In US courts the procedural device of the class action is available by virtue of Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Subject to certain conditions, this rule enables one person to bring an action on behalf of a large number of others (the “class members”) and the resolution of such an action, whether it is by way of judgment following trial or by the entry of an order of settlement, has res judicata effect on the class members. In most cases the majority of class members are all resident in the United States.

On 2 November 1994 the Human Rights Committee adopted General Comment No.24(52) relating to reservations made on ratification or accession to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It is addressed to States party to the Covenant and indicates the manner in which reservations to Covenant guarantees will be treated. The fact that the Committee has issued a general comment on the topic of reservations is clear expression of the Committee's concerns regarding the number and scope of reservations which have been made. In its view these threaten to undermine the effective implementation of the Covenant as well as impair the performance of the Committee in respect of the subject matter to which the reservations apply. Though not as seriously afflicted by reservations as some other human rights treaties, most notably the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Covenant has nonetheless been the object of some sweeping reservations to which few objections have been made. There is the concern that the integrity of the Covenant may have been sacrificed in order to ensure widespread participation. “Indeed”, suggests Higgins, “one might almost say that there is a collusion to allow penetrating and disturbing reservations to go unchallenged.”

Many, if not most, matters regulated by international law tend now to bring into issue obligations under treaties. Yet even if a dispute centres on interpretation of a particular treaty provision, the text of the treaty will not necessarily be the sole consideration. More often than not tribunals look to preparatory work of a treaty, sometimes almost as a first resort rather than as a subsidiary means of interpretation; and both formal and less formal instruments associated with a treaty—declarations, reservations and a whole range of possible materials—may be relevant to the particular matter. All these are described here as “treaty materials” and it is the present purpose to explore the scope and role of such materials.

In an economic climate plagued by the risk of insolvency, sellers will not wish to sell unless they can be sure of getting paid. At the same time most sellers would go out of business if they asked for cash on delivery and did not sell on credit. In Europe one way to combine these conflicting business realities is by selling goods subject to a reservation of title clause or a clause de réserve de propriété or an Eigentumsvorbehalt (hereafter RTC). An RTC may be defined as “merely an agreement between the parties as to the time when ownership is to pass”. By reserving title in the goods sold until they are paid for, it ensures that goods revert to the seller in case of the buyer's insolvency, and hence escape from the hands of the liquidator. The sale fails but the seller's losses are minimised. This is particularly important in the current context of insolvency practice where the legal order for the distribution of assets is very unfavourable to the supplier of goods who does not use an RTC. As an unsecured creditor he will receive any money owed only after the costs of the insolvency procedure and the shares of preferential and secured creditors are subtracted from the assets. He will, in the blunt words of Templemann LJ, ‘receive a raw deal’.

Historically, New Zealand has indicated an ambivalent attitude to the Privy Council. The appeal has existed for New Zealand since the Supreme Court was established in 1841 and the first case on appeal was heard in 1849. But, as early as 1903, the Bench and Bar protested against the judgment of the Privy Council in Wallis v. Solicitor-General as showing ignorance of New Zealand law and social conditions.

Five years ago we surveyed the early years of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment1. At that time there was already a good deal of information available regarding the modus operandi of the Committee which was established but comparatively little regarding the manner in which the Committee was translating its mandate2 into practice. Today the picture has changed considerably. The manner in which the Committee conducts its work is essentially unchanged but from the large corpus of published reports it is possible now to map out the principal standards promulgated by the Committee and through which it seeks to fulfil its functions3. The purpose of this article is to highlight these developments.

The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, adopted by the 18th Assembly of the Heads of State and Government of the Organisation of African Unity in Nairobi in 1981, which came into force in 1986, provided for a single commission with a wide range of powers in respect of the rights in the Charter. This was as a result of an initiative for an African regional mechanism for the protection of human rights by African jurists and subsequent conferences in the 1960s and 1970s, many of which were organised by the United Nations. In these debates several possibilities were raised for the form that such a body should take: from a proposal for several commissions, given the disparate and diverse cultural and political nature of African States a court, a specialised commission within the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), to a single commission. Not only was its structure contentious but also its functions, in particular whether these should include a protective as well as a promotional mandate and what such protective powers should be.

This Article aims to examine the implementation of the European Convention on Information on Foreign Law, more commonly known as the London Convention, and assess its impact on the application of foreign law under the rules of private international law which prevail in the signatory States. Basically, the Convention provides a system to assist national courts in determining the application of a foreign law in a case involving the rules of private international law. This analysis is divided into three sections.

Amid rather less fanfare than one might perhaps have expected, the press, and, by extension, the public, of the European Union scored a modest victory for freer access to official information following the judgment of the Court of First Instance in the case of John Carvel & Guardian Newspapers Ltd (Denmark, The Netherlands and the European Parliament intervening) v. EU Council.' This case is the latest stage in an evolving policy of access to official information generally, a policy which has gained impetus with official concern about the so–called “democratic deficit” and a heightened awareness of the perceived remoteness of the European institutions from the daily lives of the citizens of the Union.

Recent English decisions have paved the way for English courts to apply foreign intellectual property law to the infringement of foreign intellectual property (‘IP’) rights in cases in which the court is seised of jurisdiction pursuant to the 1968 Brussels and 1989 Lugano Conventions. If one defendant can be sued pursuant to the Conventions' rules, the potential exists to consolidate in one English action claims against different defendants for the infringement of intellectual property rights from different jurisdictions. This ability to consolidate infringement actions is subject to Article 16(4) of the Conventions, the requirements of Article 6(1) and RSC Order 11, rule 1(1)(c), and the doctrine of forum non conveniens. However, it appears that in cases in which the court is seised of jurisdiction pursuant to the non-Convention rules, English courts will not be entitled to apply foreign intellectual property laws.

In a previous issue of this Quarterly Colin Warbrick gave an exposition of the British Order in Council (The United Nations (International Tribunal) (Former Yugoslavia) Order 1996) which implements Security Council Resolution 827. This note gives an alternative view of the scope and legality of that Order.

Why. it may be said, should anyone want to raise objection to the Order in Council implementing Resolution 827 when it merely introduced a procedure which ensures war criminals (whether Serb, Croat, or Bosnian) seeking refuge in Britain are promptly handed over to face justice?

The answer is that, whilst the immediate purpose of the Order in Council may be unobjectionable, the means by which it has been achieved are out of proportion to that purpose, and open the door to further unconsidered transfers of national powers.

It is not surprising that, at a time when the world's political maps are being constantly redrawn, the subject of “State succession” features prominently in international legal discourse. By the same token, the infrequency of “waves” of transformation, the diversified modalities of change (cession, annexation, decolonisation, dissolution, secession, merger, unification) and the varying contextual circumstances have resulted in a less than coherent theoretical or practical framework for resolving issues of State succession.1 Nor can limited international attempts at “codification”—represented in the 1978 Vienna Convention on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties2 (the “1978 Succession Convention”) and the 1983 Vienna Convention on Succession of States in Respect of Property, Archives and Debts3—be regarded as expressing established customary norms or articulating laws grounded in consistent State practice, judicial precedent or juristic opinion.

When the European Court of Justice gave judgment in Francovich it was hailed as a triumph, not necessarily for its erudite reasoning, but because it allowed an individual to claim damages from a member State for its failure to comply with Community law obligations, thus providing a method of redress where previously none existed. Although the scope of the remedy was unclear and appeared superficially limited to the facts of the case, it represents the final element necessary to establish a coherent doctrine for the effective protection of an individual's Community law rights.

There is a tendency to divide legal development into historical stages, to say how wrong and befuddled we were in the past and to describe how we came finally to see the light. This inclination is particularly evident in the area of enforcement of judgments given by courts of foreign countries (in this article the term “foreign judgments” is confined to such judgments). Before the turn of this century, the main bases for enforcement were the concept of “comity” and the doctrine of “sovereignty”. These were criticised by later generations of lawyers who were uncomfortable with the vagueness of the terms and who could not agree on what they meant and how they should be used. In modern times positivist bases have been substituted in their place. So we had the “vested rights” theory, which did not last long as it was soon overshadowed by the “obligation” rationalisation. Most writers accept and, in their account of the theory of the law in this area, do not attempt to go beyond these words of Blackburn J: “The judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction over the defendant imposes a duty or obligation on him to pay the sum for which judgment is given, which the courts in [the country of enforcement] are bound to enforce.”

In Francovich the European Court of Justice set out the conditions of liability of member States in the case of non-transposition of directives: first, the directive must confer rights on individuals; second, it must be possible to determine the content of those rights from the provisions of the directive; and third, there must be a causal link between the breach of the State's obligation and the damage suffered.

An earlier note in this series' gave an account of the normalisation of relations between the United Kingdom and Argentina and the establishment of co-operative arrangements relating to fisheries in 1990. The present note focuses on the establishment of co-operative arrangements for seabed resources in 1995. It also gives a brief account of the extension of maritime jurisdiction around South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands in 1993. First, in order to set the co-operative arrangements for seabed resources in context, a brief recapitulation of the cooperative arrangements for fisheries and their operation in practice since 1990 will be given. The map appended to the article illustrates and enlarges on the text.

In the last two years there has been significant legislative activity in the field of company law. The most important development in the field of securities law has been the adoption of a directive amending, inter alia, the Investment Services Directive1 and the directive on undertakings for collective investments in transferable securities2, with a view to reinforcing prudential supervision3. A number of initiatives have been taken with a view to preparing for economic and monetary union. In particular, the Commission has submitted a proposal for a directive on cross-border credit transfers within the European Union which, if adopted, will increase efficiency of cross-border payments4. The regulation of trade in financial services between the Community and third States is of increasing importance, following the conclusion of the General Agreement on Trade in Services5.