The chamber of the ICJ entrusted with solving the Benin–Niger dispute based its judgment on the colonial heritage left to the two countries at the time of their independence, as prescribed by the uti possidetis juris principle. The dispute actually stemmed from that heritage: the chamber's role was to interpret and clarify it. But while the uti possidetis juris principle underlines border stability, features such as river boundaries, because of their intrinsic movable nature, can put this stability under intense strain. The judgment lends itself to further reflections on this dichotomy, since the disputed areas revolved around two rivers.

In March 2002 the US administration imposed protective duties to safeguard its steel manufacturing industry. The measure was subsequently found to be illegal and repealed. The widespread conception is that the measure was ill-conceived and that by declaring it illegal the WTO system of adjudication proved that it had come of age. However, closer examination of the case and the relevant law reveals that the measure was in fact not ill-advised but a clever legal and political ploy. Rather than proving that WTO adjudication was working, the opposite is shown to be the case. WTO adjudication is in need of some changes if it is to respond to political manoeuvres which abuse the dispute resolution system.

With a looming referendum on the secession of South Sudan, the drafters of the Abyei Arbitration Agreement were faced with a complex intra-state dispute and a limited time to resolve it. The parties to the dispute agreed on a procedural regime to govern the arbitration, combining both traditional and innovative provisions on procedural rules, the constitution of the tribunal, the schedule of pleadings, transparency, financing of the proceeding, and the role of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. This article examines the key provisions of the Abyei Arbitration Agreement and their implementation during the course of the arbitration, and evaluates the case's significance as procedural precedent for future intra- or inter-state arbitration. The article does not provide an analysis of the substantive findings of the tribunal.

Since the early 1990s, the UN Security Council has used its enforcement measures under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to address different aspects of international refugee protection from the root causes of forced displacement to the search for durable solutions to the refugee problem. At the same time, however, the Security Council has been criticized for impelling trends towards state security concerns that have emerged in the refugee-protection regime over the past two decades. By establishing safe areas in Iraq, Bosnia, and Rwanda, or linking refugee status to terrorism, the Security Council has been accused of violating established refugee-protection standards. This paper seeks to use the prism of international refugee protection to draw a more nuanced picture of the normative effects of SC actions on the development of international law generally. Shifting the analytical focus from the much-discussed responsibility of the Security Council for wrongful acts, it is submitted that the practice of the Security Council has had a considerable influence on the development and even making of norms in the field of international refugee protection, thereby eroding established refugee-protection standards. This normative erosion through the inherently political actions of the Security Council will be assessed with regard to the principal measures by which the Security Council has addressed international refugee protection, namely peace operations and economic sanctions.

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.

During the Twenty-second Plenary Session the Judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) decided to amend eight Rules of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence (Rules).

The article focuses on one of the most intriguing and, at the same time, controversial issues of international criminal law: whether the state policy requirement should be considered as a constitutive element in core international crimes. Adopting a criminal policy perspective, my intention is to contribute to the ongoing discussion by offering a doctrinal and criminological corroboration of the position that answers in the affirmative. Nevertheless, I am not necessarily promoting a normative choice entailing the amendment of the definition of core international crimes, but I rather call for a policy choice of focusing on cases that presume a state policy component.

In the previous contribution, Dekker and Myjer maintain that, from the viewpoint of international law, there are at least two problematic issues with regard to NATO's actions in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The first issue concerns the way in which the Security Council has, in a legal sense, shaped its authority over NATO's actions. The second issue is the question of whether NATO is entitled, under its own constitution, to execute such actions. The contribution of Dekker and Myjer was prompted by NATO's air strikes in defence of Sarajevo, which took place in August and September 1995. Their criticism also applies to the current actions that NATO is undertaking in the implementation of the Dayton Agreement, as they later elaborated in the periodical Transaktie. First and foremost, it must be noted that Dekker and Myjer deserve full credit for pointing out these legal aspects of these recent NATO actions. That being said, their two main points of criticism are debatable and, in our opinion, paint a less than consistent picture of the possibilities that the UN and NATO have to offer, in particular the possibilities that may or may not be provided by those organizations' constitutions to flexibly respond to the demands posed at the present time, as well as the room to manoeuvre that is available under the changed international balance of power.

Abdullah Öcalan's arrival in Turkey in February 1999 followed a prolonged search in Europe for asylum following his expulsion from Syria in late 1998. His coming within Turkish jurisdiction raises questions about the international processes to bring alleged transnational fugitive offenders before the courts. This article looks at the extradition regime within Europe and the alternative methods of rendition that were eventually employed to remove him from Kenya. Extradition law developed during the nineteenth century and is based on ideas of revolution, the principle of nationality and liberal democracy which pervaded that period. The late twentieth century has a different ethos that offers fewer protection to the political revolutionary, but has incorporated international human rights standards. Extradition law straddles the enforcement of criminal law, non-interference in the domestic affairs of another State and international human rights law. The article concludes by examining the demands of international human rights law for the trial in Turkey.

On 22 November 1996, the Council of the European Union adopted a framework regulation and agreed to joint action to ‘protect’ the interests of the European Union and its citizens against the extraterritorial application of legislation by non-member states. These measures were adopted in response to the extraterritorial application of certain measures by the United States, concerning trade with and investment in Cuba, as well as investment in Iran and Libya. These United States measures apply to all natural and legal persons irrespective of their nationality, residency, or place of activity. Thus, even nationals of a member state of the European Union residing and active in the European Union must comply with the United States measures. The enactment of this legislation marks a new episode in the on-going battle between the United States and the European Union over the frontiers of a state's (or an international organization's) jurisdiction to prescribe. This time, however, the European Union counteracted by the adoption of measures which can partly be characterized as retorsion measures and partly as countermeasures. The adoption of these measures by the European Union raises questions with respect to the legitimacy of the retorsion measures and the legality of the countermeasures.

There is no unanimity in the international community about the legality of NATO's use of force in Kosovo in order to avert a humanitarian catastrophe. NATO has acted without Security Council authorization and its arguments for a humanitarian intervention are legally inconsistent. It has set a dangerous precedent. This editorial analyses the legal framework and complexities of the Kosovo crisis and its repercussions on the concept of ‘justified use of force’.

Environmental damages caused by Iraqi occupation of Kuwait and its aftermath are to be assessed through the compensation system created by the UN Security Council. The UN Compensation Commission (‘UNCC’) has scheduled its first decision on environmental claims for the summer of 2001. These claims, however, deserve a particular treatment by the UNCC: problems related to the law applicable, the principle of due process, the principle of causal link, the assessment of damage, the identification of injured subjects, and the type of compensation are particularly addressed in the following pages. Keeping in mind the ‘precedent-setting procedure’ used by the UNCC, this article tries to explore previous applicable precedents, ordering them into a structured ‘legal’ framework and exposing existing gaps, if any.

Instead of conducting trials in absentia, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has an innovative procedure against an accused not in custody. Officially, this ‘Rule 61 procedure’ is only a proceeding for reconfirming an indictment, which does not determine an accused's guilt or innocence. In substance, however, it has functioned as a trial-like procedure to some extent. As a judicial finding on legal issues, the decisions under the procedure have influenced subsequent trials. This article traces the evolution of the procedure and explores its unique character. In particular, by examining essential problems thereof, this article clarifies some points to be considered in establishing a similar mechanism for the International Criminal Court.

A war crimes trial embodies a combination of representational and presentational drama. The contemporary war crimes trial owes equal inspiration to the ‘realism’ of Henrik Ibsen and the ‘theatrics’ of Bertolt Brecht. The question for scholars is whether the trial is but a stylized presentation of the ‘real’ events, or a realistic medium through which to eavesdrop on history. This essay explores this question of war crimes and dramatization in the context of Director of Public Prosecutions v. Polyukhovich, the one war crimes case ever taken to trial under Australia's War Crimes Amendment Act of 1988.

The familiar critical claim that propositions of international law cannot be both objective and normative casts a long shadow over international legal theory. The claim relies on the conjunction of two ideas: first, that the truth-conditions of any proposition of international law will include some element of evaluative judgement (about the right or the good) that gives the proposition its normative character, and, second, that evaluative judgements cannot be objectively true or false. International lawyers have two main strategies for defending their discipline against this sceptical challenge. A more modest strategy would accept that legal objectivity and normativity are incompatible and attempt to sidestep the sceptical critique by abandoning the claim to normativity. A second and more ambitious strategy would resist the sceptical challenge by disputing the plausibility of its attack on the objectivity of evaluative judgements. This strategy would rely on the claim that objectivity and normativity are not mutually incompatible and that the aim of producing an account of international law that displays both features is realistic. My aim in this paper is to show that there exists at least one version of this second strategy that can succeed against the sceptical challenge. I argue that scepticism about values is incoherent and, therefore, that the opposition between the objectivity and the normativity of international law is illusory. Setting such scepticism aside will allow international lawyers to concentrate fully on the substantive normative questions that drive theories of international law and on the values that provide the best account of its content.

As is well known, states may take measures derogating from their obligations under the human rights treaties during proclaimed states of emergency. They remain, however, bound to respect certain inalienable human rights, the ‘hard core’, at all times and in all circumstances. The right to life, the prohibition of torture, slavery and retroactive penal measures are thus considered as being a ‘minimum safeguard’ against human rights violations. They are generally accepted as being customary international law, one may even speak of jus cogens. Moreover, one may argue that common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which contains a larger list of human rights than the abovementioned four, should also be respected in situations which are below the threshold of an armed conflict. In the important Case of Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua in 1986 the International Court of Justice held that the rules in common Article 3 are fundamental principles of Humanitarian Law, which are customary law and constitute a minimum, applicable in all circumstances. Even so state practice seems to indicate the opposite; experience has shown that it is during emergency situations that flagrant abuses of human rights are most common, especially in the treatment of persons who have been detained or deprived of their liberty.

The decisions of international courts and tribunals affect how we read history. Alternative tribunals, such as peoples’ tribunals, attempt to write alternative histories to counter the official versions. This article locates controversies over the Armenian genocide in debates about the relationship between history and international law. It considers ways of reading archives and the role of archives in informing those debates. It compares the Istanbul war crimes trials held in 1919–1920 before the Ottoman Military Tribunals with the Paris session of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal held in 1984 that dealt with questions of history and memory through the juridical format of a hearing. A century after the events of 1915, the contested historiography of the Armenian genocide influences how international lawyers and historians seek to pass judgment on the past.