Osbaldo Torres was tried by jury, convicted of first degree murder and other charges, and received the death penalty in the Oklahoma County District Court, Case No. CF-1993-4302. This Court affirmed Torres's conviction for murder, and the United States Supreme Court denied Torres's petition for certiorari. This Court denied Torres's first Application for Post-Conviction Relief on August 4,1998. Torres's application for federal habeas relief was denied. This Court subsequently denied Torres's second Application for Post-Conviction Relief. Torres's execution date is set for Tuesday, May 18,2004. On April 29,2004, Torres filed a Subsequent Application for Post-Conviction Relief. The State filed a Response on May 11,2004. Briefs were also filed on behalf of amici curiae the Government of the Republic of Mexico and international law experts and former diplomats.

The “Final Agreement for the Settlement of the Differences as Described in the United Nations Security Council Resolutions 817 (1993) and 845 (1993), the Termination of the Interim Accord of 1995, and the Establishment of a Strategic Partnership Between the Parties,” most commonly known as the Prespa Agreement, is the final settlement of an intricate dispute between Greece and (now officially) North Macedonia over the former Yugoslav Republic's name, which has troubled the relations between the two states for almost three decades. Following a carefully choreographed process, the Prespa Agreement (Agreement) entered into force on February 12, 2019. This Note provides a brief overview of the background of the dispute and the main provisions of the Agreement.

On December 20, 2019, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands published its judgment in The State of the Netherlands v. Urgenda. The judgment is largely a discussion of questions of Dutch law, but contains several conclusions that are relevant from an international law perspective. In particular, the Court held that on the basis of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the Netherlands has a positive obligation to take measures for the prevention of climate change and that it was required to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 25 percent by the end of 2020, compared with 1990 levels.

On April 10, 2019, the International Tribunal of the Sea (ITLOS) gave judgment in the M/V “Norstar” (Panama v. Italy) case. This was the first time an international tribunal had ruled directly on the principle of freedom of navigation in international waters. Specifically, ITLOS found (by fifteen votes to seven) that by arresting and detaining the Panamanian-flagged M/V “Norstar”, Italy had violated Article 87(1) of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In doing so, the Tribunal arguably relied on a quite expansive understanding of the exclusive flag state jurisdiction principle as set out in Article 92 UNCLOS—a point that was argued forcefully in a seven-judge dissenting opinion. Below, I will briefly outline the background to the case before setting out the central aspects of the judgment and considering further this point of contention surrounding the permissibility of nonflag prescriptive measures in international waters.

On August 19, 2014, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (the Court) issued its Advisory Opinion on the “Rights and Guarantees of Children in the Context of Migration and/or in need of International Protection” (the Opinion). This key Opinion is the first time that the Court has addressed states’ obligations to protect the rights of migrant children, in response to a joint submission by four members of the Organization of American States (OAS).

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been charged with the task of supervising the application of international conventions for the protection of refugees. This particular task of UNHCR has never been elaborated, neither during the drafting of UNHCR’s Statute, nor at a later date. It is clear, however, that interpretation of the conventions UNHCR has to supervise is an accepted part of its task. Prompted by its Executive Committee in 1977, it first drafted a Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status (Handbook) under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951 Convention) and its accompanying 1967 Protocol in 1979. The inclusion of procedures in the Handbook is particularly interesting since the 1951 Convention, and the 1967 Protocol for that matter, do not regulate the determination of refugee status: “It is therefore left to each Contracting State to establish the procedure that it considers most appropriate.” The Handbook nonetheless comprises procedures for the determination of refugee status based on and induced by the observation that state practice regarding status determination varies considerably; ranging from formal procedures to informal arrangements. It is acknowledged that realizing identical procedures would be unlikely and the Handbook therefore confines itself to laying down certain basic requirements.