Since its publication in 2000, Hardt and Negri's book Empire has been at the centre of significant debates within international relations (IR) and international law (IL) communities, both academic and other. Hardt and Negri's recently published Multitude (2004) is likely to add momentum to these debates. Outlining the importance of both Multitude and Empire for legal scholarship and practice, this contribution sets out to give a brief overview of the core issues that are to be distinguished in the debates amongst IR and IL academics, and includes a number of criticisms that could be levelled at Hardt and Negri's work. The focus of the paper, however, is on the ambiguities that mark Hardt and Negri's flawed attempt to deal with the issue of the boundary of Empire and the liminality of (the) multitude. Indeed, this contribution maintains that precisely this rather fundamental flaw in Hardt and Negri's work is why their intellectual ‘tour de force’ is ultimately unconvincing.

Dr René Lefeber stayed at the helm of the Leiden Journal of International Law as its Editor-in-Chief for more than four important years (1996–2000), marked by innovation and change in practically every aspect of the Journal. Barely two years after a profound re-organization, the Journal's volume was doubled with three issues per year in 1997, and four issues in 1998. Meanwhile, the number of pages, the quality, and the diversity of published material saw dramatic growth. The section on Hague International Tribunals became a standard feature; a sub-section on the International Criminal Court was set up in 1998 to regularly cover ongoing developments in this important institution; an annual specialized bibliography on dispute settlement was introduced; and regular Editorial notes by members of the Board figured in each issue. All in all, a very different Journal than the one handed down four years earlier.

After an extensive discussion of the treatment of cultural property through the ages, the author focuses on the position of art treasures under current international law. Are states under an obligation to return cultural property to its country of origin? In order to answer this question, the author introduces a ‘gliding scale’, based on the circumstances of the removal of the works of art.

Over the years the International Court of Justice has come to play a mediative role in the settlement of disputes. This article focuses on the negotiation process by the International Court of Justice during the settlement of inter-state disputes. Various cases that were brought before the International Court of Justice are discussed to elaborate on this growing trend.

For decades it has been authoritatively stressed that non-justiciability of defence and foreign affairs represents one of the major hurdles to the application of international law by domestic courts. Until now, however, international law scholarship seems to have overlooked two aspects of this issue. First, it has not been sufficiently highlighted that the international and the European community legal orders are progressively eroding the scope of application of these non-justiciability doctrines. Second, it has rarely been shown how judicial intervention in international matters can be prevented from turning into the ‘judicialization’ of foreign policy. Hence, ideally by moving along the path traced by those who have already dealt with this issue, the present work aims to analyse these two aspects in greater depth.

Established in 1993, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia Since 1991 (International Tribunal) has steadily become more active in its quest to fulfil its mandate, moving from the establishment stage to the working stage most notably over the past two years. The trial of Dusko Tadić, the first full scale trial before the International Tribunal, was held from 7 May 1996 through 28 November 1996 and the final judgment was rendered on 7 May 1997. Pursuant to a guilty plea, the accused Drazen Erdemović was sentenced on 29 November 1996. In addition, two trials, one of which is based on the Celebići indictment against four accused, Esad Landžo, Zenjil Delalić, Zdravko Mucić, and Hazim Delić, and began on 10 March 1997, and one against Tihomir Blaskić, are currently underway. The motions submitted and arguments that have been and will be made during these proceedings have, and will continue to, force the trial and appellate chambers of the International Tribunal to apply and interpret for the first time many of the International Tribunal's Rules of Procedure and Evidence (Rules). One of the issues that is no doubt relevant for the judges of the trial chambers as they deliberate the final judgments in these cases is the modicum of proof necessary to find the accused guilty of the infractions of international humanitarian law charged in the relevant indictment.

Is the concept of humanitarian intervention part and parcel of customary law? In order to answer this question the or gins of the concept, (alleged) pre- and post-Charter state practice and the relation with the principles of non-interference in the domestic jurisdiction and the non-use of force will be considered. It will be concluded that the aforementioned question must be answered in the negative, notwithstanding the fact that genuine humanitarian interventions tend to be tolerated by the international community.

Until recently, the Permanent Court of Arbitration has been an institution that one reads about, if at all, principally in the background sections of international law casebooks. This article suggests, and indeed this issue of the Leiden Journal of International Law confirms, that the level of scholarly attention to the Court is changing due to recent developments in the work of the PCA. The purpose of this article is to report and reflect on an emerging effort in the international community to restore the PCA to a prominent place in international arbitration. This article describes the impetus for this effort and the actions taken to reestablish the PCA, as well as the challenges that lie ahead in that effort.

This article deals with recent developments in the United States' refugee legislation and policies. After an examination of the relevant procedural aspects, the author discusses several concepts and criteria that play an important role in the decision whether an alien will be granted asylum in the United States. Despite recent jurisprudence, the related concepts of ‘wellfounded fear’ and ‘clear probability’ of persecution remain vague and illdefined. Thus, according to the author, it is doubtful whether the present standards of United States refugee law contribute to the protection of truly politically persecuted. Besides, the concept of ‘safe haven’ should not replace the concept of ‘firm resettlement’.

Taslim Olawale Elias's intellectual and juristic legacy remains unparalleled in many material respects. He left a remarkable body of work, as an African legal scholar in London in the years between the late 1940s and Nigerian independence, as a legal administrator while he served as Nigeria's first Attorney General and Minister for Justice, among his achievements as the dean of the new faculty of law at the University of Lagos, and as a national and international judge. Born on 11 November 1914 in Lagos, Nigeria, into a family of merchants, he began formal schooling at the age of 12, a fact that was greatly overshadowed by a prodigious academic performance and by the plethora of distinctions and accolades (including sixteen honorary degrees in four continents and a host of national and international honours) that he would acquire during his indefatigable study and practice of the law, and in his contributions to its evolution.

One of the objectives of the 1982 Convention on law of the sea (LOSC) is that the Convention will bring about an equitable and efficient utilisation of the marine resources. The Preambule states, inter alia, that special notice should be taken of legitimate Third World aspirations. In order to promote their socio-economic development many developing countries -among them various West-African states have directed their attention to the introduction of a resource related maritime zone regime since the 1970's. Several countries made proposals about an ‘Exclusive Economic Zone’. Many states were able to harmonize their position on essential elements of the regime which contributed to the rapid acceptance of the EEZ-concept in international law. The right to explore, exploit, conserve and manage all natural resources in an area not exceeding 200 nautical miles was acknowleged in Articles 56,1 and 57 of the LOSC. The wide support enjoyed by the EEZ concept did not occur in relation to maritime delimitation. Diametrically opposed views were held by the so-called pro-equidistance and pro-equity groups. Delimiatation conflicts between several African states could only be solved with the help of international arbitral tribunals. In order to reach an ‘equitable’ delimitation solution several factors were found to be of importance; a novum was the factor described as ‘the exercise of the right to development’.

The East-West detente has uncovered the importance of statehood for the international protection of peoples in international conflicts. The importance becomes obvious from a comparison between the legal position of the Kuwaitis with that of the Kurds and, more in particular, the Palestinians in that respect. The Gulf war urged the Security Council to enforce Iraq's compliance with the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention. The Council has also taken the position that Israel should apply this convention de jure in the 1967 occupied Palestinian territories, albeit lessforcefully. This is partly due to the fact that the UN itself has caused confusion concerning the legal status of these territories. History shows that the Palestine Mandate should not be considered as indivisible in such a way that the creation of Israel automatically implied the termination of the mandate as a whole. The Palestine Mandate still exists for the area of the Arab state, defined in the General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) of November 29,1947, recommending a partition plan for Palestine. Subsequent resolutions of both the General Assembly and the Security Council imply that the Palestinian people can only claim the West Bank including East Jerusalem -hereafter referred to as the West Bank- and the Gaza Strip as its future territory. The Palestinian people appears to have resigned itself to this fact of life since its acceptance of Security Council Resolutions 242 of November 22,1947, and 338 of October 22,1973. In doing so it has stopped any further erosion of its claim to an independent state by virtue of its right to self-determination. Neither the Gulf war nor an international peace conference on the Middle East can alter the new situation one bit anymore. For the first time since 1947 the General Assembly is now in the position to keep the promise of self-determination towards the Palestinianpeople as well. The 1950 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the international status of South West Africa gives it a good point of departure for assuming its full responsibility for doing justice to the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. Legally speaking the role of the UN in the development of the International Peace Conference on the Middle East is crucial for the future of Israel and Palestine.

International law scholars frequently seek to participate in international legal proceedings as amici curiae. Often they do so by ‘piggy-backing’ onto the submissions of NGOs and other advocacy groups. Occasionally – but increasingly in recent years – they do so in their own names, purporting to offer ‘pure’ academic expertise, and generating certain expectations of scholarly neutrality. This article focuses on the latter trend, which the authors argue has the potential to re-shape the scholar-adjudicator dialogue in interesting ways. Under the traditional approach towards ‘teachings’, the decision of whether, how and with whom to engage is firmly in the hands of the adjudicators. The proliferation of academic amicus briefs threatens to disrupt this arrangement. It also brings certain benefits: the briefs are often more ‘on point’ than doctrinal writings, while openness to unsolicited academic submissions encourages plurality and reduces reliance on reputation as a measure of scholarly quality. Our survey of the emerging practice across various international courts and tribunals indicates that adjudicators tend to be reticent when it comes to the reception of unsolicited academic amicus briefs, however, we identify several instances of productive engagement. This leads us to conclude that it would be unduly gloomy to characterize the emerging practice as a ‘dialogue of the deaf’. A fairer assessment would be that the academic amicus trend is bringing about a modest adjustment in the way that international law scholars and adjudicators engage with each other.

The ‘question of labour’ and its exploitation in the Third World has not been given ample consideration by contemporary international legal scholars in their historical examinations of the making of the international order. This article revisits the history of the interwar institutions of the League of Nations, particularly the International Labour Organization (ILO), to argue that international law reformulated imperialism through its re-articulation of labour relations, beginning with its quest to suppress slavery and ultimately regulate forced labour in Africa. International institutions contributed to the valorization of ‘free wage labour’ in Africa and the Third World through its international ‘native labour’ policies, the development of international labour standards, and especially the passing of the 1930 Forced Labour Convention. The article argues that international institutions safeguarded the processes of capitalist racial/colonial accumulation and labour exploitation by ideologically dis-embedding the violence of slavery and forced labour from ‘free wage labour’, veiling the structural unity and totality of the international legal order with racial capitalism. Drawing on the ‘Black radical/internationalist tradition’, I propose an expansive critique of the international order as a form of ‘enslavement’ to the structures of capitalism, so as to adequately expose international law’s structural embeddedness with labour exploitation, white supremacy, and racial capitalism.