In recent years, there has been a surge of private investment in space resources and the enactment of domestic legislation aimed at protecting property rights over the resources to be extracted. This article argues that the unilateral exploitation of space resources is not prohibited by the principle of non-appropriation and is consistent with the freedom of use for common benefit and interests, with the caveat that it does not exclude others from exploitation or exacerbate inequality among States. It also argues that a laissez-faire approach would be detrimental to the orderly, sustainable and safe exploitation and use of space resources and calls for the establishment of an international regulatory regime consisting of rules concerning international coordination, benefits sharing and environmental protection.

English conflict of laws is the creation of the common law. Prior to Britain's entry into the European Union, legislation played only a limited role. The few legislative measures concerning choice of law were narrowly targeted to remedy specific problems—for example the formal validity of wills, or torts. The rules for service outside the jurisdiction were a more important exception, but their practical operation largely depended on judge-made concepts and remedies, such as forum non conveniens and antisuit injunctions. The common law also provided a complete system for the recognition of foreign judgments that operated untrammelled with regard to judgments from many countries, including some of the most important, while the relevant legislation, where applicable, did little more than provide a simpler procedure.

Coping with refugees arriving by sea is a problem that has existed for a number of years.1 Throughout this period the crux of the matter has remained the same, reconciling the humanitarian plight of refugees and asylum-seekers with the destination States' concerns about illegal immigration, mass migrations of people, and the costs of asylum. The boarding of the Tampa by Australian SAS troops in August 2001, in order to prevent the disembarkation of 433 asylum-seekers on Christmas Island, has once again brought into sharp focus the acute tension created between competing legal norms, and between moral and legal considerations. What are the rights of vessels and people in distress under the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea and other maritime agreements? How do commercial considerations affect the obligation to assist those in distress at sea? What are the rights of refugees under the 1951 Refugee Convention and other human rights instruments? What are the powers of a coastal State to protect itself from threats to national security in its coastal waters? This article examines the legal obligations incumbent upon coastal States and flag States in respect of asylum-seekers rescued at sea and seeks to answer these questions. It goes on to suggest that the law in respect of search, rescue, and refuge is highly unsatisfactory because a number of key obligations are poorly defined and inadequately implemented. It alsoseems clear that insufficient weight is given to humanitarian considerations. Finally, consideration is given to possible solutions to the problem.

Critical to analysing the recent synthesis of criminal trial procedures is an understanding of the internationalisation of criminal law and procedure.1 As well as the creation of international tribunals2 to investigate and try crimes of world significance, there is emerging an international jurisprudence on criminal law (and procedural hybrids to support and develop this) which require integrated analysis.3

The last few decades have seen a substantial growth in what has become known as transnational commercial law, by which I mean that body of commercial law principles and rules, from whatever source, which is common to a number of legal systems. The various types of harmonisation fall broadly into four groups, each possessing its own implementing agency:

Governments have traditionally tended to place procurement contracts with domestic industry and this may distort the natural patterns of international trade, creating inefficiencies in the global economy. As global, regional and bilateral initiatives have met with increasing success in reducing trade barriers such as quantitative restrictions and tariffs, greater attention is now being focused on the remaining barriers, including closed government procurement.

In light of a recent shift in dialogue to hard law standards in the domain of business and human rights, this article provides an in-depth examination of the viability of a business and human rights treaty. It seeks to advance a valid theoretical model for a treaty that directly addresses non-State actors, explores the allocation of responsibility among multiple duty-bearers, and contemplates the scope, content, and enforcement of the potential obligations. By supplementing this analysis with analogies drawn from existing treaty regimes, the article aims to contribute positively to the normative development of international law in the field.

A growing opinion has appeared in refugee and human rights discourse that the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the European Convention) provides more extensive protection against refoulement than the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (the Refugee Convention). However, uncertainties remain as to whether the protection offered by the 1984 UN Convention against Torture (the Torture Convention) and the 1966 UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (the Political Covenant) may substitute, or, rather, reinforce, that of the European Convention. Which of these four instruments offers the greatest protection against a decision of refoulement from a European country? The answer to this question is far from being academic. The rule that an international organ may only be competent to consider an individual petition or communication provided “the same matter is not being examined under another procedure of individual investigation or settlement” is embodied in all three instruments providing a procedure for individual complaints. It is therefore crucial for an asylum-seeker to give his or her best shot first, even if, as rightly pointed out by Liz Heffernan, the Strasbourg organs and the Geneva organs are not in competition.1 This article will review the scope of protection afforded under the three of these treaties which provide an international enforcement mechanism to persons who have sought refugee status in the domestic jurisdiction.

This article compares and contrasts Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code with the UK administration procedure under the Insolvency and Enterprise Acts. It focuses in particular on who runs a company during the restructuring process—debtor-in-possession or management displacement in favour of an outside administrator. Various reasons have been given to explain the US/UK divergence in this respect including differences in entrepreneurial culture and differences in the lending markets in the two countries. The article suggests that the divergence cannot be reduced to a single factor but instead implicates a complex web of circumstances.

This article provides a holistic examination of the international legal frameworks which regulate targeted killings by drones. The article argues that for a particular drone strike to be lawful, it must satisfy the legal requirements under all applicable international legal regimes, namely: the law regulating the use of force (ius ad bellum); international humanitarian law and international human rights law. It is argued that the legality of a drone strike under the ius ad bellum does not preclude the wrongfulness of that strike under international humanitarian law or international human rights law, and that since those latter obligations are owed to individuals, one State cannot consent to their violation by another State. The article considers the important legal challenges that the use of armed drones poses under each of the three legal frameworks mentioned above. It considers the law relating to the use of force by States against non-State groups abroad. This part examines the principles of self-defence and consent, in so far as they may be relied upon to justify targeted killings abroad. The article then turns to some of the key controversies in the application of international humanitarian law to drone strikes. It examines the threshold for non-international armed conflicts, the possibility of a global non-international armed conflict and the question of who may be targeted in a non-international armed conflict. The final substantive section of the article considers the nature and application of the right to life in armed conflict, as well as the extraterritorial application of that right particularly in territory not controlled by the State conducting the strike.

On 17 March 2011 the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1973 authorizing member states to take forceful measures to protect Libyan civilians. Clearly NATO actions to protect civilians were within the mandate. But the authors claim that operations aiming at overthrowing the Qaddafi regime were illegal use of force. The overstepping of the mandate may have a negative effect on the credibility of the responsibility to protect in future gross human rights violations.

Far from being confined to its most obvious manifestations, such as in the right to be tried within a “reasonable time” guaranteed by Articles 5 and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, references to the notion of “reasonable” are found in a large variety of primary rules pronounced in both legal instruments and the case law.1

This article is an expanded and footnoted version of the lectur given at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law on Tuesday 21 March 2006, entitled ‘International Law in the European Court of Human Rights’.

The article begins with some comparative comments on the application of the European Convention on Human Rights in monistic and dualistic systems It then discusses in detail the European Court's case law which confirms that the Convention, despite its special character as a human rights treaty, is indeed part of public international law. It concludes that the Convention and international law find themselves in a kind of interactive mutual relationship. checking and buildine on each other.

I feel privileged to have been invited to deliver this yearřs FA Mann lecture in succession to a long line of distinguished lawyers who have paid their own tribute to one of the most outstanding German legal émigrés of the 1930s. Francis Mann became a legend in his lifetime for his profound scholarship and his expertise in international and commercial litigation. While still in Germany he had fallen under the spell of the legendary Martin Wolff, the great conflicts lawyer, with whom he was able to resume contact years later in England. Mann himself was to become a leading light in both private and public international law. He had strong views on everything, a few of them decidedly unorthodox. His work The Legal Aspect of Money became a classic, and he died in bed while correcting the proofs of the fifth edition. Happily, Charles Proctor has taken over the mantle of editing the sixth edition, which has now been published by Oxford University Press. Full details of the contributions to English law by Wolff, Mann and other outstanding German émigré lawyers will be found in a collection of essays in a fine new publication, Jurists Uprooted, edited by Sir Jack Beatson and Professor Reinhard Zimmerman.