A long time ago hens did not lay white or brown eggs but eggs in primary colours: red, yellow and blue. Since, depending on the colour of the eggs, their taste and quality varied, the farming industry split into red, yellow and blue industries catering for different markets. Those industries that dealt with the respective eggs became over the years highly competitive. And what was initially no more than a common understanding, namely, that hens laying red eggs belonged to the red industry, while hens laying blue and yellow eggs belonged to the blue and yellow industries, turned over the years into customary egg law, with each industry having its clearly demarcated area of competence. As it happened, due to interbreeding, some hens normally laying, for example, red eggs would very occasionally lay purple eggs or orange eggs. Also on occasion, some hens would stop altogether from laying eggs of a primary colour, but would lay orange, purple, brown or green eggs. These eggs and hens presented a problem, albeit not a severe one, as they remained very much the exception. Hens laying blue eggs were kept apart from hens laying red eggs and from those laying yellow eggs. Nevertheless, solutions to these problematic eggs and hens had to be found.

As mentioned in the previous note1 the Amsterdam Treaty significantly alters the treaty structure as regards the free movement of persons. The EC treaty now has, as one of its formal activities as set out in article 3(1)(d), “measures concerning the entry and movement of persons as provided for in Title IV”. The creation of a new Title IV in the EC Treaty on establishing an area of freedom, security and justice moves a corpus of subject matter2 from the inter-governmental pillar on Justice and Home Affairs to the Treaty of Rome. The aim clearly set out is to establish, within five years, all the measures necessary to create “an area without frontiers” in accordance with Article 143 together with “flanking measures with respect to external board of controls of asylum and immigration” as well as “measures to prevent and combat crime in accordance with the provisions of Article 31 (e) of the Treaty on European Union”.4 Co-operation between the Member States is also to be strengthened and encouraged5 as well as measures in the field of police and judicial co-operation in criminal matters though the latter is in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty on the European Union.6

Three Korean women won $75,000 in damages in a libel action against the American-owned Newsweek, Inc. in Seoul for publication of a defamatory photo and a caption in the Pacific edition of Newsweek. A Singapore judge awarded former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore and two others a §678,000 damage award against the International Herald Tribune, owned by the New York Times Co. and the Washington Post Co., for libel relating to an editorial-page column about the “dynastic politics” in the island nation.

In this paper, I shall attempt to take a practical view of some of the issues which the common law courts will be facing in the coming months, in granting remedies under the Human Rights Act 1998. I shall be looking at these issues from the viewpoint of a judge, sitting regularly in judicial review cases, and also as Chairman of the Law Commission, which has for many years taken full account of the Convention in its law reform proposals. Notwithstanding the width of the title, I shall concentrate on remedies in damages, since that is the area to which the Law Commission's work has been mainly directed in recent times. I shall be referring to the recent LCD Consultation Paper on proposed rules under the Act.1 I shall steer clear of the difficult subject of the “declaration of incompatibility”, which has been fairly described as “not a legal remedy but a species of booby prize…”.2

Whilst the political aspects of Cyprus's membership to the European Union have become the main focus of academic analysis over the years, its trade relations with the Member States have raised issues just as interesting from a legal point of view. This has been illustrated quite recently by the Anastasiou II judgment delivered by the European Court of Justice in 2000. The article aims at highlighting some of these issues. It is structured in three parts: the first part outlines the provisions of the EC–Cyprus Association Agreement governing trade between the parties; the second part analyses the Court's first ruling on imports of certain produce from the northern part of Cyprus;1 the third part examines the recent judgment of the Court on imports of produce which, whilst originating in the northern part of Cyprus, are being accompanied by phytosanitary certificates issued by the Turkish authorities.