The Bananas decision demonstrated that WTO dispute settlement panels and the Appellate Body are capable of effectively and clearly analyzing whether extremely complex measures are consistent with WTO rules. The trade-liberalizing decision established the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) as a meaningful constraint on discriminatory measures with an impact on both goods and services and clarified the nature of the GATS Most-Favoured Nation (MFN) obligation. The decision also severely constrained the ability of the EU to justify non-tariff discriminatory measures such as the quota allocation system at issue in Bananas based on the Lomé waiver.

Rankings and indicators have been with us for a while now, and have increasingly been objects of attention in international law. Likewise, they have been with the LJIL as a journal for a while now. Our so-called ‘impact factor’ is, to my untrained eye, the most prominent feature on the LJIL webpage hosted by our publisher. So this editorial is something of a rearguard action. The indicators and rankings, however, keep piling up. Proliferation may afford a perverse sort of optimism, about which below but, as will be clear, I do not share it. The increasing number and command of indicators and rankings reflects a consistent trend and a bleak mode of knowledge production. Knowledge production has been a topic in these pages recently, for instance Sara Kendall's excellent editorial on academic production and the politics of inclusion. I mean to continue in that vein, with respect to other aspects of the political economy of the academic production of international law, especially at a nexus of publishing, scholarship and market practices. There is an undeniable element of nostalgia in what will follow, but I do not really mean to celebrate the publishing industry, status quo ante, that has put me in this privileged position to wax nostalgic. The academic publishing business is flawed. What we are preparing the way for is worse. When I say we, I mean to flag my complicity, both as an individual researcher and as an editorial board member. I use the word complicity to convey a personal anxiety, also in my role as editor, so let me be clear: the LJIL board has no policy concerning rankings, and rankings have never influenced review at the journal. Moreover, while I cannot claim to speak for the LJIL as a whole concerning the topic of rankings or any other matter, nor is mine exactly a dissenting voice on the board. The tone of this polemic is mine alone; the concern is not.

The moral and legal debate over the separation of jus in bello from jus ad bellum generally assumes that the law of war supports this separation and the concomitant doctrine of ‘equality between belligerents’, also known as the ‘duality’ or the ‘symmetry’ principle. This article examines the Nuremberg-era precedents and legal scholarship, as well as more recent legal and scholarly material, and argues that the general assumption is wrong and that the arguments supporting the radical legal separation of the two jus's are unconvincing.

On 30 November 2010, the International Court of Justice issued its decision in the merits phase of the Ahmadou Sadio Diallo case. This decision turned on the questions of whether the DRC had violated Mr Diallo's human rights and his rights as a shareholder and manager in two corporations he owned in the DRC. This paper analyses the decision of the Court in the light of the choices it made and the methodology it applied, and demonstrates that both issues raise fundamental questions. The Court's decision on Mr Diallo's human rights is often ambitious to the detriment of clarity, whereas the part of the judgment dealing with corporate rights does not seem to move beyond its 1970 predecessor in Barcelona Traction. While understandable, this is also regrettable and the consequences for individuals doing business and/or residing in foreign countries may be substantial.

2004 marks the tenth anniversary of both the start of the genocide in Rwanda and the establishment of the ICTR by the UN Security Council. In the past decade the ICTR has operated slowly but progressively, and it has delivered some insightful case law. Legal issues continue to arise, however, in the practice of the ICTR. This article considers some of these issues, namely the vagueness of the indictment, complicity in genocide, and the nexus requirement for war crimes. The overview shows that in various instances the ICTR has relied on pivotal case law of the ICTY. Moreover, it is demonstrated that, on occasion, the case law of the ICTR has been somewhat inconsistent. Nevertheless, the ICTR's case law is a next step in the building of a sound international criminal law system, and there will certainly be more opportunities for the ICTR to contribute. These contributions will only be worthwhile, however, if the ICTR's output continues to be of high quality.

‘Fragmentation, verticalization, and constitutionalization form the holy trinity of international legal debate in the early 21st century’ – such is the opening phrase of Jan Klabbers's first chapter in his co-authored book, The Constitutionalization of International Law. Although Klabbers possibly did not intend it, by invoking the ‘holy trinity’, he is calling attention to an important aspect of the contemporary constitutionalist debate, namely what I would like to describe as the faith in constitutionalism as a secular religion. It is from this perspective – the complete and unquestioning belief in constitutionalism – that I will explore global constitutionalism and the three books that are the object of this review.

Co-operation has proved to be one of the greatest challenges in the first practice of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Court cannot fulfil its mandate effectively without co-operation from states, international organizations, and other actors. The Prosecutor requires co-operation and assistance at various stages of proceedings (preliminary examination, investigation, judicial proceedings) in order to conduct investigations and prosecutions. The Court depends on the co-operation of states to execute the warrants of arrest and proceed to trial. In the context of its first practice, the Court has operated in situations of ongoing conflict and/or environments where the security situation is volatile. The level and modalities of co-operation were influenced by the factual and political conditions on the ground and the institutional support of other entities (e.g. the United Nations).

Arbitral tribunals have traditionally encountered difficulties in drawing the distinction between jurisdiction and admissibility. The various approaches range from the rejection of the concept of admissibility in arbitral proceedings to an overly expansive interpretation of the concept of admissibility so as to include aspects of jurisdiction. With BG Group v. Republic of Argentina, the US Supreme Court has further complicated the problem in what has become the first decision in its history on the interpretation of a bilateral investment treaty. The present article sets forth a test for distinguishing jurisdiction from admissibility which is in line with international jurisprudence and takes due account of the normative and institutional particularities of international investment arbitration proceedings.

Sigrun Skogly, The Human Rights Obligations of the World Bank and the IMF, London, Cavendish Publishing, 2001, ISBN 1859416659, 240 pp., £71.50 (pb).

Mac Darrow, Between Light and Shadow:The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and International Human Rights Law, Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2003, ISBN 1841133906, 376 pp., £42.00.00 (hb).

Balakrishnan Rajagopal, International Law from Below: Development, Social Movements and Third World Resistance, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN 0521016711, 360 pp., £19.99 (pb).

The article scrutinizes some of the surprising commonalities in the reasonings of two recent decisions by two separate judicial forums: the ITLOS’s judgment in the M/V Norstar case and the award of an ad hoc arbitral tribunal in the Enrica Lexie case. One key connection between the two decisions is their heavy reliance on the Lotus judgment of the PCIJ. Another similarity between the two disputes is that both of them revolve around the concept of exclusive flag state jurisdiction under UNCLOS Article 92(1) and adjacent questions of jurisdiction on the high seas. The article is going to subject both decisions to criticism and argue that some of the more problematic positions adopted by the tribunals in both cases amount to no more than obiter dicta – thus establishing an additional parallel with Lotus, which also received heavy criticism for its controversial obiter dictum. The two tribunals’ new-found interest in Lotus also provides an opportunity to discuss the utility and legal weight of Lotus as a precedent in the face of a century of developments in treaty law and judicial practice. In this sense, this article builds on and attempts to continue the recent trend in scholarship advocating for a renewed appreciation of the Lotus case against the backdrop of decades of criticism against it. Accordingly, the article aims to facilitate a better understanding of all three disputes, the principles they applied, and the dynamics of international adjudication and international law in general.

Understanding law as a continuous process with circular and interacting phases of selection, construction, and reception makes it possible to account for the variety of actors and resources implicated in the process of incrementally changing a norm of international law. This process is visualized through an analogy to knitting. One can start the knitting project with one needle, but to actually construct anything, more than one needle is necessary: at least two actors need to collaborate and build upon each other’s work. If those two actors neatly agree upon the pattern to be knitted, the resulting product may be uniform and dense, able to cover all situations it is intended for. However, it is not that easy to knit in exactly the same pace and pattern. The constructed law may not fit perfectly all situations it is intended for, because the different actors may have had different patterns in their head. Also, sometimes, the wool is held too tightly, and the net becomes too dense; sometimes the wool is held too loosely, and the net will have holes. With this visualization in mind, we can think of legal changes as continuously intermingling and building upon each other: international law is generally knitted with different colours of wool, each colour representing a different normative resource. Thus, ‘norm knitting’ provides for an analytical tool that makes it possible to demonstrate the variety in ‘successful’ change of a given norm in international law in response to specific challenges which the actors face.

This article explores the quest for sovereign equality by China and Japan as it unfolded in a specific historical moment, the third quarter of the nineteenth century. It does so by focusing on the debate around the ‘coolie trade’, i.e., the traffic of Chinese indentured labourers, which offered an opportunity for non-Western countries such as China and Japan to position themselves with respect to Western conceptions of ‘modernity’ or ‘civilization’ and thereby advance their quest for ‘parity with all nations’. Through a study of the Maria Luz case, decided in the early 1870s by Czar Alexander II and drafted by de Martens, the article sheds light on the different approaches of Japan and China with respect to international law at this critical historical juncture. Specifically, it shows that, although the coolie trade mostly affected China, it was Japan who first managed to reap a parity dividend by firmly condemning the practice, whereas China’s action was steered by the circumstances. Eventually, however, China’s growing interest in Chinese populations abroad paved the way for the establishment of its first permanent diplomatic representations overseas. For both countries, the events encapsulated by the Maria Luz case unveil an important, yet overlooked, moment in their quest for parity with all nations and, more generally, in their engagement with international law.

The UN Security Council's involvement in the area of international criminal justice raises concerns about judicial independence. Of primary concern in this study is the degree to which this political organ has come to determine and restrict jurisdiction of international criminal tribunals, with the effect of excluding cases involving alleged grave crimes by actors whose presence in situations of which the Council is seized is supported by its permanent members. This control, it will be argued, undermines the basic conditions for a sound administration of justice, as it impedes these tribunals from selecting the cases that may come before them in accordance with respect for human rights and the rule of law. More specifically, restrictions imposed by political organs, leading to unjustified unequal treatment before the law and the courts of perpetrators and victims of grave crime in a given situation, are contrary to principles of equality and non-discrimination. A theory of international judicial independence should therefore extend to a consideration of the legality of such restrictions and acknowledge it as an essential requirement of independence.

On 22 July 2009 a Tribunal of five leading international lawyers rendered their award at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), thereby redrawing the boundaries of Abyei, a small patch of land in the centre of Sudan and source of violent conflict throughout recent years. The arbitration was initiated by the two signatories of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that in 2005 brought an end to the longest civil war in Africa. Both parties, the government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement, expressed satisfaction with the award, which conceivably saved the CPA from potential collapse. This article examines the legal oddities which accompanied the settlement of the dispute over the Abyei area. It analyses both the referral of the dispute to the PCA through the lens of the Sudanese Constitution and the legal ambiguities of the award itself.

This case note focuses on two key aspects of the Vasiljević Judgement. The first one is the accused's acquittal of the charge of ‘violence to life and person’ under common Article 3 for the reason that the trial chamber was not satisfied that it constituted a crime under customary international law. The second aspect is the trial chamber's analysis of state practice to identify the definition under customary law of extermination as a crime against humanity.

There are three topics within the body of Vereshchetin's academic work which deserve special attention: the law of the sea, space law, and the theory of international law. Vereshchetin's contribution as a judge to the practice and theory of international law can be appreciated through his individual opinions and declarations, in which he dealt with various issues of international law and the international judicial process: self-determination, countermeasures, diplomatic protection, and questions which concern the functioning of the Court (the role and powers of the ICJ, non liquet, bases for the revision of decisions, declarations accepting the Court's jurisdiction and reservations to them, and so on).

In Dayton, Ohio, on 21 November 1995, after three weeks of proximity talks, the Bosnian parties, joined by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Croatia, initialled a General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with twelve Annexes. Following an implementation conference held in London on 8 and 9 December 1995, the General Framework Agreement and its accompanying Annexes were signed in Paris on 14 December 1995. They came into force upon signature.

In its Judgement issued on 30 November 2005 in Prosecutor v. Limaj et al., Trial Chamber II of the ICTY found that an armed conflict existed in Kosovo between the Kosovo Liberation Army and the Serbian forces as of the end of May 1998. It held, however, that the evidence did not establish that there was a widespread or systematic attack by the KLA directed against a civilian population at the relevant time. The first trial of former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army also gave rise to a number of significant developments in the ICTY's jurisprudence relating to issues of international criminal law and procedure, such as the treatment of hostile witnesses and of eyewitness identification evidence, as well as the proof of the existence of a joint criminal enterprise.