This article offers a systematic analysis of the plenary Chamber of the French Cour de Cassation's final decision in the Baby Loup case which held that a private nursery had acted lawfully when requiring an employee to remove her jilbab at work, in accordance with the religious neutrality requirements of the nursery's policy. The article examines the decision in light of ECHR and French domestic legal requirements. First, it is argued that laïcité—rightly held to be irrelevant—still unduly taints the reasoning. As a result, proportionality and anti-discrimination provisions are not properly applied. Secondly, the decision is compared and contrasted with recent ECtHR cases, notably Eweida and Others v UK. It is argued that a Baby Loup-type restriction does not meet ECHR standards. Additionally the margin of appreciation, used by the ECtHR to save the French ban on the full-covering of the face in the SAS case, should not, as will be demonstrated, come into play in a Baby Loup context.

This article is an examination of the merits of permitting the exercise of party autonomy in choice of court and choice of law in respect of the personal and patrimonial aspects of adult relationships. It provides a commentary on the party autonomy provisions of EU harmonization instruments, actual and proposed, in family law. The treatment considers the particular issues of drafting which arise from the specialties of family law, and ponders whether or not the refinements required render the exercise of permitting party autonomy self-defeating.

The Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance entered into force on 8 June 1991. Its purpose is to incorporate into the law of Hong Kong the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“the ICCPR”) as applied to Hong Kong. Being one of the first occasions where the ICCPR has been given direct legal force in a common law jurisdiction, the Hong Kong experience will provide an interesting case study on how an international human rights instrument is received and interpreted in domestic law. Indeed, shortly after the coming into operation of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance, the late Professor Opsahl predicted that it would give the ICCPR, and by implication the Human Rights Committee, a potential impact on the Hong Kong domestic legal system which could hardly be expected in other countries. He even suggested that, in dealing with matters which the Human Rights Committee has not yet considered, the interpretation of the Hong Kong courts in applying the Bill of Rights may provide a useful supplement to international human rights law. The Bill of Rights Ordinance is now seven years old. This article will address two issues: first, the impact international and comparative jurisprudence has had on the interpretation of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights and, second, the contribution the Hong Kong jurisprudence on the Bill of Rights has or could have made to the development of international and comparative human rights law.

Asymmetric jurisdiction clauses are clauses which contain different provisions regarding jurisdiction for each party. They are widely used in international financial markets. However, the validity of this form of agreement has been called into doubt in several European jurisdictions. Furthermore, following Brexit, there may well be an increasing focus on alternative methods of enforcement under the Hague Convention and at common law, claims for damages and anti-suit injunctions. As well as considering recent developments in the case law and the implications of Brexit, this article will emphasize that all of these questions can only be answered after the individual promises contained in any particular agreement are properly identified and construed. Once that is done, there is no reason why the asymmetric nature of a clause should be a bar to its enforcement.

It is my intention to appeal to scholars of a younger generation to undertake research on the thesis which, on the basis of my experience at the International Court of Justice–and I have been a serving Member for almost a quarter of a century–I shall be presenting in this paper. In my view, one subject missing from contemporary studies on the function and work of the International Court of Justice is a pragmatic examination of the manner in which certain contentious cases presented to the International Court of Justice have disappeared from view and of whether a judgment, once handed down, has actually been complied with by the parties to the dispute.

In its August 2019 decision in Portillo Cáceres v Paraguay, the Human Rights Committee recognised, for the first time, the existence of a connection between environmental protection and the right to life with dignity. This is not only a landmark decision for the Committee but also represents the consolidation of a body of case law and practice from the three regional human rights courts and other UN human rights bodies which has developed over the last quarter of a century. It also shows the potential of two important and widely debated paragraphs in the newly adopted General Comment No. 36 on the Right to Life, which describe environmental degradation as both an enabler of threats and a direct threat to the right to life. Such potential has been confirmed in another landmark decision of the HRC—Teitiota v New Zealand, relating to climate change as threat to life. This article draws on Portillo Cáceres v Paraguay and Teitiota v New Zealand to analyse this wider field of practice in order to clarify the connection between the right to life and environmental protection, as recognised by the Committee, and considers its potential impact on future litigation.

The UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage 2001 came into force in 2009, providing a much-needed international legal framework for the protection of underwater cultural heritage (UCH). This article explores the reasons why the UK has neglected to ratify the Convention and why accession should now be prioritized. In doing so, the article reconciles the UK's stance with the agreement; moving the State into a position where it can reconsider ratification. In this context, it examines the definition of UCH and the purpose of the Convention, the extension of sovereign immunity for wrecked warships, and the likelihood of creeping coastal State jurisdiction beyond the competences conferred by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. This transformative analysis moves forward the debate on these issues and is of international significance to States that have been similarly hesitant to ratify the Convention until now.

To assist effective legal co-operation in combating criminal activity, the Justice and Home Affairs Council of the European Union has recently concluded two new conventions to simplify and improve extradition procedures between member States of the European Union. In doing so, the Council set in motion a process whereby existing arrangements for extradition were examined with a view to making them more flexible. In 1995 the Council recommended that the convention on simplified extradition be adopted in order to fulfil the aim of efficiency in the field of criminal justice. Its aim was to speed up extradition in cases where persons consented to be extradited. However, after further discussion concerning other aspects of extradition the Council eventually recommended that member States adopt far more radical procedures. The 1996 convention relating to “involuntary” extradition between member States appears to bypass several procedures designed to offer a degree of protection for the fugitive offender. Traditionally, extradition procedures have sought to offer a balance between judicial co-operation in the fight against crime and protecting the fundamental rights of the individual, and these concerns are acknowledged within the preambles to both the new EU conventions. However, the new conventions make several alterations to what can be regarded as established extradition procedures. In this article we examine these new procedures and consider whether the balance has shifted too far in favour of law enforcement at the expense of fundamental legal protections.

This article discusses the European Commission's and European Court of Justice's control of member States' privatisation operations under the State aid and free movement rules. In particular, it is concerned with the question whether and to what extent such control is compatible with the EC Treaty' s “neutrality” towards member States' choices as to the private or public character of their national economies.

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.