Debates surrounding the second Iraq war have prompted a range of commentators to diagnose the death of the law on the use of force, to call for its adaptation to the globalization of threats and the problem of so-called failed States, or to assert the need to defend the UN Charter framework. In this article, we look behind the shrill rhetoric of the post-invasion commentary and invite a sober assessment of the current situation. Our aim is not to evaluate in detail the legality of the Iraq war. Others have done so thoroughly.1 Rather, we are interested in exploring whether we are truly at a turning point for international norms and institutions governing the use of force. If we do confront a ‘fork in the road’, as suggested by Kofi Annan in his address to the UN General Assembly on 23 September 2003,2 what changes to legal institutions and structures are required, and what new claims should we resist?

I am deeply conscious of the fact, as I consider the subject of torture, that I have led a very sheltered life. I have never been tortured. I have never seen anybody being tortured. Nor have I ever met anyone who has undergone this dreadful practice. But I cannot say that I have never met anyone who has had anything to do with it. The Cyprus emergency was at its height during my period of national service. My attempt to persuade the military authorities that my knowledge of classical Greek was a suitable qualification for me to be sent to the island to act as an interpreter was unsuccessful. I was sent instead to serve with an infantry battalion in the British Army of the Rhine in West Germany. I did not think so at the time as we endured one of the coldest winters in living memory in Nordrhein-Westphalia, but I was to discover later that this may well have been the better option. When I went up to university I met someone who had indeed been sent to Cyprus. He had acted as an interpreter when Greek Cypriot members of the Eoka organization were being interrogated. Conscious of the constraints of the Official Secrets Act, he never revealed to me the details of what was done to them during this process. But I had the distinct impression, as we talked, that he had been revolted by it and that things were done which were and would always remain a scar on his memory.

For 70 years the 1929 Warsaw Convention,1 which came into force in 1933, governed supreme, in its numerous permutations, virtually all international carriage of passengers, baggage and cargo throughout the world and, thanks to voluntary adoption by States, also much of their domestic carriage, albeit with modifications. It was not until 1999 that nations concluded at Montreal the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air2 designed to replace it. The latter came into force on 4 November 2003, by coincidence also 70 years after the entry into force of Warsaw.3 A new era in the law of international carriage by air has begun.

As with other legal systems based on a separation of powers, the World Trade Organization is marked by a degree of tension between its political organs and its quasi-judicial organs, in particular the Appellate Body. In late 2000 this tension spilled out into the public domain, when the Appellate Body announced a procedure for the filing of amicus curiae briefs in the EC-Asbestos case.1 The question of public participation in WTO dispute settlement proceedings is sensitive to many WTO Members, and in expressly encouraging the submission of amicus briefs in this way the Appellate Body was felt to be overstepping its functions.2 In the end, this dispute settled with a draw, the Appellate Body deciding that it had no need to consider any of the amicus briefs submitted in that particular case, and yet still maintaining that panels and the Appellate Body have the right to take unsolicited amicus briefs into account, should they so choose.

Fortunately it is still startling, in this country, to find a person held indefinitely in executive custody without accusation of crime or judicial trial. Executive imprisonment has been considered oppressive and lawless since John, at Runnymede, pledged that no free man should be imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, or exiled save by the judgment of his peers or by the law of the land, (per Jackson J, Shaughnessy v United States ex rel Mezei 345 US 206 (1953))

The raison d'être of ASEAN was a political one,1 to secure the region's peace, stability, and development. Against all odds, the founding members, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand signed the ASEAN Declaration on 8 August 1967. Brunei was admitted in January 1984, Vietnam in 1995, which was followed closely by Laos and Myanmar in 1997. Thirty-two years later, on 30 April 1999, ASEAN formally encompassed all ten countries of South-East Asia by admitting Cambodia.2

The subject of this article is the current state of administrative law in the context of the European integration. It will indicate the prospects for development of administrative law offered by the Convention on the Future of Europe, and its proposed European Constitution, as well as the enlargement of the EU which has taken place. The focus is on rules and general principles of European administrative law. They constitute the main sources of administrative law—written rules as well as unwritten judge-made law, and both the development of these sources and their mutual influence are subjects of the present article.

Images of widespread looting were the first to come from Baghdad following the entry of US forces into the Iraqi capital city in April 2003. In particular, it is hard to forget the powerful images of smashed display cases, empty vaults, and desperate staff in the Iraqi National Museum. Worse still, the National Library was burnt down. The looting of the Iraqi National Museum took place between 8 April, when the security situation prompted staff to leave the museum, and 12 April when some of them managed to return. Despite early pleadings with US forces to move a tank to guard the museum gates, US tanks did not arrive until 16 April.1 Cynics would say that the protection of the Oil Ministry appeared to take priority at the time.2 Early reports estimated that around 170,000 items went missing from the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad.3 This figure was completely exaggerated and the Bogdanos enquiry established that over 13,000 items had been stolen and about 3,000 recovered by September 2003.4 This article seeks to determine to what extent the US can be held legally responsible for the looting, and then to examine the international legal framework in place to facilitate the recovery and return of the items stolen from the Iraqi National Museum and other Iraqi cultural institutions

The European Union's 1999 Financial Services Action Plan (the FSAP), an ambitious reform agenda of forty-two measures, was designed to provide the regulatory underpinning for a single deep and liquid capital market, in which pan-EU market actors are regulated by their home Member State under harmonized rules. This single capital market would lower the cost of capital, unlock funding sources for companies, and increase returns on savings, while widening choice and stimulating competition in the pan-EU financial services industry. After a surge of legislative activity over the last months of 2003 and through early 2004, the FSAP is on track for timely completion in mid-2004, as called for by the March 2003 Brussels European Council. The closing of the current session of the European Parliament in spring 2004, combined with a sharp political focus on the financial markets post-Enron and in the wake of Parmalat, has concentrated EU attention both inter-institutionally and in the market place on delivery of the outstanding measures.1 With the adoption of the cornerstone Financial Instruments Markets Directive in April 2004, the FSAP is now, in large part, complete. Implementation should be achieved across the EU by 2006.

Trade marks remain hugely important for the economy of the Community. Enlargement has brought a steep increase in filings for the Community Trade Mark, and the new rate of applications seems likely to be maintained. As always, a balance must be struck between the Community's priorities, and those of the trade mark holder. Considerable harmonization of Community trade mark law has already been achieved by legislative means. There is an abundance of new case law, giving detailed and practical guidance for the interpretation of these measures. As a result, those using trade mark systems throughout the Community will benefit from increased consistency and depth of understanding in the application of the regime. The wider international scene will be given welcome recognition by the Community's accession to the Madrid Protocol. The Community's position on international exhaustion remains essentially unchanged, although the matter is still a controversial one.

The decision by the Court of Appeal in Lewis v Eliades1 dealt for the first time in the English courts with the question of whether a foreign judgment regularly obtained and otherwise enforceable by common law action, could be enforced in England where a part of the judgment was for treble damages

This case deals with the use of the English law anti-suit injunction in combination with the Brussels Convention.2 That Convention has since been replaced by the so-called Brussels I Regulation.3 The Regulation kept the structure and basic rules of the Convention so that this judgment will stay effective and the rule established by it will apply equally under the Regulation.