The World Health Organization (WHO) had, among other things, been examining and deliberating the hazardous effects to health by the use of nuclear weapons. These discussions culminated in a resolution which requested an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legality of the use of nuclear weapons in the following terms: [i]n view of the health and environmental effects, would the use of nuclear weapons by a Stare in war or other armed conflict be a breach of its obligations under international law including the WHO Constitution?

The difficulties surrounding the entry-into-force of the CTBT, which have become more pressing after the refusal of the American Senate to ratify the treaty, have their origin in divergent perceptions of different groups of states about the relationship between the NPT and the CTBT in terms of non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament. Still, preparations for the implementation of the treaty continue unabated. It can be upheld that given the current legal status of the CTBT there already exists a prohibition on the carrying out of nuclear test explosions anywhere for all States Signatories of the CTBT, at least as long as they have not indicated not to become a Party to the treaty.

Environmental changes, such as sea level rise and coastal erosion, have an increasing impact on coastlines worldwide. Unilaterally declared maritime limits are generally determined by reference to coastlines and they are only binding insofar as they conform to the applicable law. Bilateral maritime boundaries are not equally affected by changing coastal geography because, once established, they are binding on parties to the arrangement under the pacta sunt servanda and res judicata principles. Maritime delimitation generally produces geographically stable boundaries. In principle, these remain fixed notwithstanding changes to the coastal geography that generates maritime entitlements or the ecosystems central to national interests. Indeed, stability and predictability are among the objectives of maritime delimitation. However, legal stability can be achieved without geographic stability and the requirement of predictability may be unattainable in a new world of environmental uncertainty. After all, baselines and derived outer limits fluctuate to reflect changing coastal geography and the same is true of bilateral boundaries, unless and until otherwise agreed. States have concluded boundary agreements that refer to fluctuating concepts, such as the equidistance line, instead of fixed co-ordinates. Furthermore, the International Court of Justice has left a segment of a maritime boundary to fluctuate until otherwise agreed and a Chamber of the Court has addressed the possibility of establishing a boundary by reference to a fluid oceano-biological boundary in the marine environment. This suggests that maritime boundaries can fluctuate if established by reference to sufficiently clear and relevant limits in the natural environment.

In accordance with Article 15 of its Statute, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) adopted its Rules of Procedure and Evidence on 11 February 1994. This text entered into force on 14 March 1994. It is essential not only for the Tribunal itself in its present work in The Hague, but also as a reference for any other international criminal courts and tribunals currently existing or forthcoming. Largely inspired by the national rules of adversarial systems, the Rules rightly put the emphasis on the rights of the accused. However, they must also ensure the protection of victims and witnesses and, generally, the efficiency of the Tribunal, objectives that cannot be addressed on an international level in the same manner as on a national level. Moreover, all of these objectives must be reconciled in order to guarantee a fair trial. As Trial Chamber II of the ICTY emphasized in its response to the prosecutor's request for protection of victims and witnesses in the Tadić case, “[a] fair trial means not only fair treatment to the defendant but also to the prosecution and to the witnesses.”

In 1954, following the US explosion of a large thermonuclear device in the South Pacific, Prime Minister Nehru of India led the first international call for a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing. It took until 10 September 1996 for the General Assembly of the United Nations to adopt the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). As at the end of April 1997, it had been signed by 142 states including the five nuclear-weapon states.

On 13 July 1999 Algeria joined the growing list of countries that have adopted some form of ‘amnesty law’ as a means of restoring peace and encouraging reconciliation. After a brief description of the historical context, this article examines the features of the Algerian Civil Concord Law. This law is then used as a backdrop in considering eight ways in which modern amnesty laws may be drafted and adopted to ensure compliance with developing principles of international law.

No single political issue has engaged the ICJ more than that of South West Africa (Namibia). Over a period ranging from 1949 through 1971, recourse was had to the Court, both in its advisory and contentious capacities, on various aspects of the problem. Even today, after Namibia attained independence, the Court's jurisprudence and the saga of UN-Court relations in this matter continue to intrigue. This is because the questions raised have continuing relevance to many issues bearing on international law and international relations.

Much has been, and will be, written on the approach of the Court and of individual judges to a panoply of international legal questions raised in the course of the judicial proceedings. But, in fact, the long tale also offers researchers an enticing fountain of material on the role of law and adjudication in international relations, on the interaction between the UN judicial and political fora and, more broadly, between law and politics. This article focuses mainly on these latter, relatively neglected, aspects because it is with respect to these that the benefit of hindsight offers the ability to reassess and revise some of the earlier assumptions and to note some interesting paradoxes not readily discernible at the time. Perhaps revision of some of the axiomatic propositions long perpetuated in the field will offer better guidance to those seeking to enhance the role of international adjudication in world affairs.

On 5 July 2018, the European Parliament adopted a recommendation to the Council endorsing a proposal for the establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly. Conceived as a new primary organ of the United Nations (UN), the Parliamentary Assembly aims at complementing the work of the General Assembly by giving direct representation to the peoples of the world and passing binding legislation. This article reconstructs the historical roots of the proposal and speculates about the possible legal implications for both the UN and its member states stemming from the establishment of an elected citizens’ chamber within an intergovernmental organization. An argument is made that in order to achieve the stated goals of the model of United Nations Parliamentary Assembly endorsed by the European Union (EU), the required institutional changes to the UN system would be so radical as to effectively repudiate it in favour of a newly established system of international co-operation.

This article critiques the global concern that international commercial arbitration (ICA) is becoming increasingly ‘judicialized’, addressing the growing sentiment in ICA that arbitral proceedings are too lengthy, expensive, and complex. Assuming a contrarian perspective, it argues that attempts to address the cost and length of arbitration proceedings ought not to undermine the value of finely reasoned arbitral decisions grounded in law and justice. It also argues for a contextual assessment of ICA that extends beyond the debate over ‘judicialization’.

Using global illustrations and ICA developments in Australia as an initial guide, this article suggests that balancing party autonomy, accountability, efficiency, and fairness in ICA can help resolve these growing criticisms of ‘judicialization’. Ultimately, the reform of international arbitration should take place within a framework of ‘international best practice’ that is both analytical in nature and functional in operation. As such, ICA should not only be affordable and expeditious, it should serve as a legitimate and effective method of resolving international commercial disputes. In addition, it should balance the virtue of transparent proceedings against the need to respect the confidences of the parties.

Despite the great body of academic research on international criminal justice, little attention has been given to the situation of those who have been acquitted. This article aims to fill this gap by offering an empirical overview of what happens to persons acquitted by the ICTY, ICTR, and the ICC. Rather than providing an in-depth legal analysis, the article emphasizes the challenges acquitted persons encounter. It discusses in particular: (1) to what extent and why some acquitted individuals are barred from residing in the country of their preference; (2) whether and why they are facing subsequent prosecution; and (3) what obstacles there are for acquitted persons seeking to obtain compensation for the lengthy periods spent in detention. Although similar problems may be experienced by individuals who have been acquitted for conventional crimes in domestic systems, the authors argue that persons acquitted by international criminal tribunals are relatively more susceptible to post-acquittal challenges because of the unique nature of the alleged crimes and the institutional context in which international criminal trials take place. The authors conclude that there are no easy solutions, and that some of the problems identified are inherent to the system of international criminal justice.

Conferences of the Parties (COPs) are intergovernmental meetings established by treaties to review and promote the implementation of their provisions. The literature on COPs is limited and almost exclusively based on multilateral environmental agreements. The article departs from this scholarship to show that COPs are now present in different areas of international law and to discuss some of the ways in which these bodies influence the conventions that establish them. In particular, it considers how COPs affect the content and the implementation of their parent treaties. The article focuses on the bodies established by four treaties selected as case studies: the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control; the Convention for the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions; the Convention on Cluster Munitions; and the United Nations Convention against Corruption. Based on the examination of the normative decisions adopted by these organs, the article argues that COPs’ activities (i) specify and develop the content of their parent treaties by setting procedural and substantive standards that states parties must meet to comply with their obligations; and (ii) support the implementation of their parent treaties by seeking to strengthen their social and political position, facilitating the adoption of measures by states parties. COPs pursue this second goal by building momentum in favour of the implementation of their treaties, stigmatizing their adversaries, and connecting their conventions with established international legal narratives.

This article presents a theoretical framework by which to understand how disasters are reconciled with a state’s existing obligations under international law. This ‘reactive’ model of disaster regulation hinges on two regulatory techniques, ‘disapplication’ and ‘exculpation’, both of which involve a deviation from the ordinary application of a norm owing to the occurrence of a disaster or to measures adopted by a state in relation to it. It proceeds to outline the various doctrines and mechanisms across different subfields of international law, including international human rights law, investment law and trade law, which may operationalize these techniques in disaster situations. Finally, it argues that the applicability of certain disapplication and exculpation mechanisms to disasters relies on an anachronistic view of such disasters as rare and episodic occurrences beyond human control. This puts these mechanisms at odds with the central objectives of international disaster law and their underlying sociological and scientific premises, which emphasize the need for an ‘adaptive’ model of comprehensive and prevention-oriented disaster regulation. Accordingly, this analysis exposes the conceptual limitations of the reactive model for disaster regulation and explains and validates the inclination toward an adaptive model within international disaster law. It also indicates how mechanisms within the reactive model could be recalibrated to better regulate disasters.

The Monroe Doctrine was originally formulated as a US foreign policy principle, but in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it began to be redefined in relation to both the hemispheric policy of Pan-Americanism and the interventionist policies of the US in Central America and the Caribbean. Although historians and social scientists have devoted a great deal of attention to Latin American anti-imperialist ideologies, there was a distinct legal tradition within the broader Latin American anti-imperialist traditions especially concerned with the nature and application of the Monroe Doctrine, which has been overlooked by international law scholars and the scholarship focusing on Latin America. In recent years, a new revisionist body of research has emerged exploring the complicity between the history of modern international law and imperialism, as well as Third World perspectives on international law, but this scholarship has begun only recently to explore legal anti-imperialist contributions and their legacy. The purpose of this article is to trace the rise of this Latin American anti-imperialist legal tradition, assessing its legal critique of the Monroe Doctrine and its implications for current debates about US exceptionalism and elastic behaviour in international law and organizations, especially since 2001.

At the intersection of imperial rule and private power, Shanghai rose to international prominence in the second half of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. It did so by taking advantage of the extraterritorial status and the dynamic, cosmopolitan population of the International Settlement. In evaluating the fate of the Shanghai Municipal Council, we seek to ascertain how private authority could have been constituted on a transnational basis within the framework of a treaty port. The rise of Shanghai was linked to some of the ambiguities of overlapping imperial rule and the possibilities it created for legal and governance experimentation. This is particularly clear in realms most associated with sovereign power, namely the International Settlement’s attempts to claim some taxation power and maintain law and order. That power, however, was interstitial at best and the product of fragile balances, as shown by the Council’s ultimate failure to secure a full international legal status for Shanghai. Nonetheless, the rise and fall of the International Settlement at Shanghai are worth reflecting upon, not only in relation to the history of China, imperialism and international law, but also as a way of thinking how the authority of large metropolitan centres might be constituted.

The European Court of Human Rights has often been criticized for lacking clarity and consistency in its reasoning of balancing human rights against conflicting public interests. To reconcile national security with human rights protection, the Court requires the interference with rights to be suitable for reaching the objective purported by the government. In this article I deal with how the Court conducts the suitability test in national security cases, in line with two models under which a few representative test considerations can be categorized: human rights priority model and national security priority model. To explain how each model works in a comparable sense, I follow the same analytic structure and examine the manner of the Court’s test and the intensity of its scrutiny. I argue that in compliance with the two models, the Court applies the suitability test in a consistent and predictable way in national security case law.

International law ascribes to the conferral of a jus cogens status on a norm a particular legal significance. Bluntly put, jus cogens norms have legal consequences that norms of ordinary international law do not. International lawyers have a great many different ideas of what these legal consequences are more precisely. As of yet, the reason for this divide has not been fully clarified. This void tends to confuse jus cogens discourse on several issues such as the immunity of states and state officials in judicial proceedings originating in the violation of jus cogens norms, or the extradition of alleged perpetrators of international crimes, or again the non-applicability of amnesty laws concerning such crimes. It also impedes the justification of judicial and other legal decisions.

As this article argues, contrary to the general assumption, a lawyer’s conception of the legal consequences of jus cogens is not theory-neutral but dependent on his or her preferred understanding of the concept of law. The argument goes briefly as follows: (i) What causes international lawyers to disagree is the issue of whether or not jus cogens norms entail obligations concerned with their own enforcement; (ii) this is essentially an issue concerning the individuation of norms; (iii) depending on whether a lawyer takes the position of a legal positivist or a legal idealist, he or she uses different criteria for the individuation of jus cogens norms; and (iv) this is why, for legal idealists, jus cogens norms entail obligations concerned with their own enforcement, whereas for legal positivists they do not.