This article examines the legacy of the ground-breaking judgment in Aydin v Turkey in which the European Court of Human Rights held that rape could constitute torture. Ten years on, it examines jurisprudential developments in the conceptualisation of torture in the specific context of the offence of rape. It is argued that while all rapes should be found to satisfy the minimum threshold for Article 3, rape does not per se satisfy the severity of harm criterion for torture. Nonetheless, where the severity of harm is established, the case is made that the purposive element of torture is satisfied in all cases of rape. Finally, in relation to the scope of State responsibility for rape, particularly by private individuals, the article suggests that while the Court's achievements in recognizing rape as a serious harm are considerable, there remain further avenues for jurisprudential development which would ensure that rape as a form of torture is recognized in a wider range of situations and circumstances than is currently the case.

This article makes two main propositions about the role of due diligence in international law, in response to recent interest in the topic. First, a legal requirement to exercise due diligence may be a component part of a primary rule of international law, but this can only be determined by referring back to the primary rule in question (eg what degree of fact-finding does treaty provision X require a State party to that treaty to undertake, either explicitly or implicitly, to act consistently with its terms?). In other words, there is no ‘general principle of due diligence’ in international law. Second, States undertake what could be characterised as ‘due diligence’ activity (eg by introducing policy guidance for their officials), some elements of which may be a result of a legal requirement and some of which may not (eg where done solely for policy reasons). Current practice of the United Kingdom and United States is used to illustrate the point. The lack of a distinction between the ‘legal’ and ‘non-legal’ elements of conduct in a given area gives States the flexibility to act without feeling unduly constrained by international law, and at the same time actually promotes compliance with international law and may assist in its development over time. In contrast, pushing for a ‘general principle of due diligence’ in international law is unnecessary, and risks having a chilling effect on this positive legal/policy ‘due diligence’ behaviour by States.

The proliferation of legal and normative standards regulating women's rights in conflict has been accompanied by concerns about their efficacy. The article examines the activities of the CEDAW Committee and the UN Security Council and considers how synergies might be advanced. The article finds that, while the Security Council has unique authority over UN system activities, sanctions and peacekeeping, the CEDAW Committee—as a human rights treaty monitoring body—possesses the more effective system of State accountability and the more robust commitment to women's equality and rights. The article proposes measures for the optimum interaction between both institutions in order to maximize overall accountability for women's rights in conflict.

A critical observer would not deny that the practice of European Union (‘EU’) policy making in the field of criminal law in the past decade since the implementation of the Tampere Programme has been mainly repressive and prosecution-oriented.1 The idea of introducing a set of common (minimum) rules, guaranteeing the rights of defence at a EU-wide level, has not been accorded the same attention as the introduction of instruments aimed at improving the effectiveness of crime-fighting. What does this mean for the future of EU criminal policy? Will the EU succeed in the coming years in developing an area where freedom, security and justice are truly balanced? According to several authors, to date the EU has evolved in the opposite direction. As one observer put it:

Protection of privacy is one of the areas most often claimed as having the potential for significant development as a result of incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights (“the Convention”). As is well known, English law lacks a general remedy for infringement of privacy per se: although the courts have lamented the lack of protection for private individuals (notably from the press), they have hitherto left it to Parliament to intervene. After flirtation with introducing either a specific statutory code applicable to intrusive journalistic activities or a general statutory tort of infringement of privacy, the Conservative government abandoned the idea altogether.1 Perhaps because of the lack of legislative concern (politicians, after all, have reasons of strong self-interest not to provoke the press), the judiciary has expressed renewed interest, at least through extra-judicial pronouncements2 and broad hints in one recent House of Lords decision that the time for reconsideration may be fast approaching.3

Though generally uncontroversial in England, the rules on pleading and proof of foreign law are nevertheless of interest from the comparative point of view by reason of the diversity of approaches found in different European countries. There is, moreover, a feeling on the part of some Continental lawyers that the English rules undermine the objectives of international and EU initiatives on conflict of laws and that the United Kingdom does not, therefore, fully carry out its international and EU obligations in this regard. These accusations have been levelled in particular with regard to the Rome Convention.1 In view of this, a comparative study of the different approaches in the main European countries might be timely; it might also provide an appropriate background for an examination of the question whether the Rome Convention requires any modification of the traditional English approach.

In the Six Day War in June 1967, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip came under Israeli military occupation, as well as the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. On 22 November that year, the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 242, which it was hoped would provide a route to a permanent peace. It seems clear that Resolution 242 now has binding force1 and that it is accepted by all parties today that Resolution 242 sets out the principles which must be applied in order to reach a settlement. The Resolution is recited in the preambles to the Oslo Accords.2 This means that, in addition, it is binding on Israel and the PLO by agreement.3

The use of terror to separate the ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina was a deeply tragic episode, with devastating effects on the lives of millions of people. Although the Dayton Agreement of December 1995 has brought a fragile peace to Bosnia and Herzegovina, it has done so at the cost of the division of its territory, its population and almost every aspect of civil life along ethnic lines. Two years into the peace process, the progress of return of refugees and displaced persons has been extremely disappointing. More than two million people—almost half the population—are still dispossessed of their homes. Some 600,000 of these are refugees abroad who have not yet found durable solutions, many of whom face the prospect of compulsory return into displacement within Bosnia and Herzegovina in the near future. Another 800,000 have been internally displaced to areas in the control of their own ethnic group, living in multiple occupancy situations, in collective centres or in property vacated by the displacement of others, often in situations of acute humanitarian concern. The fundamental issue for the future of the postwar society of Bosnia and Herzegovina is whether these people can or will return to their homes.

The protection offered to individuals by remedies in public law and tort law is developing in all jurisdictions. The past few years have witnessed an increasingly important European dimension to the tort liability of public authorities. European Union law and European Human Rights law have added to the constitutional protection of tort claims against public authorities already established as a matter of domestic law in many European countries.

The policy decision to replace the United Nations (UN) Commission on Human Rights (CHR) with a new UN Human Rights Council (HRC) was taken by governments at the September 2005 World Summit and adopted as a General Assembly (GA) resolution on 15 March 2006.1 This brought an end to the CHR's chequered 60-year history.2 The membership, structure and aims and procedures of the new HRC underwent months of intense discussion between States in the lead up to the adoption of this resolution. The purpose of this note is to explain the various proposals explored in the shaping of the HRC and the extent to which the resolution bringing it into being responded to weaknesses perceived in the CHR. Since almost every reference to the CHR came to be prefaced by the term ‘discredited’ since 2005, the question is to what extent the reasons for the loss of legitimacy in the CHR were actually addressed in the crafting of the new HRC.

International lawyers and courts consider the principle of systemic integration to be a potential answer to difficulties arising from the fragmentation of public international law. This article questions the application of this approach in the context of human rights treaties. It is argued, first, that in many instances, systemic integration raises serious interpretational and jurisdictional concerns and, second, that systemic integration may give rise to a less diverse international law.

As the European Court of Human Rights has come to qualify the privilege against self-incrimination and the right of silence in recent decisions, this article argues that the Court has failed to provide a convincing rationale for these rights. It is claimed that within the criminal process the right of silence should be distinguished from the privilege against self-incrimination and given enhanced effect in order to uphold the protective and participatory rights of the defence which come into play when a suspect is called upon to answer criminal allegations.

The role of the UN and the legitimacy of its collective security system have been seriously challenged in recent years. First, because of the Security Council.s failure to act in cases of genocide or other humanitarian disaster. There has been much criticism of the limited and delayed response of the Security Council to events in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda, somewhat unfairly in so far as it was the lack of political will on the part of the Member States rather than any institutional failure that was responsible for the failure to act. Secondly, the UN's central role in collective security has been undermined by unilateral use of force by States. After the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 the UN was sidelined with regard to the forcible response against Afghanistan: in Operation Enduring Freedom the USA preferred not to act through the UN or even through NATO. Subsequently, the US National Security Strategy (September 2002) famously made no mention of the UN as a means of addressing perceived new threats from global terrorists. Most seriously, the US Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 was undertaken unilaterally, that is, without express Security Council authorization.1 This was often portrayed as a crisis of legitimacy for the UN as much as for the USA and the States which participated in the invasion. As the Deputy Secretary-General put it recently:

The dispute between Hungary and Slovakia concerning the Gabcïkovo-Nagymaros project could easily be described as one of the most important cases to come before the International Court of Justice (“the Court”) in recent years. The case raised a number of very important questions of international law, many of which had received no previous consideration in the Court's jurisprudence. In the first place, the Court was asked by both parties for orders of specific performance. Although the competence of the Court to issue orders of specific performance or injunctive relief had been the subject matter of much discussion in the academic literature, the issue had never before been raised squarely before the Court. Second, this was the first dispute in which the Court was directly asked to consider the consequences of the legal developments in the field of environmental protection. Despite the proliferation of treaty developments in that field, the status of many of those norms remains problematic Third, although the relationship between the law of treaties and the law of State responsibility has generated much general interest, the Court had not in the past been presented with an opportunity to pronounce on some of these issues. Finally, this is also one of the few cases in which the Court has been asked to consider the legal implications of State succession outside the context of decolonisation.