of the sovereignty of States parties and thus represents a noteworthy development in international politics. The companion aspect of ‘domestic implementation’ is, however, it is submitted, of far greater and more enduring significance for the promotion and protection of human rights. For, the availability and the exercise of the rights of the Covenant depend, as a matter of practical fact, upon their incorporation into the domestic system and the constraints — legal and social — that that system may place upon their exercise. The Covenant's rights are intended to be legal rights implemented by States parties and exercised by individuals within domestic legal systems. In addition:

‘Not only are the domestic remedies likely to be speedier and perhaps less expensive; in many cases they may be more effective, because a national court of appeal or Supreme Court can usually reverse the decision of a lower court, whereas the decision of an international organ does not have that effect, even though it will engage the international responsibility of the State concerned.’

Outline:***

1. Some indications on the research project of the Universities of Utrecht and Leyden on international economic organisations and legal issues of a new international economic order

2. Some legal characteristics of the existing international economic order

3. What should be new in a new international economic order?

4. The impact of the principle of State sovereignty on a new international economic order

5. Three final remarks

The above quoted wishes, written in 1973 by the British official who was chief-delegate of the United Kingdom at the revision-conferences of CIM/CIV//CAV held in the years 1966 – 1972, have finally all been fullfilled by the CONVENTION OF INTERNATIONAL RAILWAY TRANSPORT (C O T I F), signed at Berne on the 9th of May 1980. But the preceding struggle has been long and protracted, as this paper will indicate.

Intervention is an almost daily phenomenon of international politics. Both for practitioners of international law and for students of international relations it is a challenging theoretical problem, since the occurrence of intervention is contrary to a number of hypotheses assumed in the theoretical analysis of international problems. In its broadest sense the concept of intervention refers to any act that invades the theoretical sphere of action of States which — in so far as a spatial conception of things can have any relevance in this context — is confined to relations between States and in no way affects the intra-state territory of other States. The traditional model or paradigm which practitioners of both sciences have long adopted as the starting point of their analysis is derived from an image of international politics as relations between States, whereby each individual State has exclusive competence for the political process within its frontiers. Intervention means externally initiated acts which imply an infringement of that exclusive competence and which are therefore inadmissible from a normative and legal point of view. So interpreted, however, the intervention concept covers a whole range of activities which form a substantial part of the day-to-day practice of international politics and, consequently, also constitute an intellectual challenge for theoreticians. If non-intervention was the norm, interventions would be presumed to be the exception:

“The weight of opinion was that they constituted exceptions to the principle of non-intervention, that they did not preponderate to the extent of converting that principle from the rule to the exception”.

The question whether decisions of English courts dealing with points of international law should be regarded as binding precedents has never been authoritatively decided. One view regards a rule of international law, once incorporated by the decision of an English court, as part of municipal law to which the doctrine of stare decisis must apply in the same manner as to a rule of purely domestic origin. Lord Atkin's famous statement in Chung Chi Cheung v. The King is sometimes put forward as necessitating this conclusion:

“It must be always remembered that, so far, at any rate, as the courts of this country are concerned, international law has no validity save in so far as its principles are accepted and adopted by our domestic law. There is no external power that imposes its rules upon our own code of substantive law or procedure. The courts acknowledge the existence of a body of rules which nations accept amongst themselves. On any judicial issue they seek to ascertain what the relevant rule is, and, having found it, they will treat it as incorporated into the domestic law, so far as it is not inconsistent with rules enacted by statutes or finally declared by their tribunals.”