This paper outlines recent developments in regional cooperation within the Gulf of Guinea region leading to the recent establishment of the Gulf of Guinea Commission. The huge interest generated among the major oil-producing multinational corporations, the newer independent producers and the participating States in the Gulf of Guinea necessitates a critical assessment of the Treaty Establishing the Gulf of Guinea Commission. This paper adopts a comparative analysis with pre-existing regional and institutional bodies having similar aims and objectives. The aim is to ascertain whether and to what extent the emergent regime can facilitate a sustainable and responsive regime for the anticipated explosion of exploitative activities in this resource-rich and strategic littoral zone. This paper, thus, places the existing regime in the context of international best practices for multinationals and governments involved in oil and gas exploration and production. The author identifies certain imperatives for the consideration of both the corporate and sovereign interests in the world's newest resource Eldorado.

Litigation involving individuals and entities whose financial assets have been frozen and whose names have been blacklisted in the fight against terrorism is on the rise around the world. However, the global ‘securitization’ of terrorism has rendered court performance of judicial review and the provision of remedies in these cases more difficult. What the main judicial challenges are, the need to overcome them, and how they can be overcome, are identified in this article as questions of central concern in an effort to secure the human right of effective access to justice for persons subjected to counter-terrorism sanctions. Special attention is given to the specific challenges facing the Court of Justice in the European Communities, the manner in which it has responded, and outstanding issues.

This article studies the normative activity developed by the Security Council (SC) in recent years, particularly in the fight against terrorism. This legislative activity has aroused a great deal of controversy both among scholars and the States. Is the SC acting ultra vires? Has it revealed a new form of creating of international norms, which overrides definitively States' consent as the only material source of international law? This contribution tries to answer these questions by investigating the scope of the SC powers in the Charter, their historical background and the reaction of UN Member States towards its Resolutions. After this analysis, it is submitted that the SC does have a legislative capacity, but with important legal, political and practical limits.

The huge rise in the settlement of investment disputes by treaty has provoked an underlying question of great practical and theoretical importance: the relationship between the substantive standards protected in such treaties and general international law. This paper argues that the relationship is symbiotic: custom informing the content of the treay right; and State practice under investment treaties contributing to the development of general international law. It is the structured process of treaty interpretation which determines when and how reference to general international law may be made. Practice in this field supports a broader modern phenomenon, in which ‘general principles of law common to civilized nations’ may be informed not only by common principles of domestic law, but also by general principles of international law itself.