For most international travellers by air the Warsaw Convention, if it impinges on their consciousness at all, probably only raises a faint association with limitation of liability and with warning notices in various sizes of print on a passenger's ticket or ticket envelope. Only the most serious dearth of alternative reading, lack of airport facilities or unusual curiosity would be likely to induce an air traveller to read all the conditions and notices on the ticket.

Historically and conceptually, EU law originates in the idea that member States have approved restrictions of national sovereignty in the interests of establishing a common market. In accordance with this idea, significant elaboration or extension of these restrictions must also be approved by the member States or at least by a majority of their representatives in the Council of the Union. The implication is not only that the development of the rules of the common market is dependent on the will of the member States. The further implication is that the rules of the common market and the rules of Union decision-making are separable, in the sense that the latter rules are not affected by the former rules. While such implications are ill-adapted to the pluralist tendencies of integration processes, particularly the participation of third States (that is, non-member States) in these processes, they are confirmed by the formal structure of the EC Treaty.

This article examines the problem of the law governing the validity of the arbitration agreement. The cases of Sulamérica in the English Court of Appeal and of FirstLink in the High Court of Singapore demonstrate that leading arbitration jurisdictions around the world can come to diametrically opposite results. In particular, there are currently diverging views as to whether the law applicable to the arbitration agreement should be the law chosen by the parties to govern their substantive legal relationship or the law of the seat of the arbitration. The issue is unlikely to be settled soon at international level. However, without embracing extreme approaches that purport to determine the validity of the arbitration agreement without reference to any national legal system, a more ‘transnational’ approach should be encouraged. This may emerge, based on three structured principles which would be desirable for international convergence, namely the non-discrimination principle, the estoppel principle and the validation principle. These principles can be developed without conflicting with the conventional conflicts-of-laws approach which was adopted by the English Court of Appeal in Sulamérica.

When adjudicating religious disputes, constitutional courts often resort to a particular discursive register. The notions ‘tolerance’ and ‘respect’ are an integral part of this religion-specific constitutional register. But what do judges mean when they deploy the language of tolerance and respect? And what substantive role, if any, do both notions play in the constitutional interpretation of religious freedom? This article seeks to answer these conceptual and substantive questions by comparing constitutional case law on religious freedom from India, Israel and the United States. It also provides linkages to ongoing processes of (alleged) constitutional retrogression in the three jurisdictions.

If from the imperfect evidence of foreign law produced before it, or its misapprehension of the effect of that evidence, a mistake is made by an English court, it is much to be lamented, but the tribunal is free from blame.1 The mistake to be lamented presently is the High Court decision in Yukos Capital Sarl v OJSC Rosneft Oil Co2 that a Dutch judgment3 gave rise to an issue estoppel in English proceedings, precluding a party from disputing as a fact the partiality and dependence of the Russian judiciary.4 The decision was a mistake because on a proper construction of Dutch law the significance of the Dutch judgment was—if anything—evidential, not preclusive.5 The outcome is lamentable, because a party was unduly shut out from litigation by the application of English preclusion law to a foreign judgment that was not preclusive in the jurisdiction where it was originally given.6

Trade marks remain hugely important for the economy of the Community. Enlargement has brought a steep increase in filings for the Community Trade Mark, and the new rate of applications seems likely to be maintained. As always, a balance must be struck between the Community's priorities, and those of the trade mark holder. Considerable harmonization of Community trade mark law has already been achieved by legislative means. There is an abundance of new case law, giving detailed and practical guidance for the interpretation of these measures. As a result, those using trade mark systems throughout the Community will benefit from increased consistency and depth of understanding in the application of the regime. The wider international scene will be given welcome recognition by the Community's accession to the Madrid Protocol. The Community's position on international exhaustion remains essentially unchanged, although the matter is still a controversial one.

The main reason for Article 18 being one of the most opaque provisions of the Vienna Convention is that it establishes a relatively vague ‘interim obligation’ for States to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of a treaty between its signature and ratification. Although the existence of such an interim obligation has been recognized by States and in various international legal regimes, it remains problematic since Article 18 neither defines nor determines its own contours and when and under which conditions it is being breached. It goes without saying that the legal consequences of a possible breach of this provision are left equally unclear. It remains uncertain how the interim obligation of Article 18 fits into the general international law of treaties; what its legal nature and temporal scope is; which role the principle of good faith plays as a possibly underlying principle of this provision; and how we should understand the object and purpose of a treaty and how it can be defeated. Furthermore, its apparent focus seems to be on bilateral rather than multilateral treaties, but this exclusive application of this interim obligation to bilateral treaties would contravene both the expressed and implied intent of the drafters. Therefore, this article also discusses how Article 18 fits within the normative system of international law and law-making treaties, such as human rights treaties.

It is often noted that few States recognize the seven national claims to Antarctic territory. Australia, one of the claimants, asserts title over 42 per cent of the continent and yet only four States have recognized its claim. Some States have expressly rejected Australia's claim. This article examines the legal significance of such widespread non-recognition. It does so through interrogating the evolution of the legal regime of territorial acquisition, its historical function and application to Antarctica, and relevant decisions of international courts and tribunals. The article identifies, and distinguishes amongst, several categories of non-recognition and considers the relevance of each. The analysis finds that the seemingly meagre level of recognition of Australia's title to the Australian Antarctic Territory does not detract from the validity of that title. This article points to possible reasons as to why a number of polar scholars may have suggested otherwise.

How was ‘international trade’ between former European empires and their former colonies in Africa governed after decolonisation? In the 1960s, the vast majority of African countries became independent, and so a new arrangement was necessary to govern their economic relations with Europe. The Yaoundé Conventions were then concluded between the European Community (EC) and the bloc of postcolonial African countries. Specialised literature provides comprehensive accounts of the Yaoundé Conventions. However, little is known about the role of law and lawyers in their making and governance. Part of this story concerns political and intellectual struggles in the legal profession about which projects, ideas, and norms would be applicable. Another part concerns the work of lawyers to organise those policies, theories and visions into an emerging conception and to employ it to influence the production and management of the Yaoundé Conventions. This article combines historical and socio-legal approaches to show that a distinct legal conception of regional trade agreements—called here the ‘development framework’—was pivotal to the design and application of the Yaoundé Conventions. This conception was primarily advanced and persuasively used by European and African lawyers. This contrasts with the conventional view that trade agreements are variations on a single legal concept. It is concluded that EC–Africa regionalism was a singular experiment, due significantly to the unique features of this legal conception.

This article evaluates the role of the UN General Assembly (‘UNGA’) and its subsidiary organs in acting as a catalyst for action at the International Criminal Court (‘ICC’). The power of the UN Security Council (‘UNSC’) to make a referral to the ICC has been increasingly challenged in recent years, due to the perceived misuse of the veto by permanent members and general failings to enforce international criminal law in the face of documented atrocities. Meanwhile, the UNGA and its subsidiary organs have exerted meaningful pressure on the UNSC through the creation of commissions of inquiry and country-specific resolutions. There is the possibility for the UNGA to engage in dialogue with the ICC through ‘quasi-judicial’ resolutions, in coordinating collective responses to a recalcitrant State and individual perpetrators and also through the possible assumption of a referral power. This analysis reveals that the UNGA has become increasingly active in international justice and holds the potential for an enhanced role in addressing the failings of the current UNSC-dominated paradigm governing UN–ICC relations, thereby facilitating States in ‘uniting against impunity’.