Increasingly the UN is ‘subcontracting’ peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations. The ECOMOG intervention in Sierra Leone is an example. Some members of ECOMOG have been accused of violating international humanitarian law. These accusations have not been adequately addressed by ECOMOG nor by the UN. The limited attention paid to this problem by the UN in ‘subcontracted’ operations contrasts with increased concern with respect for international humanitarian law by forces under UN command and control. It is argued that the UN should ensure that ‘subcontracting’ does not lead to lowering standards of international humanitarian law.

The adoption of the Statute of an International Criminal Court in July 1998 is widely regarded as a major step forward in international criminal law. The United States, however, does not share this point of view in all respects. It particularly fears that the Statute will allow prosecution of American peacekeepers for political instead of legal reasons. This article examines the provisions of the Statute in the light of that fear. It concludes that not only is such a fear unjustified, the United States position may have disastrous consequences for efforts in peacekeeping.

There is no unanimity in the international community about the legality of NATO's use of force in Kosovo in order to avert a humanitarian catastrophe. NATO has acted without Security Council authorization and its arguments for a humanitarian intervention are legally inconsistent. It has set a dangerous precedent. This editorial analyses the legal framework and complexities of the Kosovo crisis and its repercussions on the concept of ‘justified use of force’.

The 1999 Annual Meeting of the ASIL exhibited a rare diversity of panels and speakers. The paradigm of an ‘inclusive’ professional community, shared by this Meeting, is well in line with a more general understanding of international law as an inclusive, unified discipline. This Editorial begins investigating this image of unity and its consequences for the ways ‘difference’ is encountered in professional debate.

With the black letter law of the UN Charter denying states to unilaterally intervene in third states on humanitarian grounds, this article tries to project a picture of the moral controversy of humanitarian intervention as a balance for order and justice. The author argues that some post-cold war armed interventions may be taken as evidence of an emerging rule of international law outside the UN Charter system allowing the use of unilateral humanitarian intervention to keep a third state from committing large-scale human rights violations on its own territory. However, in the absence of prior authorization from the relevant UN organs, it is necessary to address concerns of possible abuse and manipulations of such an emerging rule. The article includes recommendations to this end.

To go to war for an idea, if the war is aggressive, not defensive, is as criminal as to go to war for territory or revenue; for it is as little justifiable to force our ideas on other people, as to compel them to submit to our will in any other respect. But there assuredly are cases in which it is allowable to go to war, without having been ourselves attacked, or threatened with attack; and it is very important that nations should make up their minds in time, as to what these cases are.John Stuart Mill, A Few Words on Non-Intervention (1859)

In March 1997, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1101 (1997) which authorised a multinational protection force – known as Operation Alba – to enter Albania “to facilitate the safe and prompt delivery of humanitarian assistance, and to help create a secure environment for the missions of international organisations in Albania, including those providing humanitarian assistance.” Created with the consent of the government of Albania, the intervention occurred as a direct but also as a near-immediate response to the political, financial and humanitarian crisis that had been precipitated by the collapse of so-called pyramid schemes in Albania. The purpose of this article is to examine the background of the adoption of Resolution 1101 (1997) and then to investigate the impact and importance of the consent for the operation given by the beleaguered government of President Sali Berisha. The article will then analyse the legal significance, meaning and interpretation of Security Council in Resolution 1101 (1997), as amended in Resolution 1114 of June 1997, in its endeavour to provide an account of the organisation, achievements, shortcomings and lessons of Operation Alba.

This article considers the idea that the professional and intellectual disciplines which have developed in the United States to advance insight into international affairs also have characteristic blind spots and biases which leave professionals and intellectuals working within them more sanguine about the status quo than they might otherwise be. I am particularly interested in blind spots and bias which emerge from interactions among the disciplines of public international law, international economic law, comparative law, and international relations. Although internationalists in the United states working in these disciplines have broadly divergent methodologies and political ideologies, they share a sensibility which narrows the range of concerns and the scope of political possibilities which seem plausible to professionals and intellectuals concerned with international law and policy.

A variety of legal problems exist with the UN weapons inspection régime applicable to Iraq. These problems hinder the assurance that Iraq can be disarmed of the ability to produce biological or chemical weapons. Given this fact, the stalemate produced by the mid-December 1998 air strikes against that country might be best resolved by a reconfigured inspection program which aims at addressing Iraqi weapons of mass destruction efforts in the context of global security policy regarding such weaponry, with due account taken of the desires of Iraq's neighbors and the importance of reintegrating that nation into the world community.

The GATT 1994 and the GATS contain separate multilateral rules on trade in goods and services. The question arises as to whether the GATT 1994 and the GATS are therefore mutually exclusive. This paper argues that the GATT 1994 and the GATS should be mutually exclusive in the application of their respective obligations to the specific aspects of any given measure. The paper offers a test, based on a similar test applied under EC law, to determine which of the agreements should apply to the specific aspects of any given measure where it appears to affect both trade in goods and services.

Playing the devil's advocate, it is argued that ultimately there are no international legal limits to the UN Security Council's enforcement powers. The argument is based on a brief analysis of various UN Charter provisions and the rejection of the ius cogens concept and other possible arguments for international legal limits. The conclusion reached is that the UN Security Council has unfettered powers when dealing with maintenance of international peace and security issues.

Is it true of the Security Council, that: […] because the End of this Institution is the Peace and Defence of […] all; and whosoever has the Right to the End, has the Right to the Means, it belongeth of Right [to him] to be Judge both of the Meanes [sic] of Peace and Defence; and also of the hindrances and disturbances of the same; and to do whatsoever he shall think necessary to be done […]Martti Koskenniemi, quoting from Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan

The world comes to the international lawyer in forms less perfect than the ordered categories of law. The lawyer stands at a point of making a difference through devising arrangements, managing complex transactions, striking conventions, predicting outcomes, and wringing out settlements even if no clear legal recipe exists. This situation seems familiar in the contemporary global framework, but it is more general and, in this study, the author uses a historical case to illustrate it. The author shows how international lawyers make sense of wide cultural and historical contexts and negotiate their different implications in bringing about a new international legal personality, complex dispute settlement, and peaceful governance even without the benefit of a clear set of available legal procedures.

Tsar de Russie, […] Tu peux venir quand tu voudras: le lac repose silencieux et tu peux dormir dans l'archipel de Finlande en toute securité [mais] tu ne pourras jamais retrouver l'anneau magique qui fait aimer: l'océan s'est refermé à jamais sur lui.

The Geneva Arbitration of 1872 was convened to settle various differences between the United States and Great Britain and, in particular, American allegations of British collusion with regard to shipbuilding for the Southern Confederacy during the American Civil War. The Arbitrators ultimately found Britain liable, and awarded $15,500,000 to the United States. This decision remains controversial to the extent that it rested on rules which were not yet accepted as principles of general international law, and which clearly favoured the case of the United States from the outset. It is thus the purpose of this article to explore the facts behind the Geneva Arbitration, and to argue that the finding of British liability in Geneva marked the beginning decline of the laws of neutrality. Neutral Countries […] may be exploited by the Great Powers both strategically and as a source of additional armies and fleets. Of central importance to the game are those Neutral Countries and provinces which are designated as “Supply Centres.” […] A player's fighting strength is directly related to the number of Supply Centres he or she controls, whilst the game is won when one player controls at least 18 Supply Centres.

Central to this article is the evolution of the nature of the principle of self-determination. The main focus will be on the examination of a recent instance of state practice — the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement. In particular, the way in which the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement has given effect to the primary elements of self-determination, including democratic self-government, the protection of human rights, and the protection of minority rights will be discussed.

This decision of the House of Lords is significant because it is the first decision of a major court of an important country refusing to grant a former head of state immunity from adjudication in the context of alleged gross violations of human rights. It is shown that state immunity, diplomatic immunity and head of state immunity are to be distinguished and the rules pertaining to head of state immunity are explained. Whereas the author agrees with the result of Lords' decision, he disagrees with the reasoning because the majority circumvented the immunity question by artificially qualifying the alleged human rights violations of General Pinochet as private acts.

Abdullah Öcalan's arrival in Turkey in February 1999 followed a prolonged search in Europe for asylum following his expulsion from Syria in late 1998. His coming within Turkish jurisdiction raises questions about the international processes to bring alleged transnational fugitive offenders before the courts. This article looks at the extradition regime within Europe and the alternative methods of rendition that were eventually employed to remove him from Kenya. Extradition law developed during the nineteenth century and is based on ideas of revolution, the principle of nationality and liberal democracy which pervaded that period. The late twentieth century has a different ethos that offers fewer protection to the political revolutionary, but has incorporated international human rights standards. Extradition law straddles the enforcement of criminal law, non-interference in the domestic affairs of another State and international human rights law. The article concludes by examining the demands of international human rights law for the trial in Turkey.

The present article traces the developments with respect to questions of admissibility of claims brought before the European Commission of Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights by private individuals. It would appear that over the years, the Commission and Court have dealt with an increasing number of cases, and have extended the scope of the infringement they permitted themselves to make on the domestic jurisdiction of states members to the European Convention of Human Rights.

The Rundu – Grootfontein Project, a project by which Namibia wants to divert waters of the Okavango river, may significantly affect the flow of that river through Botswana. The present paper discusses and tests rules of global and regional international watercourse law as to their applicability to the problems posed by the project. In this respect the UN Framework Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, as well as the Southern African Development Community Protocol on Shared Watercourses form the main focal point.

Little is known about the work of the Claims Resolution Tribunal for Dormant Accounts in Switzerland. Once the existence of dormant Holocaust era bank accounts was publicly acknowledged by the Swiss banks in 1997, the problem required resolution. This Tribunal was therefore created to establish ownership of the dormant accounts. The Claims Resolution Tribunal operates very much behind closed doors and its decisions have not been open to academic scrutiny and are unlikely to be available until the entire process is completed. Whilst justice may never be done for those carrying the monstrous legacy of the Holocaust, it is important to examine whether the Claims Resolution Tribunal is in fact righting the wrong done in respect of those who have struggled with the Swiss banks for many years to claim what is rightfully theirs. This article seeks to do this by scrutinising the inner workings of the Claims Resolution Tribunal and the various steps which a claimant must go through before his claim, is, if at all, accepted as valid. The experience of the Claims Resolution Tribunal in relation to Holocaust accounts and its role in the context of the various Holocaust era processes currently in the international arena is also examined in order to appraise its effectiveness as a means of belatedly doing justice.

This contribution deals with legal protection against violations of the European Convention on Human Rights at both the national as well as the international level. The conclusion is that the practice of the European Court of Human Rights is inadequate and that the protection in the Netherlands could be better. Several recommendations are made in order to improve the co-operation between Strasbourg and domestic institutions in the field of the protection of human rights.

The Dayton Accords of 1995 for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina provided for arbitration over the boundary line in the Brčko area of Bosnia. Arbitration took place between the Muslim and Croat Federation and the Republika Srpska. The Award of 14 February 1997 did not draw a boundary line but established an international interim supervisory regime. On 15 March 1998 the Arbitral Tribunal handed down a Supplemental Award which extended the interim regime pending further action by the Tribunal. The Final Award of 5 March 1999 establishes a permanent self-governing Brčko District government that is independent of the two entities. The Tribunal reserves the authority to revise its decision in case of a failure of either party to cooperate in the implementation of the new regime.