For weeks, the air strikes that NATO executed in defence of the ‘safe area’ of Sarajevo were ‘hot news’. The fact that NATO would, eventually, execute these strikes had seemed inevitable for some time. The well-informed observer had sufficient indications to this effect via television and the newspapers. However, the media, and all of the debates in national parliaments, have never, or have scarcely, addressed the legal basis for these strikes. At first sight, this appeared to be a relatively simple question, since NATO repeatedly stressed that it was acting on a mandate from the UN Security Council. At a second glance, however, the legal basis of the NATO actions gives rise to a number of questions for which the answers are less easy to ascertain.

The article discusses the complicated situation of post-German cultural property held within Poland’s borders after the Second World War. On 2 August 1945, ‘the Big Three’ decided a new layout of power within Europe. They reached an agreement that Silesia, Pomerania, the Free City of Danzig (Gdańsk), and part of East Prussia (Regained Territories) along with all the property which had been left on site, should be a part of Poland. One of the post-war priorities of the Polish Government was to regulate the legal status of post-German cultural property left within these newly-delineated borders. Although the Second World War ended in 1945, there was still a threat that the majority of post-German property could be devastated, destroyed, or even looted. There are some documented cases where such cultural property was seized inter alia by the Red Army and then transported to Russia. Since 1945, Russian museums have exhibited many of these pieces of art. This article addresses the question concerning the legal status of post-German cultural property in light of public international law. Furthermore, the article responds to the question, whether Poland is entitled to restitution of post-German cultural property looted from the Regained Territories.

This article discusses whether it is permissible to cumulatively convict a superior under both Articles 7(1) and 7(3) of the ICTY Statute. After introducing the various modes of command responsibility under each provision, the discussion is premised on the double jeopardy/non bis in idem concerns underlying the case law of the Tribunal, and that of the ICTR, in relation to cumulative convictions for substantive offences. The article first presents arguments supporting the proposition that superiors should not be held cumulatively responsible under the aforementioned provisions. It then presents arguments to the contrary, including considerations in relation to the impact on sentencing. In this light, the article critically appraises the case law of both Tribunals.

On 1 July 1997 the People's Republic of China recovered Hong Kong in accordance with the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 19 December 1984. On the same day, China announced the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) formally established and functioning as of 1 July 1997.

As a result of the Iraq-Iran war, Iraq's economy has been exhausted. It had a foreign debt of nearly 80 billion dollars. Iraq apparently failed in its attempts to borrow in foreign capital markets the amounts for investment-in particular for the reparation and expansion of oil production capacity-which it needed to restore its economy. In June 1990, Iraq stated that Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates had undermined the Iraqi economy by persistently producing more than their OPEC quotas. On July 18, 1990, the Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs Tariq Aziz stated in the Arab League that Kuwait had stolen Iraqi oil worth 2.4 billion dollars from the Rumaila Oilfield and that Kuwait had built military installations on Iraqi territory. The President of Egypt, Mubarak, then stated that Iraq and Kuwait would negotiate in Jeddah about the Iraqi claim. At the OPEC conference in Geneva on July 26, the minimum reference price was raised to $21.0/b. This despite Iraq's pressure to raise it to $25.0/b. Iraq then warned Kuwait that it had legitimate and historical rights in respect of the Rumaila Oilfield and two islands in the Persian Gulf. On August 1 it turned out that the negotiations in Jeddah had failed. Kuwait stated that it had refused to cede territory. On August 2 Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait. Because of the small capacity of the Kuwaiti army to offer resistance, Kuwait was occupied by Iraq in a very short time.

With the restoration of diplomatic relations between Argentina and the United Kingdom earlier this year, the conflict on the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) enters a new phase. Kay Hooghoudt looks back at the conflict and describes the lessons that can be learned from it. His main conclusion is that as a consequence of the attitude of the UK in the decolonization proces the dispute shifted from a conflict on territorial sovereignty to a dispute on the obligation to negotiate. The author holds that as the Security Council did not act adequately, Argentina did not act contrary to international law by using force to compel the UK to continue the negotiations on sovereignty over the islands. Now that negotiations have started again, the Security Council should act in order to ensure that these negotiations will deal with the crux of the matter, the issue of sovereignty.

Unlike its European counterparts, Canada appears to remain firmly entrenched in a soft approach to ensuring that Canadian extractive companies respect human rights abroad. Canada’s powerful extractive industry has been very successful in resisting attempts to introduce hard law measures to regulate their transnational conduct. This article considers business and state motivations for supporting or pursuing the shift to hard law measures in the business and human rights context. It assesses Canada’s 2022 policy on responsible business conduct and the implications of the government’s failure to endow the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise with the necessary powers to engage in credible independent investigations of transnational business conduct. It also considers the potential impact of three leading cases brought in Canadian courts against Canadian extractive companies in relation to their overseas operations. The article argues that these developments may not yet be sufficient on their own to shift extractive sector views on the introduction of domestic human rights due diligence legislation. It concludes with some thoughts on the impact that the legislative developments in Europe and treaty negotiations at the United Nations may have in Canada.

This article aims to enrich the emerging, multi-coloured tapestry of ‘international law in context’ through a study of how international economic law operates in complex investment-related disputes. Focusing on the Eco Oro v. Colombia investor-state arbitration, and drawing on both doctrinal analysis and sociolegal research, the study investigates how different actors make sense of the issues, of the dispute, and of the law. Besides shedding light on the neglected multi-actor, multi-layered dimensions of investment disputes, and on tensions between often incommensurable values, juxtaposing arbitral proceedings and underlying social realities highlights how investor-state arbitration involves a socio-political process of re-presenting actors, territory, the environment, and livelihoods through the prism of international arrangements that are primarily designed to protect foreign investment. The findings provide policy pointers on the need for systemic reform of international investment law, moving away from the predominant emphasis on investment protection and investor-state dispute settlement, towards a governance model that effectively considers the social, political, and environmental dimensions of foreign investment projects.

Legal systems across the world contain the obligation to prevent ‘absurd interpretations’ of law. In international law, an instruction to avoid ‘manifestly absurd’ interpretations can be found in Article 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. This gives rise to at least two questions that I will take up in this article. First, what is meant by the ‘absurd’ that is to be avoided in legal interpretation. The short answer to this question is: no one knows exactly. The absurd, by its very nature, resists definition in pre-given categories, as I will argue on the basis of four core thinkers on the absurd: Søren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Thomas Nagel. The second question is more technical and easier to answer: how should lawyers try to avoid absurd interpretations? Here, I turn to absurdist writing and the theatre of the absurd for assistance. Absurdist writing and theatre have developed a number of techniques to make the absurd appear, to let the audience experience that something is fundamentally out of tune. Lawyers use similar techniques, but in reverse and with an opposite purpose: they add exposition, narrative, reasonable language, and stable, rational legal personae. In this way, they boost the rationality and reasonableness of the legal order. However, to come full circle, it is exactly the pretension of rationality and reasonableness that makes the law vulnerable to manifestations of the absurd. The rationality of law is the springboard for the very same absurdity it tries to suppress.

The UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council should amend their rules of procedure to create gender parity on the bench of the International Court of Justice. Only 3.7 per cent of all judges on the ICJ have been women. The UN Charter, ICJ Statute, and long-standing practice of the Court underscore the importance of representation, but the focus has been on geographical representation. Using the law of international organizations, combined with the law of treaty interpretation and international human rights law, this article argues that Article 9 of the ICJ Statute should be interpreted to include a requirement of gender parity. Established practice, subsequent practice, and the UN’s multi-decade gender parity in staffing policy establish an evolutive interpretation of what is required to fulfil equality at the UN and the ICJ. The nomination and election procedures for ICJ judges are sufficiently flexible to facilitate this interpretation.

The expanding reach of international investment law and the negotiation of major economic treaties between democratic polities have prompted new debates about the relationship between democracy and the international investment regime. This article develops an analytical framework for understanding that relationship. It first unpacks the concept of democracy, exploring the ‘rules-based’ and ‘action-based’ conceptions that emerge from political theory and their relevance to international investment law. It then examines three themes that frame the relationship between democracy and international investment law: the interface between the investment regime and national democratic space; the place of democratic processes in investment treaty making; and public participation in the settlement of investment disputes. The interplay between rules- and action-based dimensions provides a common thread across the three themes. The article concludes that there is a gap between formal rules and citizen action in promoting democratic oversight, and significant scope to develop more effective mechanisms to install democratic governance in the creation and implementation of international investment law.

The International Court of Justice has been exceptionally lucky to have had the services of Carl-August Fleischhauer for a full nine-year term.

It is hard to imagine a candidate with better qualifications. Immediately before coming to the Court Carl-August Fleischhauer had for a period of eleven years been the Legal Counsel of the United Nations. His period of tenure in this highly important but very difficult post was widely admired. He was greatly appreciated by his staff, and in turn gave considerable responsibility to those he especially valued, and was generous in his public acknowledgements of the work of his team. He exemplified the maxim that great leaders not only show the example to be followed, but also take care to express appreciation for work well done. With Fleischhauer, tactical wisdom in this matter fully coincided with his natural instincts as to how he wished to behave towards others. Fleischhauer was at the United Nations through particularly difficult and tumultuous years. His calm and careful advice allowed the United Nations to engage in certain new and imaginative activities, at the same time knowing that the legal basis for this ‘creative lawyering’ was meticulously sound. The morale at the Office of Legal Affairs was high – an equally important matter for a civil servant whether national or international.

This article addresses the prosecution of service members by the United States for the commission of war crimes, specifically whether or not the offences charged in such cases can truly be considered ‘war crimes’. The answer has implications in terms of application of the complementarity provision of the Rome Statute, as well as the stigmatic effect that is avoided when the United States prosecutes ordinary criminal offences rather than war crimes.

The judiciary’s counter-majoritarian role in the realm of national security is of paramount importance. By and large the Israel Supreme Court has taken cognizance of this truism and has imposed significant procedural and substantive restrictions on the Israeli military authorities, relying more and more on public international law. Yet when faced with house demolition measures, it has adopted a different stance, preferring to conduct a judicial review which is devoid of any meaningful scrutiny of the measures according to international law. The article attempts to ascertain the reasons for the Court's different judicial position, by advancing, inter alia, legal, historical, socio-political, and personal reasons, reasons relating to the nature of the petitioners, as well as those pertaining to the intertwined concepts of status quo bias, omission bias, and loss aversion. The findings of the case study may be relevant to other courts, in other countries. When faced with deterrent measures that are employed at times of severe security threats and that are strongly supported by the political establishment and by the public, courts may find it difficult to perform a counter-majoritarian role and to abide by their own judicial doctrines and principles.

After Chernobyl, the perception of a common interest in internationally organised nuclear safety measures has been evident among all governments of countries with nuclear power plants, as well as those likely to be involved in or affected by a nuclear accident. Dr. Peter D. Cameron examines the two principal developments in international lawwhich reflect this consensus: the Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident and the Convention on Assistance in the Event of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency. While representing a considerable achievement, the Conventions underline the determination of states parties not to lose control over nuclear matters at the national level.

This case note focuses on two key aspects of the Vasiljević Judgement. The first one is the accused's acquittal of the charge of ‘violence to life and person’ under common Article 3 for the reason that the trial chamber was not satisfied that it constituted a crime under customary international law. The second aspect is the trial chamber's analysis of state practice to identify the definition under customary law of extermination as a crime against humanity.

In its Judgement issued on 30 November 2005 in Prosecutor v. Limaj et al., Trial Chamber II of the ICTY found that an armed conflict existed in Kosovo between the Kosovo Liberation Army and the Serbian forces as of the end of May 1998. It held, however, that the evidence did not establish that there was a widespread or systematic attack by the KLA directed against a civilian population at the relevant time. The first trial of former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army also gave rise to a number of significant developments in the ICTY's jurisprudence relating to issues of international criminal law and procedure, such as the treatment of hostile witnesses and of eyewitness identification evidence, as well as the proof of the existence of a joint criminal enterprise.

On December 7, 1975 Indonesian forces invaded the territory of East Timor, a Portuguese colony for some four and a half centuries. Following the 1974 Portuguese revolution, East Timor, like other Portuguese non-self-governing territories had been going through a process of self determination. Portuguese authorities evacuated the territory in August 1975 during civil disorders, condoned if not fomented by the Indonesians. The Frente Revolucianaria de Timor Leste Independente (FRETILIN), a popular group which aimed at independence for the territory after a short transitional period, gained the upper hand. It declared independence on November 28, 1975, hoping this would strengthen its hand in dealing with Indonesian border incursions. A full-scale Indonesian invasion followed.

After looking into sexual abuse in some armed conflicts that occurred in the past, this article will attempt to give reasons for the sudden interest in this long ignored crime. Subsequently, it will examine the provisions relevant to the issue of sexual abuse in various international instruments. The article will then focus on the problems in implementing international humanitarian law. Not only will it describe the weak points, it will also present some possible improvements. The article will end with a look at the position of the victim in the process of prosecuting those accused of sexual abuse. In closing, it will offer some ways to ease the difficulties a woman encounters at this stage, and take a look at how the Yugoslavia Tribunal deals with this issue.