Increasing international economic interdependence is obviously becoming a growing challenge to governments, which are frustrated by their limited capacities to regulate or control cross-border economic activities. Many subjects trigger this frustration, including interest rates, various fraudulent or criminal activities, product standards, consumer protection, environmental issues and prudential concerns for financial services. Although it has been said that “all politics is local,” it has also been said, with considerable justification, that “all economics is international.”

What is the governing law for loan agreements entered into by the World Bank and other multilateral development banks (MDBs) in carrying out their public sector lending? That question was first definitively addressed about thirty-five years ago. This article examines the question anew, against the backdrop of recent developments in practice, especially at the newest of the MDBs, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

In response to a request from the court to the Legal Adviser of the Department of State, by a letter dated November 29, 1995, the United States submitted a Statement of Interest in Meridien International Bank Ltd. v. Government of the Republic of Liberia. The United States stated that the executive branch had determined that allowing the (second) Liberian National Transitional Government (LNTG II) access to American courts was consistent with U.S. foreign policy. The court, the United States maintained, should therefore accord that Government standing to assert claims and defenses in the action on behalf of the Republic of Liberia.

The Bosnia Proximity Peace Talks at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, took place from November 1 to 21, 1995, and ended with the initialing of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (GFA) and several of the annexed or related instruments by representatives of the principal states parties to the conflict in Bosnia: the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The initialing was witnessed by representatives of the European Union and the five states members of the Contact Group on Bosnia. In addition, all of the twelve instruments annexed to the GFA were also initialed or otherwise endorsed on behalf of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska. The GFA and these instruments were formally signed in Paris on December 14, and thereby immediately entered into force.

On September 20, 1986, the contracting parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947 (GATT 1947) agreed to launch an eighth round of multilateral trade negotiations known as the Uruguay Round. More than seven years later they concluded the round, not with an amended version of the GATT 1947, but with an entirely new treaty, the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization.

This Note briefly analyzes the judicial work of the International Court of Justice from November 1994 until December 1995,’ deriving the Court’s current record from the updated General List, pleadings filed, orders and judgments given, and hearings held at the Peace Palace.