Despite almost universal recognition within the international community of the importance of international environmental law, many complex issues continue to elude an appropriate legal response. A particularly controversial issue – and one that is proving increasingly difficult to resolve – is the question of how to reconcile the principle of environmental protection with that of free trade. Moreover, despite such positive platitudes as that contained within the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, nation states are quickly discovering that the issue is not simply one of abstract interest, but is actually beginning to influence both their domestic and international regulatory behaviour. This article seeks to present a broad overview of this issue as it relates to the European Union (EU) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). In particular, the article will critically discuss some of the more recent jurisprudence on this issue arising from these two, very different, ‘groupings’ of states. As will be noted, there are important similarities and differences between each ‘grouping’ in terms of its approach. And, of course, whilst it is acknowledged that many of these differences can be resolved by reference to the different aims and objectives of the different ‘groupings’, nevertheless, this article will try to move beyond a strictly comparative approach of the issues, and place them in a broader analytical framework. This is not an attempt to show which approach is ‘best’, but rather, to highlight the tensions between environmental protection and free trade.

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

In September 1958 the Venezuelan Ministry of Justice created a Commission, comprising Professors Roberto Goldschmidt, Gonzalo Parra-Aranguren and Joaquín Sánchez-Covisa, assigning it the task of preparing a Draft on Private International Law. A preliminary document was drawn up after ten months of intensive work, but the Commission decided to reflect on the Draft and it was only in April 1963 when it was completed, with an ‘Explanatory Report’ annexed.

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.

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.

Federalism is a form of governmental organisation whose origins may be traced to antiquity. However, the establishment of the United States as a federation during the late 18th century led to renewed interest in federal government, which has continued undiminished to the present day. As a measure of the significance of federalism, in 1987 it was estimated that some 40 per cent of the world's population lived in States that are formally federal, and that another one-third lived in polities that apply federal arrangements in some way. Amongst these States are Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, India,Mexico, the Russian Federation, Switzerland and the United States of America.

Civil liability for environmental damage is currently very much the centre of attention. Many countries and international organizations have recently adopted rules in this field or are in the process of doing so. Almost without exception, these rules concentrate on creating a liability regime for damage caused by pollution that is the result of incidents which took place before their entry into force. The problem of damage that is the result of so-called historic pollution — primarily cases of soil contamination — was mostly left outside the range of these regulations. Until recently that is. Last year specific legislation on liability in cases of historic soil contamination was adopted in the Flemish region of Belgium and in the United Kingdom. Other countries like, for example, Denmark are studying the subject. The Netherlands has much greater experience with this type of legislation. It goes back to the Interim Soil Clean-up Act of 1983. The experiences with this act are reflected in a new legal regime for cleaning up contaminated land that came into force in 1994. The objective of this article is to reflect on these Dutch experiences.

The Asser Institute has asked me to speak in English, here in The Hague before a Dutch audience. Permit me to linger for a moment over this phenomenon.

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 importance of a scholar like Hugo de Groot can be viewed in different ways. A systematic analysis of his works would clarify the coherence and depth, an historical approach would do the same for his sources and the extent of his originality. Other possibilities would be to trace the further development of his (legal and political) thinking or to ask what inspiration his works can still give towards the solution of problems today. Another approach has been adopted in the present contribution, viz., a discussion of Grotius' influence on a particular thinker of a later period, the Neapolitan lawyer and philosopher Giambattista Vico(1668–1744). Two aspects of his influence will be considered. In the first place, the question why Vico himself attributed such particular importance to Grotius. Vico even named Grotius as one of his “authors”. Vico employs the term “author” as a title of honour for his mentors in literature whom he considers especially important and in whose work he recognizes aspects of his pwn thinking which are of exceptional importance. However, Vico's attitude to Grotius does not consist solely of grateful admiration. In his principal work, the New Science, of which the first edition was published in 1725, and the last, totally rewritten, posthumous edition appeared in 1744, Vico's recognition of Grotius' merits is certainly still apparent, although his criticism has, by this stage, taken a dominant role. Vico's opposition to the predominant Cartesian rationalism, which he had already expressed in his De nostri temporis studiorum ratione of 1709 and in his De antiquissima italorum sapientia ex linguae latinae originibus eruenda, liber primus sive metaphysicus of 1710, also extends to the rationalist school of natural law of which he considers Grotius, Selden and Pufendorf to be the main representatives.