The Fishery Agreement concluded in 1992 between the European Economic Communities and the Republic oj Argentina provides an excellent example of the negotiating process leading to the conclusion of a treaty in the field of international fisheries. The Agreement shows how widely diverging interests and seemingly opposing views can be reconciled by two parties prepared to negotiate constructively and to develop a new generation of agreements. This article should be considered against the background formed by developments in the law of the sea. Particularly in the fields of the protection of the environment, the administration of resources and development policy, and the diverging interests that coastal states and ‘distant water fishing states’ have in these matters. To place the conclusion of this Treaty in the appropriate context, an overview of the structural and economic conditions of the fishery sector in Argentina and the European Communities will be given. Finally, the innovative technicalities of the new treaty will be discussed against this background.

At the end of 1992 the law ratifying the Maastricht Treaty was passed by the German Bundestag without much discussion. Yet a heated legal debate developed later when a number of individuals filed claims with the German Constitutional Court seeking to prevent the deposit of the instrument of ratification. They claimed a violation of their basic rights owing to the envisaged transfer of sovereign competence from the German State to the European Union, with the purported result of loss of democratic control. In its judgment of October 12, 1993, however, the German Constitutional Court gave its approval to ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. This article analyses and examines the arguments put forward in the claims, that raised questions of statehood and led to consideration of the scope and limits of European integration. The author concludes with a favourable appraisal of the judgment, although he comments that it leaves unanswered the question of how the concepts of European integration and ‘preservation of statehood’ are to be reconciled.

This article examines state intervention in the energy sector under the EC Treaty. The analysis focuses upon Articles 37, on state trading monopolies, and 90, on public undertakings, the conferment of exclusive rights and undertakings entrusted with the operation of services of general economic interest. All these forms of business organisation are very common in the energy sector. The Commission's wish to introduce more competition in the public utilities sector is well served by the application of the Treaty rules on a case-to-case basis. Secondarily, legislation has also been adopted for the energy sector pursuant to Article 100A EC. There is considerable public debate on new proposals for directives which aim at further liberalisation in the energy market.

United Nations peace-keeping was invented as a creative response to the inability of the United Nations to utilise all the possibilities of the Charter mechanism for collective security. To cover its lack of legal basis, over the years a set of semi-legal conditions was developed for peace-keeping. The recent expansion of peace-keeping operations has caused some changes in these conditions, while some of the current peace-keeping forces have moved so far away from the established format that they cannot even be qualified as true peace-keeping operations any longer. For better or for worse, keeping the peace United Nations style has taken its first irrevocable step towards enforcing it.

The Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), the intergovernmental body set up to review the implementation of Agenda 21, is in more than one way crucial for the future development of the United Nations system. The Commission is the first organisation within the United Nations system which institutionally links environment and development. In these policy areas, two integration processes can be distinguished. First, environment and development initiatives have to be taken into account in all other areas of policy and law-making, including such important fields as foreign policy and national and international security. Secondly, the interests of actors on the global stage, including states, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations, are becoming more and more interrelated and convergent.

On December 23, 1993 the European Commission adopted the final version of its Explanatory Notice concerning the assessment of cooperative joint ventures under Article 85 of the EC Treaty. This Notice is part of a general readjustment of the Commission's competition policy with regard to cooperative joint ventures. On that same date, the Commission took a further step in this respect by adopting Regulation 151/93/EEC, which widens the scope of four of the Commission's block exemption Regulations. This article gives an explanation of the four block exemption Regulations prior to and after their amendment by Regulation 151/93/EEC, and their importance in relation to stimulating the creation of cooperative joint ventures in the European Union. As a result of the introduction of Regulation 151/93/EEC, industry will be relieved in a number of cases from the administrative burden of having to notify joint venture agreements to the Commission in order to obtain an individual exemption from the prohibition contained in Article 85(1) of the EC Treaty.

On May 14, 1954 the Inter-governmental Conference on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict which convened in The Hague, managed to adopt the text of the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954 Hague Convention). Apart from the Convention as such, the Regulations for the Execution of the Convention, a Protocol directed towards the prevention of the exportation of cultural property from occupied territories during armed conflicts, and three Resolutions were adopted.