In September 2010, President Jakob Kellenberger of the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) summarized the conclusions of a two-year, internal ICRC study of changes that have occurred in the nature of armed conflict since the signing of the Geneva Conventions in 1949, and he also suggested how international humanitarian law (IHL) should respond to those changes. In a previous address marking the sixtieth anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, Kellenberger had observed that in the place of traditional conflicts between state-sponsored armies on a battlefield, modern conflicts frequently involve nonstate actors, such as terrorist groups—a development that has blurred the line between civilians and combatants, and created challenges for IHL. The ICRC study concluded that IHL generally provides a suitable legal framework for regulating armed conflict.

History is replete with examples where states have interfered with foreign exchange markets in order to influence exchange rates. The trade conflicts between the two world wars, for instance, were fought not only via the imposition of tariffs, but also via competitive devaluations. Since then, straightforward competitive devaluations have become a rare phenomenon; contemporary scenarios, in which exchange rate policies are criticized for their potentially protectionist impact, tend to be much more sophisticated. The exchange rate policy followed by China is certainly the outstanding, yet not exclusive, example. In recent years policymakers worldwide have criticized China for maintaining an undervalued real exchange rate as part of its strategy of export-led growth.

Under universal jurisdiction, any state in the world may prosecute and try the core international crimes— crimes against humanity, genocide, torture, and war crimes—without any territorial, personal, or national-interest link to the crime in question whenit was committed.The jurisdictional claim is predicated on the atrocious nature of the crime and legally based on treaties or customary international law. Unlike the regime of international criminal tribunals created by the United Nations Security Council and the enforcement regime of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the regime of universal jurisdiction is completely decentralized.

For many, the enactment of the European Union’s Treaty of Lisbon, with its range of significant human rights provisions, marks the EU’s coming of age as a human rights actor. The Lisbon Treaty inaugurated the legally binding character of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (EU Charter), enshrined a commitment to accede to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and, in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), identified human rights as a foundational value. These changes have already drawn comment as developments that “will change the face of the Union fundamentally,” that take the protection of rights in the EU “to a new level,” and that indicate that “the arguments for improving the status of human rights in EU law… have finally been heard. There is general agreement, in other words, that the EU has reached the high point of its engagement with human rights.

Will international law colonize the last bastion of sovereign discretion? As a matter of traditional doctrine, international law has had little to say about the citizenship practices of states and the terms on which states determine the boundaries of their memberships. Through much of the Westphalian era, states have been essentially unconstrained with respect to who gets citizenship and on what terms. Historically, citizenship status has been considered a matter of national self-definition, jealously insulated more as a matter of reflex than justification. Nationality has been equated with identity, in most cases coinciding with ethnic, religious, or other sociocultural community markers, which, in turn, have more or less mapped onto territorial spaces.

The somewhat surprising majority view in the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) assessing Kosovo's declaration of independence has some bearingon prospects for an eventual end to the bitter conflict between Kosovo and Serbia. It may also have some relevance for a variety of political movements around the world whose leaders might be more inclined than previously to tempt fate by declaring their people and territory to be internationally independent of the sovereign state within which they are now geographically located. Significantly,the ICJ majority sidestepped the question put to it by the General Assembly, in a move objectionable to the four dissenting judges,recasting it in such a way as to limit its response to whether Kosovo's declaration of independence, issued on February 17,2008, was “in accordance with international law” to the rather bland assertion that the declaration did not violate international law. The Court did not say, and explicitly ruled out any interpretation suggesting, that Kosovo's declaration was acceptable under international law, although by Lotus reasoning, what a state is not expressly prohibited from doing is permitted.3 The majority also expressed its view that the declaration was not to be viewed as decidingupon Kosovo's final status in world diplomacy.

Sovereign states have a responsibility not only to protect their own citizens, but also to protect— within their own territory—the rights and fundamental security interests of other states. Many states around the world, however, lack the resources to do so. Unable to exercise effective territorial control, these weak states frequently become safe havens for terrorist networks and other irregular groups. Yet the lack of such control is not the only reason for the existence of safe havens around the world; in some cases, the problem is not the host state's inability, but rather its unwillingness, to prevent irregular activity on its territory. The present article analyzes the challenges posed to the jus ad bellum resulting from both types of safe-haven scenarios: states that are unable, and those that are unwilling, to exercise control.

The International Court of Justice rendered two final decisions on the merits in 2010: in Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay (Argentina v. Uruguay) and Ahmadou Sadio Diallo (Republic of Guinea v. Democratic Republic of the Congo). The Court also issued an advisory opinion in Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Respect of Kosovo and an order finding Italy’s counterclaim inadmissible in Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v. Italy).

The contemporary world is witnessing an interesting and seemingly contradictory phenomenon. At the same time that globalization continues to develop, the World Trade Organization (WTO), itself a direct result of globalization, can make no progress in the negotiations on its Doha Development Agenda—a perceived further step of globalization. Since deeper integration cannot be achieved at the multilateral level, regional and especially bilateral arrangements for liberalizing trade and investment, most of which are in the form of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs), have become increasingly common. Notwithstanding their bilateral nature, FTAs are often referred to as regional arrangements (RTAs) since WTO members have an obligation to report such agreements to that multilateral system, where they are reviewed by the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements.

The right of self-determination has long been celebrated for bringing independence and self-government to oppressed groups, yet it remains a highly controversial norm of international law. From the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires after World WarI to the struggle of colonial territories for independence following World War II and the later dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, there has been an unavoidable conflict between the efforts of peoples to achieve independence and the demands of existing states to preserve their territorial integrity.

As the international community waited for the International Court of Justice (the Court) to deliver its advisory opinion of July 22, 2010, commentators wondered whether the Court would skirt difficult issues by adopting a narrow reading of the question put to it. While the Court's ruling in Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Respect of Kosovo did turn out to be limited, the opinion contributes significantly to the Court's jurisprudence on the legal effects of United Nations resolutions.

At 12:20 in the morning on Saturday, June 12, 2010, the Review Conference of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in Kampala, Uganda, adopted by consensus a comprehensive package of amendments on the crime of aggression. States parties to the Rome Statute thereby delivered on their promise, reflected in Article 5 (2) of the Statute, to define the crime of aggression and to agree on the conditions for the Court’s exercise of jurisdiction over that crime. Despite a thorough and more than decadelong preparatory process, few, if any, had predicted such a substantive outcome on the crime of aggression in light of the serious disagreements on major questions, which persisted until the last days of the conference. The key elements of the final package are a definition of the crime of aggression, which limits criminal responsibility to leaders who are responsible for the most serious forms of the illegal use of force between states, and a complicated set of conditions for exercising jurisdiction. Investigations would be based on either a Security Council referral or state consent.