Without too much exaggeration one may still assert that in customary international law nearly everything remains controversial. Even its existence as a separate branch of international law, to say nothing of its topicality, is sometimes questioned.

Since the 1991 Gulf War, the challenge of protecting the environment during armed conflict has been high on the global agenda. Over the past two years there have been at least five major Meetings of Experts on the subject, the Sixth (Legal) Committee of the UN General Assembly (hereafter Sixth Committee) began deliberations on it, as has the UN General Assembly itself, and it was addressed at the UN Conference on Environment and Development (hereafter UNCED), ultimately forming part of the Rio de Janeiro Declaration on Environment and Development (hereafter Rio Declaration) and Agenda 21.

On 11 September 1992, a Chamber constituted by the International Court of Justice delivered a long-awaited judgment in the case concerning the Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute between El Salvador and Honduras.

In December 1978 the Dutch Government ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) as well as its Optional Protocol, which contains the possibility for individuals to submit complaints to the Human Rights Committee. According to Article 49 ICCPR and Article 9 Optional Protocol both documents entered into force in the Netherlands three months later, on 11 March 1979. The ratification process of the ICCPR had taken so long (the ICCPR was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966) because of the Dutch practice of eliminating, before the ratification of a treaty, any (possible) conflicts between national legislation and the treaty in question. This can be achieved, as has indeed been done, either by making the necessary and appropriate reservations, or by changing national law accordingly. It has always been the intention of the Dutch legislature that all foreseeable conflicts would have been eliminated by the time a treaty enters into force.