The financial collapse of the International Tin Council (ITC) in 1985 raised three fundamental legal questions. Firstly, whether the granting of legal personality to an organization under international law by means of an international agreement always carries with it the limited liability of the organization. Secondly, it must be asked whether agreements to establish an international entity based on the statutes of international law are never subject to national jurisdiction. And thirdly, consideration is needed of the precautions to be taken in the future in order to avoid this kind of financial collapse. The answers to these questions have to consider that the international organizations have changed the emphasis of their activities from the perception of sovereign duties over the economic field where they rely on trust and cooperation with private enterprises. Due to this situation a distinction must be made between acts of state and activities under civil law. There is no principle at all in international or private law according to which the granting of international personality or legal capacity involves sole liability. Also the Act of State doctrine is not suited to protect the FTC or its member states from recourse to the court by private creditors in the case of civil acts. To realise the aim of creating a new and more equitable economic order and to improve the necessary credit standing, the statutes of the internationalorganizations must also contain improved control mechanisms.

European Community and Canadian federal environmental laws as they affect the energy sector -oil and gas, and non-nuclear electricity generation- are reviewed and comparatively analyzed. The study concludes that it is appropriate to consider the development of both the Canadian and European environmental law in terms of a federal model and that there are legal federalism lessons to be learned from both sides. While from an energy sector perspective EC and Canadian environmental policy and law have developed in a broadly similar manner, the study shows important differences in timing and pace of implementation. Canadian energy industries were required to respond earlier to strengthening and harmonizing of air quality standards, and to the scientific and public review demands of environmental assessment than their European counterparts. EC air pollution measures targeted the energy sector more directly and explicitly than is the case in Canada. The EC has also been more successful in coordinating and integrating environmental and energy policy, and is closer to implementing economic pollution control instruments such as tradeable permits and taxes. Canada has placed greater emphasis on civil and criminal liability, including personal liability ofcorporate officers and directors, and the energy sector hasresponded with environmental audits and improvements in compliance and corporate environmental planning. The Canadian energy sector has, to a greater extent than the European imdustry, been required to deal with increasingly extensive rights of the public to participate in environmental decisions.

Reprisals originally served individuals seeking redress for an injustice suffered abroad. The concept, however, has undergone extensive development. Nowadays, reprisals are -in themselves illegal- retaliatory measures used by one state seeking redress for an illegal act committed by another. The prerequisites for legal reprisals areformulated in the Naulilaa Incident arbitration of 1928. In her examination of the recent history of the concept of reprisals, this arbitration is the author's starting point. After this examination she compares reprisals to other methods of redress. Finally, she investigates the limitation of the use of reprisals as laid down in humanitarian law treaties.

The article addresses the establishment of a legal regime concerning liability questions of the aerospace plane. The existing air and space law, as laid down for example in the Chicago Convention and the Outer Space Treaty -especially the definition of the words ‘aircraft’ and ‘space object’-is used as a starting point. The applicability of the existing regimes to the aerospace plane is then evaluated. Two concrete cases, namely liability resulting from damage to third parties on the suiface of the earth and liability after collisions, are presented in depth to illustrate the legal questions that this new hybrid craft will raise. Finally some modest suggestions are made as to the resolution of the conflicts.

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in November, 1989, bringing to a close ten years of debate and discussion over the merits of the project as well as the content of its main provisions. Although some representatives expressed misgivings about the content of several articles of the convention, it was adopted by a broad consensus among the member states of the United Nations. In fact, in less than one year, by September, 1990, the convention had been ratified by more than twenty countries, the threshold figure established by Article 49 of the convention, and it entered into force. This set in motion the process for the election of the ten-member Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the body that has been charged with implementing the convention, in February, 1991, and it is scheduled to begin functioning in the fall of 1991. As recently as March, 1991, the United Nations Secretary-General reported to the states parties that 71 states had either ratified or acceded to the convention and that almost 60 other states had signed it. By June, 1991, the ratification of the convention by Belgium brought the total of states parties to over 90.

Rights and obligations connected with intellectual property and liability will influence the commercial exploitation of outer space by private entities. Whilst international space law facilitates private enterprise participation in space endeavour, additional action has been taken, on national as well as multi-national level, to provide the business community with the necessary incentives to play their role in the commercialization of space activities. The situation and legal developments described in this article mark the very beginning of a movement towards the consolidation and diversification of commercial space exploitation.

The 14th Telders International Law Moot Court Competition was held again in the Peace Palace in The Hague from April 4–6,1991. The Leiden Journal of International Law includes the cases put before the teams in her issues, and gives as follow-up the excerpts from the best memorials.