Supreme Court, 13 April 2012, Mothers of Srebrenica Foundation v. the State of the Netherlands and the United Nations

“International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power. Whatever the ultimate aims of international politics, power is always the immediate aim.”

“Power” is one of the most central concepts in politics. For many years political scientists and sociologists have debated the term and tried to agree on its precise content. In a recent study about economic power concentrations in the Netherlands, Mokken and Stokman and their collaborators surveyed the theoretical position of the concepts “power” and “influence”. Most of the theoretical debates are held within the confines of American political science. A number of contributions in a recent issue of The American Political Science Review show that these debates have not yet come to an end. Most of these debates concern “community power”, that is power as it manifests itself within local communities. The most important contributions to this debate have been made by American and British political scientists.

It was understood from the outset that the trials would be limited, in accordance with the Moscow Declaration, to a number of the highest-ranking Nazi leaders and their principal accomplices. It was proposed by the United States in the draft of April 30, 1945, presented to the Foreign Ministers of France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, that the trial comprise also “the principal Nazi organizations and their members, through whom the most bestial of the Nazi cruelties have been put into effect”. According to this draft, the defense of superior orders shall not absolve the accused from responsibility but may be considered, if justice so requires, in mitigation of punishment. Nor shall an accused be able to escape the trial on the ground that he was the head or principal officer of a state. Offenses against the armies of the United Nations would be punished by the appropriate national tribunals. Perpetrators of atrocities in territories occupied by Germany during the war as well as traitors such as Quisling, Laval, “Lord Haw-Haw”, would be dealt with in a similar manner.

The movement for development of private international law in the Americas through multilateral conventions (which is referred to below as the Inter-American Conventional Movement) began in 1878; and the great influence which the European school of legal thought has exerted on it can be perceived throughout its history. It was in the Americas that one of the decisive steps in the world-wide trend towards the development of private international law through conventions took place, and it is there that the considerable influence of the Hague Conference on this subject can be traced to its origin. Legal thought on a global scale is becoming universal and thus the ideas of the Dutch scholar Jitta, expressed at the end of the last century, that the State must respect the individuals forming part of a universal society and that to achieve this end, the State itself must find homogeneous solutions through treaties, are now a reality. In order to try to give an overall view of this movement in private international law in the Americas, section 2 will deal briefly with the development of the three historical stages, which, in my opinion, are the most significant, after which section 3 will deal with the fourth or current stage, following which section 4 will end with some brief concluding remarks.

This article is a prospective analysis of whether the established principles for delimitation of the continental shelf within 200 NM will apply for delimitation of outer continental margins. On the basis of the established normative jurisprudence of delimitations within 200 NM it can namely not be ruled out that the established equitable criteria and methods for delimitation, for finding an equitable solution, were solely set to prevail in delimitations within 200 NM.

Title commands delimitation and the title for the zone beyond 200 NM differ from the title within 200 NM. Wherein the distance criterion is the title for the zone within 200 NM, geological and geomorphologic criteria are the basis of the title for the legal continental shelf that extends 200 NM. Accordingly, the established normative principles in delimitation of continental shelves beyond 200 NM are susceptible to differ from the established prevailing principles within 200 NM and may have an important impact on delimitations in the continental outer margins.

In conclusion it is held that the established equitable criteria and methods in order to find an equitable solution in delimitations within 200 NM are likely not to apply mutatis mutandis for delimitations beyond 200 NM

When on 3 October 1957 the Russian astronaut Gagarin was launched into outer space and when twelve years later on 20 July 1969 the American astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the Moon, the enthusiasm of the world population for these two events was enormous.

For someone who has spent his whole career in the search for international order and stability it is a particular honour and pleasure to be giving this Memorial Lecture.

Some twenty-five years have passed since the Brussels Convention on Jurisdiction and Enforcement of Judgments was first drafted and it seems to be doing rather well. It is in force in all twelve Member States of the European Community and has become a familiar part of the work of numerous courts in Europe handling commercial disputes. Its success is borne out by the conclusion of the Lugano Convention of 16 September 1988, extending the scheme of the Brussels Convention to the Member States of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), which obtained in only three years after signature the necessary ratifications for its initial entry into force on 1 January 1992. In addition, there is much support among scholars from Eastern Europe for the accession of their countries to the Lugano Convention (which, unlike the Brussels Convention, provides for accession independently of membership of the European Community or EFTA).

On 2 May 2006, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rendered its decision concerning the EC Insolvency Regulation. In this case the underlying issue was a conflict between an Italian court and an Irish court. Both of them ruled that the centre of main interests was in their own Member State. The facts were as follows.

The problem of financing the United Nations—a recurrent problem in fact since 1945—has become an acute financial and political one, since 1956. In November 1956 and in December 1960, the General Assembly decided to assess UN members part of the expenditures incurred for peace-keeping operations in the Middle East and Congo in accord with the scale approved for raising the ordinary annual budget.

1. From May 20 to June 10, 1958 a Conference of Plenipotentiaries met at Headquarters of the United Nations in New York for the purpose of concluding a convention on the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948, is the first UN human rights document to include civil and political rights as well as economic, social and cultural rights. However, since that time a dichotomy between civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights has characterized UN human rights activities. In 1966 the General Assembly adopted two separate human rights documents: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Two separate covenants were drafted as a result of western pressure. Western countries stressed the alleged difference in character of both categories of rights: civil and political rights could be implemented immediately while most economic, social and cultural rights could be implemented only progressively. In the Vienna Declaration, adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights in 1993, the principle of the equality of all rights was, however, forcefully emphasized.