The year 2009 was one of many anniversaries for the state-building project. It marked ten years since the United Nations began its bold experiments of state-building in East Timor and Kosovo, now the independent state of Timor-Leste and the embryonic Republic of Kosovo respectively. It was twenty years since Namibia held elections in the course of becoming independent, heralding a new post-Cold War activism. It was also ninety years since the League of Nations established the mandate system, which – even though it applied only to the colonies of enemy states defeated in the Great War – marked the beginning of the end of colonialism.

The effort to attract commercial arbitration to the Permanent Court of Arbitration [hereinafter PCA] in 1962 by introducing the Rules of Arbitration and Conciliation for Settlement of International Disputes between Two Parties of Which only One is a State [hereinafter the 1962 Rules], has met with little success. In other articles of this issue of the Leiden Journal of International Law the reasons for this failure are discussed. These articles also contain suggestions on how changes in the legal framework and the administration of the PCA may improve this situation.

Sigrun Skogly, The Human Rights Obligations of the World Bank and the IMF, London, Cavendish Publishing, 2001, ISBN 1859416659, 240 pp., £71.50 (pb).

Mac Darrow, Between Light and Shadow:The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and International Human Rights Law, Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2003, ISBN 1841133906, 376 pp., £42.00.00 (hb).

Balakrishnan Rajagopal, International Law from Below: Development, Social Movements and Third World Resistance, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN 0521016711, 360 pp., £19.99 (pb).

Rankings and indicators have been with us for a while now, and have increasingly been objects of attention in international law. Likewise, they have been with the LJIL as a journal for a while now. Our so-called ‘impact factor’ is, to my untrained eye, the most prominent feature on the LJIL webpage hosted by our publisher. So this editorial is something of a rearguard action. The indicators and rankings, however, keep piling up. Proliferation may afford a perverse sort of optimism, about which below but, as will be clear, I do not share it. The increasing number and command of indicators and rankings reflects a consistent trend and a bleak mode of knowledge production. Knowledge production has been a topic in these pages recently, for instance Sara Kendall's excellent editorial on academic production and the politics of inclusion. I mean to continue in that vein, with respect to other aspects of the political economy of the academic production of international law, especially at a nexus of publishing, scholarship and market practices. There is an undeniable element of nostalgia in what will follow, but I do not really mean to celebrate the publishing industry, status quo ante, that has put me in this privileged position to wax nostalgic. The academic publishing business is flawed. What we are preparing the way for is worse. When I say we, I mean to flag my complicity, both as an individual researcher and as an editorial board member. I use the word complicity to convey a personal anxiety, also in my role as editor, so let me be clear: the LJIL board has no policy concerning rankings, and rankings have never influenced review at the journal. Moreover, while I cannot claim to speak for the LJIL as a whole concerning the topic of rankings or any other matter, nor is mine exactly a dissenting voice on the board. The tone of this polemic is mine alone; the concern is not.

Over the last decade, the concept targeted killing has received much attention in debates on the customary interpretation of the right to self-defence, particularly in the context of practices such as US armed drone attacks. In these debates, government silence has often been invoked as acquiescence to the jus ad bellum aspects of targeted killing. Focusing on the question of state silence on targeted killing practices by the Israeli and US governments in recent years, this article investigates over 900 UN Security Council and Human Rights Council debates and argues that there has been no tacit consent to targeted killing. The analysis firstly shows that the majority of states have condemned Israeli targeted killing practices and have raised concerns about armed drone attacks, while falling short of directly protesting against US practices. The article, secondly, applies the customary international law requirements for acquiescence and challenges the idea that silence on US armed drone attacks can be understood as a legal stance towards targeted killing. The article, finally, investigates the political context and engages with alternative interpretations of silence. Contextualizing acts of protest and lack of protest within an asymmetrical political context, the article posits that the invocation of silence as acquiescence in the case of targeted killing is problematic and risks complicity of legal knowledge production with the violence of hegemonic actors.

In 2017 the Leiden Journal is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Since the inception of the journal in 1988, much has changed. This includes not only the structure, lay out, organization and publisher of the journal, but also the general environment in which the journal is published. This editorial's aim is to briefly sketch the journal's life over the past 30 years and to reflect on it.

The first indictments against high-ranking political and military leaders were issued by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on 25 July 1995. Those indicted include Radovan Karadžić, the President of the Bosnian Serb Administration of Pale;Ratko Mladić, the commander of the army of the Bosnian Serb Administration;and Milan Martic, the President of the former Croatian Serb Administration of Knin. On the same day, the defence motion challenging the jurisdiction of the ICTY to try the accused currently before it, Dusko Tadicwas argued before the Trial Chamber. On 10 August 1995, this motion was dismissed.These recent developments, amongst others, are the culmination of the Prosecution's work in confronting the immense challenges of this unique international jurisdiction. Although the task is far from complete, the achievements to date provide a stable foundation upon which to progress with confidence. This article will comment on the significance of these new developments.

International civil aviation regulation is still mainly characterized by government influence and bilateral air transport services agreements. Also, the internationalization of the airline industry is still far away although the developments within the EEC may lead to the recognition of the need to abolish the ‘nationality’ criterion for airlines to operate internationally, at least for scheduled air services between the EEC member states. Professor Wassenbergh contends that the bilateral regime should be replaced by a multilateral regime, or to begin with maybe by one or more plurilateral regimes, creating a framework of rules enabling free competition between the airlines but allowing for temporary differential treatment based on existing differences between the states concerning their capabilities with respect to the participation under their own flag in the international air traffic market (‘pluralism’). Internationalization and privatization of the airline industry should form the basis for the treatment of air transport as a ‘trade in services’ to which the GATT-rules may be made to apply.

The UN Security Council's involvement in the area of international criminal justice raises concerns about judicial independence. Of primary concern in this study is the degree to which this political organ has come to determine and restrict jurisdiction of international criminal tribunals, with the effect of excluding cases involving alleged grave crimes by actors whose presence in situations of which the Council is seized is supported by its permanent members. This control, it will be argued, undermines the basic conditions for a sound administration of justice, as it impedes these tribunals from selecting the cases that may come before them in accordance with respect for human rights and the rule of law. More specifically, restrictions imposed by political organs, leading to unjustified unequal treatment before the law and the courts of perpetrators and victims of grave crime in a given situation, are contrary to principles of equality and non-discrimination. A theory of international judicial independence should therefore extend to a consideration of the legality of such restrictions and acknowledge it as an essential requirement of independence.

There are three topics within the body of Vereshchetin's academic work which deserve special attention: the law of the sea, space law, and the theory of international law. Vereshchetin's contribution as a judge to the practice and theory of international law can be appreciated through his individual opinions and declarations, in which he dealt with various issues of international law and the international judicial process: self-determination, countermeasures, diplomatic protection, and questions which concern the functioning of the Court (the role and powers of the ICJ, non liquet, bases for the revision of decisions, declarations accepting the Court's jurisdiction and reservations to them, and so on).

The Bananas decision demonstrated that WTO dispute settlement panels and the Appellate Body are capable of effectively and clearly analyzing whether extremely complex measures are consistent with WTO rules. The trade-liberalizing decision established the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) as a meaningful constraint on discriminatory measures with an impact on both goods and services and clarified the nature of the GATS Most-Favoured Nation (MFN) obligation. The decision also severely constrained the ability of the EU to justify non-tariff discriminatory measures such as the quota allocation system at issue in Bananas based on the Lomé waiver.

On 30 November 2010, the International Court of Justice issued its decision in the merits phase of the Ahmadou Sadio Diallo case. This decision turned on the questions of whether the DRC had violated Mr Diallo's human rights and his rights as a shareholder and manager in two corporations he owned in the DRC. This paper analyses the decision of the Court in the light of the choices it made and the methodology it applied, and demonstrates that both issues raise fundamental questions. The Court's decision on Mr Diallo's human rights is often ambitious to the detriment of clarity, whereas the part of the judgment dealing with corporate rights does not seem to move beyond its 1970 predecessor in Barcelona Traction. While understandable, this is also regrettable and the consequences for individuals doing business and/or residing in foreign countries may be substantial.

Judges like to claim that they are impartial decision-makers fully capable of suppressing their personal proclivities, as the rule of law requires. But a century’s worth of studies undermines that view. Going under the name ‘judicial behaviour’, this vast literature shows that many extraneous (non-legal) factors affect the choices judges make. This article focuses on one strand of that literature – the effect of personal characteristics on judging, with emphasis on social identity and social diversity. We show that the literature is bifurcated: studies focusing on the social identity of individual judges (such as their gender, race, and nationality) generate findings consistent with in-group bias, whereas research on the social diversity of judges sitting in panels suggests that benefits can accrue from socially diverse courts. What the two sets of studies have in common, though, is just as important: both could make profound academic and policy contributions but require far more development if they are to realize their potential. We offer proposals for forward movement.

This article explores the quest for sovereign equality by China and Japan as it unfolded in a specific historical moment, the third quarter of the nineteenth century. It does so by focusing on the debate around the ‘coolie trade’, i.e., the traffic of Chinese indentured labourers, which offered an opportunity for non-Western countries such as China and Japan to position themselves with respect to Western conceptions of ‘modernity’ or ‘civilization’ and thereby advance their quest for ‘parity with all nations’. Through a study of the Maria Luz case, decided in the early 1870s by Czar Alexander II and drafted by de Martens, the article sheds light on the different approaches of Japan and China with respect to international law at this critical historical juncture. Specifically, it shows that, although the coolie trade mostly affected China, it was Japan who first managed to reap a parity dividend by firmly condemning the practice, whereas China’s action was steered by the circumstances. Eventually, however, China’s growing interest in Chinese populations abroad paved the way for the establishment of its first permanent diplomatic representations overseas. For both countries, the events encapsulated by the Maria Luz case unveil an important, yet overlooked, moment in their quest for parity with all nations and, more generally, in their engagement with international law.

The quest for universality in international economic law has met many obstacles. This article begins from the proposition that there are various ways to conceive of universality in international law, for example whether the rules are accepted widely among states (omnipresence) or whether they are broadly coherent (generality). Homing in on trade and investment law, the article assesses how each of these areas has functioned as a testing ground for these different conceptions. An in-built quasi-universality characterizes international trade law with the WTO as a seemingly centralized universal institution. Such universality, however, has often been achieved through differentiation of rights and obligations (e.g., the Enabling Clause and regional trade agreements). In investment law, attempts at universalization through the construction of centralized institutions have failed. Nevertheless, certain common standards have emerged in this fragmented regime. There is also a debate around the use of the MFN clause as a universalizing tool and renewed efforts to universalize investment law are afoot. More generally, it is clear that there is little appetite for codification of international economic law, and that states wish to control its content through the conclusion of treaties. In the final analysis, this article asks whether it is time to conceive of universality differently, and particularly whether equity and collective preferences should be a more central part of the quest.

On 22 July 2009 a Tribunal of five leading international lawyers rendered their award at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), thereby redrawing the boundaries of Abyei, a small patch of land in the centre of Sudan and source of violent conflict throughout recent years. The arbitration was initiated by the two signatories of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that in 2005 brought an end to the longest civil war in Africa. Both parties, the government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement, expressed satisfaction with the award, which conceivably saved the CPA from potential collapse. This article examines the legal oddities which accompanied the settlement of the dispute over the Abyei area. It analyses both the referral of the dispute to the PCA through the lens of the Sudanese Constitution and the legal ambiguities of the award itself.

This article shows how the political, historical, sociological, and economic narrative of Ibn Khaldun influenced the conjunction of elements that were essential to the civilizing language promoted by European and American liberals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The ‘standard of civilization’ has experienced a revival among critical legal scholars. These authors have reconstructed a historical process of ‘rise, fall, and rise’ of the ‘standard of civilization’, identifying its reappearance in an era of globalization and global governance with the current existence of a (neo-)colonial paradigm in international law and a (neo-)liberal global economy. This study is divided into three parts intended to examine in depth the precursory role of this Islamic thinker in the shaping of civilizing language. The first part examines Ibn Khaldun's life as a way of understanding his thinking on civilization. The second part explores the influence of Ibn Khaldun's work on the discourse surrounding the standard of civilization, by reintroducing the interpretation of Rafael Altamira (1866–1951). The third starts with Ibn Khaldun's writings on economic science and Joseph Spengler's (1902–1991) approach to his works. Several Islamic economic institutions and their influence on the state and concept of international society are examined. The revival of Ibn Khaldun's thinking is partly intended to fill an existing gap in the studies of medieval Islamic theorists. By examining his ideas about the socio-political and economic viability of a dynasty (or a civilization or a state), this article attempts to shed light on the intercultural origins of international law.

‘Fragmentation, verticalization, and constitutionalization form the holy trinity of international legal debate in the early 21st century’ – such is the opening phrase of Jan Klabbers's first chapter in his co-authored book, The Constitutionalization of International Law. Although Klabbers possibly did not intend it, by invoking the ‘holy trinity’, he is calling attention to an important aspect of the contemporary constitutionalist debate, namely what I would like to describe as the faith in constitutionalism as a secular religion. It is from this perspective – the complete and unquestioning belief in constitutionalism – that I will explore global constitutionalism and the three books that are the object of this review.