The 1999 Kosovo crisis has forced the European Union to finally give concrete form to its ambitions in the sphere of the common foreign and security policy. At a time when agreement on defence issues seems out of reach, the member states' focus is on the development of a crisis management capability. It is argued that when the Union's diplomatic structures are complemented with military and civilian crisis response tools, much needed balance will be given to the Union's persona as an economic giant and a political dwarf. The article includes a number of measures which should be taken with a view to reinforcing and extending the Union's external role in this field.

International lawyers, especially human rights lawyers, praise the Nationality Decrees decision as a watershed in the progressive expansion of international jurisdiction. Reexamination of the case challenges this understanding. The case proves to have involved a confrontation between rival colonial conceptions: French stress on the intimacy of an imperial tuteur with its protégés versus British focus on consent to subordination. Reexamination also reveals the decision as highly restrained, rejecting a French call for a judicially formulated colonial code. The case's protagonists bequeathed a conflicted conceptual legacy concerning international authority and nationality policy in whose wake debates about today's new internationalism follow. [Un protectorat] reste encore, à quelques égards tout au moins, au dehors, en marge, de façon qu'il y ait un dernier effort, un dernier acte à accomplir pour que ce territoire, qui reste nominalement, par une subtilité juridique, séparé du territoire national, s'y touve enfin réuni.[A protectorate] remains, in certain respects at least, outside, in the margin; so that a final exertion, a final act remains to be performed; in order that this territory which remains by a legal nicety nominally separated from the national territory may be finally united to it.Alfred de Lapradelle, French Oral Argument, Nationality Decrees Case

The UN Charter and customary law contain significant ambiguities concerning the prohibition of enforcement measures by regional organizations. This fact – coupled with practical necessity – appears to have been responsible for the failure of the UN to condemn the unauthorized use of force by regional organizations in Liberia and Sierra Leone. These cases and legal doctrine suggested increasing regional autonomy in this field. Although reactions to Operation Allied Force in Kosovo cooled the enthusiasm of those who wished for the legitimization of such actions, evidence suggests that under certain circumstances unauthorized regional enforcement measures may at least avoid condemnation.

On 22 September 1999 the Islamic Republic of Pakistan instituted proceedings against India before the International Court of Justice concerning the shooting down of a Pakistani aircraft by Indian air force planes on 10 August 1999. In its Application filed in the Registry on 21 September 1999 Pakistan contends that the “unarmed Atlantique aircraft of the Pakistan navy was on a routine training mission with sixteen personnel on board” when “while flying over Pakistan air space it was fired upon with air to air missiles by Indian air force planes, without warning”, resulting in the death of all 16 personnel, “mostly young naval trainees”. It maintains that the aircraft, when shot down, was in an area situated approximately 70 to 90 miles east of Karachi and that it was “carrying out various training exercises and manoeuvres of instrument.” According to Pakistan, after radar contact was lost with the aircraft at 10.55 a.m., an intensive search was undertaken by Pakistani aircraft and helicopters and the wreckage was discovered around 2.55 p.m. 2 kilometres inside Pakistan territory. Pakistan further maintains that in the two and a half hours which elapsed between the shooting down and the discovery of the wreckage, “Indian helicopters […] sneaked into Pakistan's territory to pick up a few items from the debris […] in order to produce ‘evidence’ for [India's] initial claim that the Atlantique had been shot down over Indian air space.” However, according to Pakistan, because of the “overwhelming evidence […] Indian officials were obliged to admit that the Atlantique had indeed been shot down over Pakistan's air space.”

On 7 February 2000 Judge Gilbert Guillaume (France) was elected President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by his peers. He has been a member of the Court since 14 September 1987. Judge Shi Jiuyong (China) was elected Vice-President. He has been a member of the Court since 6 February 1994. They will both serve a three-year term.

In his years as Deputy Registrar (1984–1987) and Registrar (1987–2000), Eduardo Valencia-Ospina made outstanding contributions to the work of the International Court of Justice.

In February 2000, two distinguished judges, Judge Christopher G. Weeramantry and Judge Stephen M. Schwebel, resigned from the International Court of Justice as respectively Vice-President and President. Both men left a clearly recognizable stamp on the Court's case law, although their trademark was very different. What they had in common, however, was that they wrote a great number of highly interesting and thought-provoking opinions, sometimes of considerable length. In this article, the intention has been to let both judges speak for themselves as members of the Court, as representatives of the judicial branch which they both held in high esteem.

Following the detention of Dragoljub Prcač by SFOR on 5 March 2000, the accused pleaded “not guilty” to all counts charged against him in the amended indictment, dated 8 March 2000, at his initial appearance hearing on 10 March 2000.

Two additional agreements have been concluded on the enforcement of sentences of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). On 25 February 2000, an agreement was concluded between the Government of the French Republic and the United Nations on the enforcement of sentences of the ICTY. Thus, France thereby became the first permanent member of the Security Council to conclude such an agreement. A month later, on 28 March 2000, another agreement was concluded between the Kingdom of Spain and the United Nations. Both these agreements will enter into force upon notification to the United Nations by the respective states that the necessary national legal requirements have been met. Previously, agreements have been concluded with the following states: Italy, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Austria.

Crimes against humanity were first defined, for the purposes of the Nuremberg Trial, in 1945. Since then, numerous international legal texts have incorporated the concept, the latest being the Rome Statute of the ICC, 1998. The different texts offer diverse definitions of crimes against humanity, which are traced in the article. Although the precise outlines of the crimes change from one definition to another, it is clear that the core has crystallized as an integral part of customary international law. In the Tadić case, the ICTY had to address several crucial issues relating to crimes against humanity. The judgments on appeal will serve as precedents for the removal of the linkage between crimes against humanity and armed conflict, the exclusion of isolated attacks against civilians and the irrelevance of the personal motives of the defendant.

Non-international armed conflicts are more numerous, more brutal and entail more blood-shed today than international ones. The Statute of the International Criminal Court explicitly upholds the traditional distinction between international and non-international conflicts, and armed conflicts will have to be characterized accordingly. But the tendency to adapt the international humanitarian law (IHL) regime for non-international conflicts to the rules for international ones emerges. Article 7 on Crimes Against Humanity and Article 8(2)(c) and (e) on War Crimes amount to real progress in this respect. Yet, the regulation on war crimes in particular does not provide for comprehensive criminal responsibility of individual perpetrators in non-international conflicts.

On 9 October 1998, an Arbitral Tribunal handed down its Award regarding the first stage of an arbitration between Eritrea and Yemen. The Award determined, firstly, the scope of the dispute between the parties and, secondly, the sovereignty of small islands, islets, rocks and low-tide elevations sprinkling in the Red Sea between the respective coast lines of the two states. Whilst closely examining concepts raised by the parties such as historic title, the Tribunal was ultimately swayed by factors of geographical appurtenance, recent demonstrations of governmental authority and functions of state, and, to a lesser extent, the area's legal history. The Award contributes to the body of law on territorial sovereignty and to an understanding of the role of arbitration in the peaceful resolution of disputes.

The present article describes the institutional structure and dispute settlement system within the Common Market of the South. It analyses the first arbitral award given by the first ad hoc tribunal established within the Common Market of the South and discusses the award's implications for the Common Market's law and institutions.

The surrender of Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, suspected of having committed genocide, to the Rwanda Tribunal has again been the object of litigation in the US. After his surrender had initially been denied, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has certified his surrender. This decision raised certain questions. On the one hand, it is fortunate that Ntakirutimana will stand trial before the Rwanda Tribunal. However, the assistance of the US with respect to future surrender of war criminals indicted by the Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda is by no means certain yet. A concurring and dissenting opinion attached to the decision illustrate that US Judges are still not overly convinced of the constitutionality of the US method of implementing the obligations arising out of the creation of these ad hoc Tribunals.