After seventy-two days of NATO's air campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia-Montenegro) (FRY), FRYPresident Slobodan Milošević on June 3, 1999 accepted an international peace proposal to end the conflict concerning Kosovo. The proposal was developed in Bonn after lengthy discussions between U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, EU envoy (and Finnish President) Martti Ahtisaari, and Russian envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin, and then presented to President Milosevic by President Ahtisaari and Mr. Chernomyrdin. Although it contained several elements previously unacceptable to the FRY, Mr. Milošević accepted the proposal due to a relentless bombing campaign against FRY tanks, artillery, and ground forces in Kosovo, as well as the destruction of oil refineries, bridges, and power stations elsewhere in Serbia; a resurgence of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) as a ground force; and the decision of Russia to find common ground with NATO prior to a regular meeting in early June of the seven leading industrial countries (Group of Seven or “G-7”) and Russia.

On December 16, 2016, President Obama signed into law the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act (FCEJICA). This act amends the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act (FSIA) in order to confirm the jurisdictional immunity of foreign states in connection with lending artwork to the United States for temporary exhibit. The FCEJICA contains two exceptions, described below, that introduce some uncertainty about the extent of protection the statute provides to foreign states.

The Sykes-Picot agreement is the foremost example of Western double-dealing in the Middle East since the discovery of oil. The agreement, formalized in an exchange of notes between the British Foreign Secretary and the French Ambassador to the United Kingdom in London, is named after its principal negotiators Sir Mark Sykes (1879-1919) and Georges-Picot (1870-1951). As one of several overlapping arrangements affecting the postwar settlement in West Asia secretly negotiated during the First World War, the agreement provided for the division of the region into spheres of influence comprised of nominally independent Arab states under the “tutelage” of British and French advisers.