The energetic implementation of the 1992 programme should not be allowed to put the contribution of the Court of Justice to the establishment of the Common Market in the shade. Its case law on the direct effect of Treaty provisions concerning the free circulation of persons, services and goods enables European workers and business-men to fight effectively against protectionism in the EEC Member States. The Court gives, moreover, a very broad interpretation to the prohibitions contained in these provisions and, reciprocally, a very restrictive interpretation to their exceptions. This approach leads to the removal of nearly every obstacle to free trade. Liberalisation has its limits however. Certain economic activities require regulation, even if it has restrictive effects.

This special issue of the Leiden Journal of International Law on the Nigerian international lawyer Taslim Olawale Elias (1914–91) marks the second of the journal's Periphery Series. The collection of essays featured here serves essentially two functions. On the one hand, it pays tribute to an exceptional jurist whose work marked international legal scholarship during the years of decolonization. On the other, it invites critical engagement with the theme of international law's ‘periphery’. The centre–periphery formulation, as explained elsewhere, owes its provenance mostly to recent debates in political economy. It is a spatial metaphor which postulates a structural relationship between a presumed ‘centre’, typically portrayed as advanced or metropolitan, and a less developed and provincial ‘periphery’. In such debates the centre–periphery opposition is assumed as stable, decisive, and representative of the empirical reality of a ‘world out there’. The Periphery Series was launched in 2007, with a special issue on the Chilean jurist Alejandro Álvarez, to foster engagement with the discursive function of centre–periphery oppositions in public international law in its various iterations, and to confront questions of resource allocation, dependency, geography, and power.

Thomas Buergenthal retired as a judge of the International Court of Justice in September 2010 after ten years of service and participating in 38 substantive decisions. This tribute to a member of the Court who arrived with outstanding and formidable scholarly qualifications, especially but not only in the field of international human rights, also draws on his earlier tragic, harrowing, and ‘lucky’ years. On the basis of the public record, for much of the work of the Judges as members of a collegial body is not public, the article emphasizes Thomas Buergenthal's commitment to the independence of judicial office, as demonstrated particularly in cases brought against his own country; to the sound administration of justice; to the indispensability of courts in any system of ordered government, national or international; and more generally to principle.

In order to protect European industries against dumped imports from countries which are not members of the EEC, the Community authorities may impose anti-dumping duties. The relevant rules are laid down in Council Regulation 2176/84 and are based on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the GATT Anti-Dumping Code. The European Commission is responsible for investigating cases; it is empowered to impose provisional anti-dumping duties or to accept so-called “price undertakings” offered by the exporters to raise their prices. These price undertakings purport to eliminate the dumping, i.e., generally speaking, the difference between domestic and export price, or its injurious effects. They are advantageous for the exporters since the price increase goes to them rather than to the custom authorities in the form of a duty.

International human rights law (IHRL), international humanitarian law (IHL) and international criminal law (ICL) have trouble staying faithful to the two pillars of customary international law – state practice and opinio juris. In ICL, the Tadić Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction and the Kupreškić Trial Judgement have even gone as far as enunciating new models to identify customs. In this article, I show that the approaches to customs’ identification postulated in these two cases were conflict-avoidance techniques used by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to bring together IHRL and IHL. The crux of the matter in the Tadić and Kupreškić cases was that the human rights of the victims of war crimes committed in internal conflicts required that a new approach to customary international law be adopted. Thus, the criminal aspect of IHL (i.e., ICL) was updated, and conceptual conflicts between IHL and IHRL were avoided.

It has to date not been examined in-depth what correlative rights and obligations the breach of an erga omnes obligation or an erga omnes right may entail. In his Separate Opinion in the Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros case, Judge Weeramantry devotes one section to the legal consequences of the involvement of erga omnes obligations in inter partes judicial procedures. This editorial analyses the relevant parts of Judge Weeramantry's Separate Opinion and explores the impact it may have on future litigation involving erga omnes issues.

The author describes the main characteristics of the English judicial system and its methodology. A central topic is the so-called judicial legislation, as is illustrated by the developing case lawwith respect to the tort of negligence. The method has the twin advantages of flexibility and pragmatism and it also has the advantages of speed. But there is a minus side also. First, the development of the law in this way can only be achieved at the expense of certainty. Secondly, it involves the alteration of the law, sometimes a quite radical alteration, without any extensive consideration of the practical and economic results such as would take place in the course of parliamentary scrutiny and debate. Judges are not the elected representatives of the people and the methodology of English Judges which results in the development and alteration of the law without the benefit of parliamentary debate may not perhaps be altogether a satisfactory democratic process to a constitutional purist.

The Statutes of the ICTY and ICTR provide for the review of final judgments upon the discovery of a ‘new fact’ that could have affected the judgments. The Appeals Chambers of the two Tribunals interpret the term ‘new fact’ to mean new information related to a matter that was not at issue during the original trial, as opposed to simply meaning new information of a factual nature. The article argues that this interpretation of ‘new fact’ creates a risk that review will be denied on formalistic grounds even in situations where principles of justice would make review plainly warranted. The article proposes several ways in which the Appeals Chambers could alter their case law to ensure against such injustice. Finally, the article considers the implications of this issue for other international criminal tribunals.

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.

The liberal extension by the United States of its laws to non-resident non-nationals under a so called ‘effects’ doctrine has been the cause of much concern to its closest trading allies. Some fear the European Court of Justice's recent Woodpulp case indicates that the European Community will follow the example of the United States. Jeffrey examines the legality of the ‘effects’ doctrine before looking in detail at the ECJ's decision in Woodpulp. He concludes that the Woodpulp case will not support the use of an ‘effects’ doctrine. Instead it evidences an exciting development in Community jurisprudence within the accepted limits of international law.

There are, of course, a variety of arenas available for the implementation and expansion of international law. The UN Decade on International Law provides a natural occasion for assessing their relative utility at this stage of international relations. Often the emphasis is placed on procedural steps that encourage states to use judicial arenas for third-party application of international law. In this regard great attention is given to the encouragement of steps towards the formal acceptance by governments of the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, and to the insertion in treaties of compromissory clauses and dispute settlement procedures that entail a legal duty to resolve conflict through the impartial application of international law, and the related obligation to respect the outcome of such an agreed process. For major disputes between states such an app roach to the application of international law remains highly desirable, and needs to be encouraged in every possible way. Extending the domain of compulsory jurisdiction to address both disputes of regionaland inter-regional scope also tends to extend the protection of international law to weaker and more vulnerable states, especially if a stronger tradition of compliance can be established.

On 25 September 2009, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a seminal decision on the subject of complementarity in the case Prosecutor v. Germain Katanga. The outcome of the Chamber's decision is that, even if a state has initiated an investigation or prosecution against an individual, the ICC may prosecute that individual for the same crimes or even a more selective range of crimes, so long as the state is willing to close the ongoing investigation or prosecution at the request of the ICC Prosecutor. While this decision is defensible under the language of the Rome Statute, this article concludes that, absent vigilance on the part of the ICC's Office of the Prosecutor, the decision could produce consequences inconsistent with the principle that the ICC is intended to act as a court of last resort. These potential consequences, in turn, suggest that the prosecution's policy of ‘positive complementarity’ – that is, encouraging genuine national proceedings whenever possible – should be at the core of its case selection strategy. At the same time, in those instances when the ICC prosecution determines that, despite activity by a national system with respect to a particular case, it is appropriate for the ICC to take over the case, the prosecution should clearly and publicly explain the factors that led to its decision.

In August 1993, this Journal devoted an entire special issue to the future of international arbitration in general, andthe Permanent Court of Arbitration in particular. Its editors viewed this special issue inter alia as a contribution to the UN Decade of International Law. It is not entirely coincidental that 1999, the final year of the Decade, will also mark the centennial of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA). This commemorative link is expressly acknowledged in the UN Resolution initiating the Decade.