In 2001 the European Commission (‘the Commission’) published a long-expected White Paper entitled ‘European Transport Policy for 2010: Time to Decide’1 where it set out its vision for the transport industry for the immediate future. In the section dealing with the enlarged Europe and the globalisation of transport the Commission noted that:

Since 1998, a war has ravaged one of Africa's largest countries, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (‘DRC’). Africa's ‘Great War’ is said to have involved nine national armies and an unknown number of militia groups, and has reportedly claimed more lives than any other in the last four years. Estimates of the death toll range from 3 to 3.5 million. On 28 May 2002, the DRC instituted proceedings before the International Court of Justice (‘the Court’) against Rwanda alleging ‘massive, serious and flagrant violations of human rights and international humanitarian law’, and requested certain provisional measures.2 On 10 July 2002, the Court rejected the DRC’s request for provisional measures, as it considered that it did not have prima facie jurisdiction to determine the merits of the case.3 However, the Court also rejected Rwanda's request that the case be removed from the list, as the Court considered that its lack of jurisdiction was not ‘manifest’.4 This note reviews the history of the conflict and the litigation, before considering the DRC's request for provisional measures and the grounds of jurisdiction upon which it sought to rely. The Order is then analysed, and this note concludes that the Court was right to reject the DRC's request, but it should have gone further and removed the case from the list.

Belgium has now become the second jurisdiction worldwide, after the Netherlands,1 to allow same-sex marriages. The bill opening marriage to persons of the same-sex and modifying certain provisions of the Civil Code2 was adopted by a large majority and without modification by the Belgian parliament on 30 January 2003. While the new law was promulgated by King Albert II on 13 February 2003 and published in the third edition of the Moniteur beige on 28 Febuary3, it did not enter into force until 1 June 2003. This somewhat unusual time delay was required to ensure that all officials with competence to celebrate marriages (officiers de I' état civil) had sufficient time to become familiar with the scope of the new rules.4

The World Summit on Sustainable Development took place in Johannesburg from 26 August to 4 September 2002. Its intended purpose was to hold a ten-year review of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (Rio Summit) in order to rein-vigorate the global commitment to sustainable development.1 Perhaps attempting to duplicate the products of other international meetings, national governments agreed to negotiate and adopt two documents: the Johannesburg Declaration2 and the Plan of Implementation3 However, differences emerged over the binding nature of the instruments and if so, the strength of the obligations therein. It appeared that this tension spilled over to all the negotiations. Some countries pushed for concrete timetables, reiterating other goals stipulated in previous international declarations or decisions, while other countries, weary of taking on new commitments that are unlikely to be met, preferred a more soft-law declaratory approach.

The worldwide repercussions of the Enron collapse have placed the effectiveness of the EC's system of securities and investment services market regulation, particularly with respect to disclosure, market transparency, and auditor independence, under a harsh spotlight.1 But the regime was already undergoing a sea change that may have longstanding repercussions for how EC securities and investment services markets are regulated. In particular, sweeping changes have been made to the way in which EC securities and investment services measures are adopted. These changes have set the stage for a dramatic change in the detail, regulatory sophistication, and degree of intervention in Member States' system of the EC securities and investment services regime. They have not, however, required a Treaty revision but are based on the comitology process for delegated law making.

The decision by the High Court of Australia in Dow Jones & Co Inc v Gutnick,1 one of the first decisions by a final court of appeal on transnational online defamation, handed down on 10 Dec 2002, deals with the contentious issue of whether and, if so, when online publishers have to comply with the defamation laws of foreign States. The decision has been labelled a ‘dangerous precedent’ and an ‘extraordinary judgment’2 by the British press. But is it indeed either?

On 10 October 2002 the International Court of Justice gave its decision on the merits in the case brought by the Republic of Cameroon against the Federal Republic of Nigeria over their land and maritime boundary. The judgment, which addresses a number of issues of general international law concerning maritime boundaries and territorial sovereignty, as well as providing a detailed treatment of the particular facts, concludes a case that began in 1994 and has had an unusual history. As this background had a significant bearing on the eventual outcome, a brief recapitulation may be useful.

As the legal basis for the military action against Iraq references are made to Security Council resolutions 678 (1990), 687 (1991), 1441 (2002).

In our view the above-mentioned resolutions considered in their entirety and in combination with other resolutions on Iraq, official statements of States on their interpretation and provisions of the UN Charter which were the basis for their adoption, show that the Security Council did not authorise Member States in this case to use force against Iraq.

On 17 December 2002 the International Court gave its judgment in a dispute over two small islands in the Celebes Sea claimed by both Indonesia and Malaysia. The islands in question, Ligitan and Sipadan, are located off the north-east coast of Borneo and lie approximately 15.5 nautical miles apart. Both are very small and Ligitan is uninhabited; Sipadan, on the other hand, was developed by Malaysia into a tourist resort for scuba diving in the 1980s. In 1998 Indonesia and Malaysia referred the dispute to the Court by means of a Special Agreement, asking for a decision ‘on the basis of the treaties, agreements and any other evidence furnished by the Parties’ on whether sovereignty over the islands belonged to Indonesia or to Malaysia.

Few decisions of the European Court of Justice have received as much attention as the 1999 judgement in Centros.1 This decision provided private international lawyers with an opportunity to examine choice of law in relation to companies against the background of European law. It also caused company lawyers to re-examine their national legislation in the light of foreign rules.

Questions of Interpretation and Application of the 1971 Montreal Convention arising from the Aerial Incident at Lockerbie (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v United Kingdom).

Council Regulation 44/2001 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of Judgments in Civil Commercial Matters1 replaced the 1968 Brussels Convention on 1 March 2002 for Member States of the European union Except Denmark.2 This has given the European Community exclusive competence in matters relating to jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments. As a result individual Member States can no longer freely ratify conventions which, in relation to specific matters, govern jurisdiction or the recognition or enforcement of judgments.3 This is reflected in the deletion of ‘or will be’ from the text of Article 71(1) of the Regulation,4 a phrase which previously found in the equivalent provision in the Brussels Convention.5

The answer of the Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith to a question in the House of Lords and a paper produced by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office explaining the United Kingdom's position on the legal basis for the use of force against Iraq are reproduced immediately below (from the ‘Latest News’ section, 18 March 2003, of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office website, www.fco.gov.uk). Contextual documentation and comment will be provided in the next Current Developments: Public International Law section in January 2004.