The world’s cultural heritage is vulnerable to numerous types of risks, ranging from climate crisis to pandemics and wars. In the face of both current and future threats, states have the power to choose which cultural items should be conserved and which can be allowed to be destroyed. Consequently, there are legal provisions in place to safeguard the chosen pieces of cultural heritage as World Heritage for future generations. This article explores the essence of World Heritage as a legal phenomenon within the body of international cultural heritage law, applying a human rights perspective and taking in distinctive features of Nordic law. Using the framework developed by Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, the article outlines theoretical guidelines for locating and examining World-Heritage-related legal relations. This theoretical Hohfeldian approach is combined with practical examples from the Finnish World Heritage Site of Old Rauma, among others. The article argues that World Heritage is currently threatened for reasons typical of capital-centric society. The related threats are not adequately recognized, nor are they appropriately addressed by either state authorities or the law. To prevent conflicts from arising in relation to the safeguarding of World Heritage, this article emphasizes the importance of fostering resilience through elastic legal mechanisms, as exemplified by the Nordic right to roam.

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.

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’.

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.

In 2012, James Stewart published an article in this journal. The piece – ‘The End of “Modes of Liability” for International Crimes’ – argued for the abolition of accomplice liability in international criminal law and the adoption of a unitary model of participation in crime. This article argues that Stewart's proposal is flawed. As a matter of moral responsibility, the distinction between principals and accomplices follows from the recognition of individuals as moral agents. Turning to ordinary criminal responsibility, neither practical benefits nor expressive benefits nor the mitigating effects of the distinctive institution of criminal sentencing justifies the abolition of the distinction between principals and accomplices. Moreover, despite the collective nature of many international crimes, international criminal law ought to strive to accurately differentiate, in the attribution of responsibility, among participants. Only a differentiated model of participation can accurately and defensibly capture the different ways that individuals contribute to wrongdoing.

In 2013 the Netherlands lost its standard bearer in international law. After a short period of illness, Pieter Hendrik Kooijmans died at the age of 79 on 13 February 2013. Some time before his illness the author had an extensive and frank interview with Judge Kooijmans who reflected on his life and work, especially on his intellectual formation, his understanding of the essence and core functions of law, his experiences as UN special rapporteur on torture, his ideas on reform of the International Court of Justice, and the great changes that have taken place in international law. This portrait shows a fine man with a strong sense of justice who was fully dedicated to the substance of public international law without turning a blind eye to its shortcomings and relative influence in international and domestic affairs. The interview is preceded by an introduction and concludes with some observations on his long and productive life in the service of peace, justice, and respect for human rights through the law.

This doctoral thesis, now published as a monograph, provides a thorough analysis of one of the most crucial concepts of the modern law of armed conflicts (LOAC), namely military objectives. The concept is crucial because the targeting of such objectives is directly linked to the principle of distinction, which in turn is a cardinal tenet of LOAC. It requires that the belligerents must always make the distinction between civilian objects and persons on the one hand, and military objectives (persons and objects) on the other, and attack only the latter to the exclusion of the former (Article 48 of the Additional Protocol I of 1977 (AP I)). Thus, the concept of military objectives is cast amidst the protection of civilians during the conduct of hostilities (whereas Geneva Convention IV of 1949 concerns their protection outside the context of combat action). It stands to reason that this protection is an essential part of the modern law of armed conflicts. Moreover, it is only superficially surprising that AP I was the first treaty to generally define military objectives. In the nineteenth century, the civilian hardly appeared in the LOAC. It was at that time simply taken for granted that civilians were outside the reach of military action; they would not participate in it and concomitantly would be spared from attacks. The social environment of the past was such that military action and civilian presence were reasonably distinct: the battlefield was the pitch for military action, other areas were bluntly aloof from such action. The twentieth century completely changed these parameters. Air power allowed a belligerent to wreak heavy havoc into all the lands of the adverse party. Industrialization and modernization of the army made civilian objectives relevant from a military standpoint, in particular industrial plants. Finally, the difference between civilians and military personnel was blurred, since civilians participated in a variety of forms to military operations (guerilla warfare is but one of the most emblematic forms of such participation). All these factors, among others, explain that the majority of victims in modern armed conflicts are civilians, not rarely up to a proportion of 90 per cent.1 The question of military objectives remains also highly relevant when viewed from another perspective. It is a concept often applied in modern military campaigns, where air power is of the essence. However, it gives rise to uncertainties at least on two accounts. First, the definition is open-ended and contextual; it must be operationalized in single cases and this gives rise to legal uncertainty. Indeed, Article 52, § 2, AP I, the cardinal provision in this regard, provides only for criteria which have to be applied by the belligerent to single sets of facts in order to determine if an object is a military objective. Second, there are marked differences of interpretation between the US and the continental European conceptions of military objectives, especially in certain areas of targeting such as ‘economic targets’ (i.e. targets chosen for their economic value to the war-sustaining effort). Notwithstanding the relevance of the concept of military objectives, there is hardly a wealth of monographic treatment of the subject matter. Indeed, no monograph in the English language was directly and exclusively devoted to that notion before the present publication. This new monograph is thus more than welcome.

The issue addressed here is what types of property are protected by the law and by what qualities they are chosen for such protection. It is then proposed to consider whether it is helpful and possible to draw an analogy between the concepts of “protected persons” and “protected property.” Limited space will be given to the issue of protection of cultural property. The protection of property in land warfare is the main target of examination. The focus when selecting evidence is placed on existing treaties and cases from international tribunals (including the ICTY) dealing with cases arising from international conflicts. The conclusion contains seven principles regarding the protection of property, as evidenced by practice.

The long-awaited verdict of the International Court of Justice in the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide case between Croatia and Serbia brought to an end the speculations as to whether or not a finding of genocide would be reached. After lengthy considerations on the genocidal actus reus, the Court dismissed all the claims of genocide, based on the lack of genocidal intent. If this conclusion is perfectly in line with established law and case law, its wider readability and acceptability outside of the legal microcosm is perhaps doubtful. How can a judgment which recognizes that acts falling within the list of proscribed genocidal acts have been committed but which then refutes their qualification as genocidal due to a lack of specific intent be explicable to those who lost their loved ones in what they feel was an enterprise of destruction?

Apart from giving a detailed account of the background and the factual findings in the Brðanin judgment of the ICTY, three legal aspects of the case are of interest for this case note: the acquittal of the accused of genocide charges, the trial chamber's dismissal of ‘joint criminal enterprise’ as a mode of liability to describe the accused's criminal responsibility, and the characterization of the accused's responsibility vis-à-vis crimes committed in camps and detention facilities as aiding and abetting by omission.

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.

In August 2021, Protocol 15 inserted the doctrine of the margin of appreciation into the preamble of the European Convention of Human Rights, presumably cementing what President Spano has referred to as the ‘Age of Subsidiarity’, in which the European Court of Human Rights applies the margin of appreciation more often and increases deference to state parties. This insertion was done on the behest of the High Contracting Parties as part of the Interlaken reform process, and there is already a strong narrative in certain member states and parts of the scholarly literature that this focus has prompted the Court to increase the usage of the margin of appreciation and therefore the deference to states, judging more frequently in their favour. This article hypothesizes, however, that the increased usage of the margin of appreciation language which has been taken as proof for this narrative, might not, in fact, indicate higher levels of deference. Rather, the language of the margin of appreciation could be the result of usage by other actors or a marker of complexity for so-called ‘hard cases’. To investigate this relationship, the article applies a mixed legal-doctrinal and quantitative methodology to analyse who in the case law invokes the doctrine, what their purpose is for doing so, and what adjudicative consequences follow. It finds that usage of the margin-language topped well before the Interlaken process began, that governments are not the most frequent invokers and that, statistically speaking, states are no more likely to win margin-cases than other cases.

The article introduces innovative means by which states can express their consent to be bound by treaties. Such innovative means have been incorporated in some multilateral environmental agreements that were concluded in December 1999 and January 2000. It is discussed whether limits of law-making have been transgressed by the use of these innovative means as the law of treaties allegedly presupposes that states actually give their consent to new treaty obligations, take some active step to express their consent to such obligations and do so at a time that the obligations were in existence and were known to them.