Judgments of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and awards of ad hoc arbitration tribunals carry special weight in international maritime boundary law. On its face, the international maritime boundary law codified in the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea is indeterminate. For the continental shelf and the exclusive economic zone, the legal obligation of coastal states is to delimit the boundary “by agreement on the basis of international law, as referred to in Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, in order to achieve an equitable solution.” The article on the delimitation of maritime boundaries in the territorial sea is no more determinative despite the fact that it makes direct references to the equidistant line, special circumstances and historic title. In spite of this indeterminacy, if not because of it, coastal states have found that third-party dispute settlement procedures can effectively resolve maritime boundary delimitation disputes. As a consequence, there are more judgments and awards on maritime boundary disputes than on any other subject of international law, and this trend is continuing.

The decision of the United States Supreme Court in Republic of Argentina v. Weltover, Inc. is an invitation to reassess the impact of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) upon public debt litigation. In contrast with other activities of foreign states, which have been the object of extensive and continuing litigation, barely two dozen cases involving public debt disputes have been reported since the FSIA took effect. Whether this situation is attributable to the care with which transnational loan documents are usually drafted or to some other reasons, including possibly the contemporary tendency to rely on debt rescheduling as a means of remedying difficult situations, is an interesting matter of speculation. Whatever the explanation for the relatively limited number of public debt cases, Weltover can be expected to have a decisive impact upon future litigation.

For more than two decades, historians of the United States have energetically debated the relative importance of liberalism and republicanism in the 1770s and 1780s. Was the late eighteenth century a time of progress, and events culminating in the ratification of the Constitution a triumph for individual rights and liberal society, as convention held? Or was it a time of decay, and the events of the founding a renewal of citizen virtue in defense of the common good? Political theorists and constitutional scholars joined the debate, extending it beyond the founding and noting its relevance to our own time. Everyone agreed that liberalism eventually prevailed, more or less completely, for better or for worse. Just when it did so, and why, were questions always asked but never satisfactorily answered as the debate ran its course.

By two circular notes, both dated December 22, 1993, the Secretary of State informed the Chiefs of Mission at Washington,,first, of recently enacted congressional legislation related to nonpayment of parking fines or penalties owed to the District of Columbia, and second, of a new policy with respect to payment of parking tickets, effective January 1, 1994, that the Department of State had initiated in response to congressional concerns about the problem and in cooperation with the District of Columbia.

At the forty-eighth session of the General Assembly, the Sixth (Legal) Committee reviewed the annual reports of the International Law Commission (ILC), the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), the Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization (Special Committee), and the Committee on Relations with the Host Country (Host Country Committee). The Sixth Committee also considered proposals for two new legal instruments relating to (1) the jurisdictional immunities of states and their property, and (2) the safety and security of United Nations personnel. Other items covered by the committee included a proposal to request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on questions regarding extraterritorial jurisdiction, as well as topics concerning international terrorism, economic relations, procedural aspects of the United Nations Administrative Tribunal and the United Nations Decade of International Law (Decade).

Two of the most significant events of the 1980s were the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent reunification of Germany. Since the beginning of the 1990s, however, the euphoria that greeted these events has given way to concern as Germany adopts measures to deal with the realities of reunification against a background of general political and economic instability in the former Communist states of Eastern and southeastern Europe. Of the many post-reunification problems, the influx of refugees into Germany has predominated.

The fourth informal meeting of the heads of offices responsible for international legal services of the foreign ministries of the member states of the United Nations (the Legal Advisers) took place at UN headquarters in New York on October 25 and 26, 1993. The meeting, like the previous three, was organized at the invitation of the Legal Advisers of Canada, India, Mexico, Poland and Sweden, and with the assistance of the Legal Counsel of the United Nations, Under-Secretary-General Carl-August Fleischhauer. Forty-eight Legal Advisers and thirteen of their deputies attended, together with nearly fifty other interested participants, including the chairman of the Sixth Committee, María del Lujan Flores, the chairman of the International Law Commission, Julio Barboza, the Secretary-General of the Asian-African Legal Consultative Committee, Frank X. Njenga, a representative from Switzerland and a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Representatives of all five permanent members of the Security Council were present.